fantasy writing websites

Fantasy-Writers.org is the perfect site for writers and readers of fantasy fiction, providing a space to post your stories and receive friendly, constructive advice from our large community, including many published authors. Browse our forum section for discussions about writing and fantasy in general, as well as some fun stuff, and check out news updates and the useful links in our directory. When you feel ready to post a story or comment, join in a forum discussion, or enter our monthly story challenge, sign up for a free account.

May 2024 Monthly Wrting Contest

Writing Challenges

Please click "Read more" below for the topic and complete rules. Failure to follow the rules will lead to disqualification, whether you read the rules or not. Please also follow the story-posting guidelines, which can be found in the FAQ.

Welcome to the May challenge. We're taking a break from the anthology challenge - part two of that will be next month.

March 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge results

Here are the results of the March challenge. The pictures seem to have brought out the best in you, as all the stories were of a very high standard. We have a winner, though, so congratulations on winning in a good month.

1st place: The Tree by Chelle

2nd place: The Healing Jewel by SallyM

3rd place: There is No King by J-Lynch

April 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

February 2024 monthly writing challenge results.

The February challenge had quite a small field, but the standard was high. All the stories scored well, but the winner was fairly decisive. Congratulations to everyone.

1st place: Dinner With the Demon by Ron Donderevo

2nd place: Don Carlo's Eatery by Matt Hansen

3rd place: Kingsblood by J-Lynch

March 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

This month's challenge is a little different. Below are links to five different works of fantasy art by various artists, and the challenge is to write a story inspired by at least TWO of them. Extra kudos (but no extra marks) if you use all five.

January 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge results

Here are the results of the January challenge. A good field and a very close battle for 1st place, but we have a winner now.

1st Place: The Crags of Anunaltia by Matt Hansen

2nd Place: The Raven by Arisillion

3rd Place: A Good Day to Lose Things by Ron Donderevo

February 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

February is perhaps most famous for Valentine's Day, and usually the topic is love themed, but this year it's slightly different. We have a five-element story that could add up to a romantic love story - or it could add up to something altogether more disturbing. The elements are:

December 2023 Monthly Writing Challenge results

We have the results of the December challenge, and the quality shows in how close it was - particularly between the first two, which kept changing places as the results were coming in. Congratulations to everyone.

1st place: An Angel for Teddy by Ron Donderevo

2nd place: Peppermint by snowmooneclipse

3rd place: Heavy day at the office by NormaOB

January 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

November 2023 monthly flash challenge results.

Here are the results for the November flash challenge. A much bigger field than recently, and a high standard with a close result. So contratulations everyone, especially the winner.

1st place: Sarah by snowmooneclipse

2nd place: Stuck in a Moment by Ron Donderevo

3rd place: Old Wounds Don't Make New Scars by Milvushina

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12 Fantasy Author Websites That Take Your Breath Away and Why

There’s a special place in our hearts for the genius of someone who can create entire worlds of outlandish creatures and cultures and make them feel real. It gives us a lot of pleasure to create an online home for an author who does this and makes it feel like an extension of their world on the internet.

We’ve been searching for inspiration on which fantasy authors out there have truly epic author websites and we’ve realized there just aren’t any good posts on this.

So we decided to create our own.

Disclaimer: A few of these sites below are our agency’s own creations so, of course, we’re biased in this regard. We wouldn’t honestly add them if we didn’t think they were excellent.

Here are Top 12 Breathtaking Fantasy Author Websites:

(in no particular order)

Henry Hneff

Goblin Workshop Online

If ever one could imagine finding themselves in a goblin workshop on the World Wide Web, we think this fantasy author website is it. From the logo, excellently tasteful color scheme, and consistent use of fonts, Henry’s website is a design masterpiece.

The composition of the illustrations, placement of elements throughout the site, and use of contrast between the elements to give just the right weighting to more important elements of the page, like the series name or the book itself, are all beautifully done.

What makes Henry especially interesting as a fantasy author is that he’s also a highly competent illustrator. We get the feeling he had a large hand in the creative direction of the site. It feels like an artist’s work as much as a web designer’s.

Showcasing this differentiator as an illustrator/author are some beautiful time-lapse videos of his illustration process. This gives one that sought-after behind-the-scenes look at the creation of his world. It’s fan-gold! Even though we’d never heard of him till we found his site, after viewing these videos we have a lot of respect for him as an illustrator and artist. We’re sure this respect must be even stronger in his more dedicated fans.

Another thing that put this site right up there for me was the use of video on the opening page. There is a trailer for his Imperium book series! In an online world that loves video, we couldn’t think of a more engaging way to keep new visitors interested. The video is beautifully professionally animated, complete with a compelling voice-over and soundtrack. It’s extremely impressive.

Reni K. Amayo

Single-paged Nobility

Reni’s website is a branding masterpiece. You get a feel for her personality and vibe as soon as you enter her website.

It may not have the atmosphere that the covers of her books, but it still makes you want to read her works while sipping on a cup of coffee in your favorite book-reading spot.

Her entire website is confined to one page, but boy is this one page done well. It’s sophisticated, almost regal, with professional design elements and a cozy brown color palate.

If you’re going to spend time on a page, this is the page to spend it on.

Melissa McPhail

Fan-love Central

Okay, full disclaimer here, we’re a little biased about this fantasy author website. We designed it . I won’t tell you how great we think it is because well, that just seems like bragging.

What we will tell you are the features we built into it that we think make it work. Then you can decide for yourself what you think of it.

Rich, aesthetic visuals meet you as soon as you arrive. Her books are presented boldly and tastefully in a revolving splash banner as soon as you enter giving you immediate access to explore each further on their own pages.

Melissa’s gorgeous cover artwork is used throughout the site to give it a feel in harmony with her branding. Typography is consistent with her book covers so the site feels like an extension of her world and her books. Her cover artwork colors are also carried throughout the site: Dark tones with dramatic contrasts, with a rich teal-blue accent color.

The site is clearly made for her fans. We can personally attest to the deep love she had for her fans. Her blog posts, often with close to 200 in-depth comments are evidence of this. Also, the depth with which she engaged in her replies sometimes paragraphs long, shows how much she cared about really engaging with her readers.

We carried this fan-love ethic through into her site in general. We produced 3 painstakingly, detailed, digitally painted world maps across 3 different continents of her series’ world. The maps can be downloaded directly from the website, giving even more value to her fans and visitors.

We also created several interesting fan resource pages to house important world lore, glossaries, and character information.

And of course, we made it incredibly easy for readers and fans to join her email list and connect to her on socials with email signups and social links on virtually every page. We also added a pop-up offering a special quote anthology from her books displaying once a day to new users. This all paid off. Signups instantly shot up to several times the rate they were on her previous website and continued at this rate months later.

All in all, we’re really proud of this fantasy author website as you can tell. We did everything we could to carry through Melissa’s branding used in her books and her general aesthetic preferences.

If you’d like to know more about the design process, we’ve written a full case study on this website .

Susan Dennard

Tasteful Personal Branding

What we really like about Susan’s site is the unique branding throughout the site. It’s elegant and different. The subtle sunshine graphic is used on every page to bring texture and interest to the site.

This creative, unique branding for her site is a clever solution for a fantasy author website that features several different series each with its own branding. The branding feels more like Susan’s style than any one of her books or series. It feels like an extension of her personality, something we might not otherwise see from a style more centered on her work.

Dark and Gritty

What we love about this site is the simple, punchy color scheme and style used throughout the site. It feels dark and gritty. You can tell you’ve arrived somewhere unique, with its own distinct online personality.

A slider banner greets you as you arrive showcasing Fonda’s books with invitations to learn more about each.

Apart from the cool style the website is essentially quite simple, leaning on the edgy backgrounds to create interest. Little imagery is needed past the already established gritty look and feel.

This simplicity of design gets the job done well though and for that reason, I’ve included it in this list.

Trang Thanh Tran

Moody sophistication

Trang keeps her website simplistic, gracing the tops and bottoms with lovely artwork.

This allows her unique book covers to stand out and grab attention – and wow are they fascinating to look at.

Although the website can give off a spooky vibe, you feel a personalization with it too. Trang has up playlists for her books, a FAQ page where she even pronounces her name in an audio log, and more stuff for users to discover.

We really admire her for adding a commissioned art section on her fantasy author website. She shares art that she’s found on various platforms that are inspired by her work and inspire her further in her writing.

She has built a community and continues to embrace it in every facet of this website.

Modern, Professional

We really enjoyed designing this fantasy author website for T.A. White.

We wanted to go for a sleek design that surprised the user as they browsed the website. We did this through simple white space paired with interesting background images that complement their respective sections.

T.A. White gives her fans unseen stories in the form of deleted scenes from her books. She knows how to keep her fans happy!

Karuna Riazi

Contemporary

Karuna’s website opens up with a welcome screen that is so beautiful!

Once you click welcome, you enter her whole website. It actually greets you with a ‘Hello’ which feels very well, welcoming.

It uses white space well to let the content and artwork pop. The art and the content have space to breathe bringing the user a sense of calmness.

Navigation is a journey with this one. It’s easy to find content, but it takes a few more clicks than necessary to finally get to it. Otherwise, this website is pretty satisfying to look at.

This fantasy author website represents the genre and the author herself in a unique way that we haven’t seen too often. There’s just a soft nature that is felt throughout the pages that makes this website stand out.

Tomi Adeyemi

Branding in a Moody Atmosphere

Tomi has a few sections on her website that have different functions. We’ll be focusing on her writer’s section.

Tomi takes you on a journey as you move through this section. As you scroll down, you read a few short lines that give you a sense of the world Tomi has built for her popular series. This is very engaging and aptly conveys the tone of her books.

We’re then led into some reviews that sing her praises, establishing her credibility (which makes you want to buy her books even more).

Then at the bottom of the page are her books with amazing animated art on the covers – the cherry on top of the cake.

This page is not over the top but has embellishments that give this website character without going overboard on the theme.

Davis Ashura

Rich Imagery and Contrast

Another one of our own fantasy author websites. Davis’s audiobook series is his most popular, best-selling item. We showcased this front and center with an immediate link to learn more and purchase. Next, we featured all of his books across his 2 series with short book blurbs and links to their own in-depth book pages also with links to purchase of course.

As with Melissa McPhail’s site, we added visual book graphic links to his books in the top menu. We wanted to draw the viewer to these pages more than anything else. Visuals of already beautifully designed books are an easy way to do this.

Davis’s About page is really one of my favorite parts of the site. We made it seem like he was standing in front of a dramatic landscape with a just noticeable dragon flying past in the background. A fancy scroll effect makes it seem like he’s in the foreground and gives this page a dynamic, alive feeling.

We really went to town to make his world maps page amazing. His maps are fully zoomable and scrollable, just like Google Maps are! So readers can intimately study the details of his world and easily track the journeys taken by his characters.

One of Davis’s main objectives was to increase fan engagement. To achieve this we added email sign-up forms on virtually every page. To entice signups further we added the first 6 chapters of his eBook and the first 4 chapters of his audiobook for the first book in his first series. This is really the perfect first offering because if they’re hooked after this they become book buyers and readers. This is easily encouraged with automated follow-up emails to subscribers making it easy to do precisely that.

One thing you can’t see on this author website is how much we beefed it up under the hood compared to the previous website he had. This website literally loads SIX times faster, giving a much more pleasurable user experience. This was a critical upgrade for him because, let’s be honest, who hangs around waiting for things to load these days?

Want to read more? We’ve published a full case study of Davis Ashura’s site here .

Gregory Kontaxis

A Greek Beast

We built this Epic Fantasy author website for Gregory – emphasis on the epic.

The intro image feels like you’ve stumbled onto an enchanting cave, begging to be explored – this will be super engaging for fantasy fans.

The mystical atmosphere is supported by moody backgrounds and elements that suit this genre perfectly.

The reader magnet at the top left can’t be missed and the wording, ‘Free Novella’ makes it so enticing – because who wouldn’t want a free book?

But our favorite part of this website is the ability to change the language to Greek. See below!

By clicking the Greece Flag at the top right, the site is transformed. Greek lettering and a stunning variation of the feature book’s cover now appear.

The author’s background and branding are prioritized here. And it’s done in style.

Fantastical, Unique

This is another Rocket Expansion fantasy author website for our list!

The introductory background video screams fantasy, letting users know exactly what they’re in for.

The pops of purples in greens in headings and backgrounds really set the atmosphere for the website while letting the content shine proudly.

A particularly fun section would be the characters page. It’s so unique to have well-known characters from Kate’s books tell you about themselves from their perspective. Fans will love to see these characters in a different format, while others will be tempted to become readers.

We’ve tried to showcase a few different approaches to an awesome fantasy author website. A gorgeous, engaging website is a huge opportunity to differentiate yourself as something special and out of the ordinary. It’s an asset that can keep promoting you and positioning you as a credible, desirable source well into the future.

If you don’t already have a breath-taking author website, consider getting a hand from a professional web design agency. If you like our work, we’d be happy to help you with this.

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Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre, using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

Post author By Jordan
17 Comments on Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel - 34 must-visit websites

General advice on worldbuilding

Many fantasy writers working on their first (or even second or third) novels struggle with worldbuilding. If you’re wondering how to create a believable fantasy world, one that avoids clichés and provides readers with enough detail to keep them enthralled, these links and resources provide excellent advice:

The Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a website similar to Quora (where users ask the community questions and the most helpful replies are upvoted). Yet the focus of the website is on worldbuilding for fiction writers. Writers share and get knowledge about culture, science and other real-world elements that go into fantasy and science fiction.

World Building Academy , a site that has the tagline ‘create worlds, change lives’, provides plenty of helpful worldbuilding advice.

In this post for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Patricia C. Wrede lists useful questions you should ask yourself while planning and fleshing out your fictional fantasy world. Wrede’s questions cover important elements such as history, climate and the inhabitants of your fantasy universe.

James Whitbrook at Io9 shares advice on overdone clichés of fantasy writing to avoid in your worldbuilding.

Chuck Wendig’s ’25 things you should know about worldbuilding’ contains great tips. Here’s one: ‘Don’t describe every family crest, guild sigil, hairstyle, nipple clamp, or blade of grass in the world.’ It’s good advice to make sure your worldbuilding serves your story rather than brings in irrelevant information.

In this interview , fantasy and SF writer Laurence MacNaughton did for MileHiCon in Colorado, the writer shares some useful fantasy worldbuilding advice. His cardinal rule? ‘If you make something up, it needs to play directly into the story.’ This is a point both he and Wendig emphasize.

In this essay , one of the great masters of fantasy and science fiction shares insights into writing believable fantasy worlds. Ursula le Guin, famous author of the Earthsea Trilogy, says ‘Fantasy, which creates a world, must be strictly coherent to its own terms, or it loses all plausibility. The rules that govern how things work in the imagined world cannot be changed during the story.’

Margaret Atwood shares some insights into how she creates fictional worlds in this blog post by Joe Berkowitz. Her insights relate to her speculative fiction, but also apply to fantasy writing. She suggests, for example, that you can borrow animal or human behaviours in the real world and use them slightly altered to form the basis of another world, its people and fictional creatures.

In The Paris Review’s short memorial piece on the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett, the literary journal shares some of his best advice for worldbuilding effectively. One piece of advice: Don’t be overwrought in your inventions. As Pratchett says: ‘It only takes a tweak to make the whole world new.’

What’s in a name? Create imaginative names for your fantasy world

Your fantasy characters might have names typical of a town or nation in your fantasy world (for example the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings have names such as Frodo and Bilbo and Sam while the elves have more regal names such as Arwen). They might have common names we find in everyday life if your fantasy world exists in parallel to our own. Examples: Harry Potter, Lucy and Susan in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Whether you want to give your characters mythical or everyday names, these resources will help you:

‘What’s in a Name?’ is an A to Z of names in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy series and their origins. Rowling is a master of creating memorable names, and this will give you some insight into how you can find inspiration for your own fantasy characters’ names.

If you want to find fantasy names for characters or mythical creatures quickly, Fantasy Name Generators offers tools to find names for classic fantasy races such as dwarves and elves as well as generators for place names. Need a Germanic dwarf name or a mythical-sounding name for a dragon or other fantastical creature? Find an exact match or use the results as phonetic guidelines for creating your own.

Make sure that your chosen names don’t have unwanted connotations. This guide over at Obsidian Bookshelf provides a number of useful pointers on naming characters in fantasy writing.

In this article from 2010 , Imogen Russell Williams provides sound advice on naming characters. Says Williams, ‘Names with too evident meanings, which alert you early to a character’s nature à la Dickens, are a mixed blessing — it’s hard to take someone seriously if he’s called Mr Badcrook.’

Andre Cruz offers practical tips on choosing characters’ names that could apply to any genre, not only fantasy protagonists or villains. One suggestion: write down any important themes in your book and then use a baby name website to see if you can find any first names that carry relevant (but subtle) connotations. The name ‘Judith’, for example, derives from Hebrew and means ‘she will be praised’ – a fitting name for triumphant heroine.

Writing a fantasy world: Physical details

The physical details of your fictional fantasy world are important for creating an immersive sense of place different from the reader’s own. Think of the greenness of the shire compared to the desolate, post-industrial wasteland where Sauron resides in The Lord of the Rings . Thinking about the physical details of your world means thinking not only about the layout of the land but how the land itself looks and works. This includes landscape, fauna and flora as well as geography – where is each setting in your story in relation to other towns or lands?

Let fantasy landscapes inspire you : Deviant Art, the online community of artists, has many beautiful fantasy landscape images that can help you imagine own settings. Simply looking through fantastical images and noting down any geological or visual elements you like can help you form a clearer idea of your fantasy novel’s locations.

Something as small as having a definite sense of climate can make your fantasy world real. For example, in a tropical climate temperatures are hotter and there is more humidity. If your fantasy world is a lush tropical region, this will affect how characters dress, where they build their lodgings and more.

Michael James Liljenberg discusses the geological and botanical side of creating a fantasy or SF world. As he says ‘the physical world you build for your story will affect the civilizations and characters in both subtle and dramatic ways’. He includes a useful bullet list of questions to ask yourself when creating a fantasy map.

Speaking of maps, the David Rumsey Cartography Associates’ map collection includes over 30 000 images of historical maps. These maps can provide inspiration for map illustrations that give readers an immediate feel for your fantasy world. With this online tool, you can even overlay historical maps and contemporary ones to see how geology, borders and land features have shifted.

Writing a fantasy novel: Government

Decide how social structure and governance in your fantasy world will work. Kingdoms featuring monarchies are one of the most popular forms of social order in fantasy writing (as in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series). You might want to take another approach if you’d like your novel to be particularly original. Rationality Wiki explains each type of government, and many descriptions link to pages that give more detailed history and explanations, type by type.

In his piece ‘Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Cultures’ , fantasy author J.S. Morin shares some useful tips on creating society and culture for your fantasy fiction. Morin suggests ‘loosely basing your government on something that has been tried out on Earth (successfully or not)’. This will help you avoid over-complicating the politics of your world with a whole new system invented from scratch.

Fantasy and SF writer Jill Williamson lists and describes the many types of government you can use for your fantasy writing. She asks useful questions you can ask of your world : ‘Who controls the food and water? The weapons? If there is a disease, who controls the medicine?’

Creating your fantasy culture

Creating whole new cultures for your fantasy story can be tricky. Madeleine Bauman’s blog post looks at Greek mythology and how different Gods had different associations and purposes. Reading stories from ancient global mythologies can give you a good idea of how to invent your own belief system when you start writing a fantasy novel.

This concise document outlines the basic structure of cultural practices – for example, cultural practices are things that ‘represent the knowledge of what to do and where’ for a particular culture. Etiquette around eating or sharing food or following a particular rite of passage for coming of age are all cultural practices. If your fantasy world shows different peoples living in different geographic regions, think about how their cultural practices might differ and what implications this might have for tension or story development.

Alyssa Hollingsworth shares ten useful questions to ask about your fantasy world’s culture . How do you make your world seem as real as our own. Our world that has seen many changing tides of events? As Hollingsworth puts it, ask yourself: ‘How did this culture come into being? How has it changed between then and the start of the novel?’

Mind your language: Creating other words

Many fantasy writers have added to the richness of their novels by inventing languages that are specific to particular tribes or nationalities. A group in your fantasy novel might have particular idioms or proverbs, or styles of greeting. These resources will help you think about language in your fantasy writing and how you can use it to add a sense of era or to underline important aspects of your fantasy culture (for example, a warrior-like people might have a very different way of greeting one another to a more peaceful civilization). Here are some useful resources for using language creatively:

Roberta Osborn provides detailed advice on using fictional languages in fantasy writing. Her advice includes keeping a list of all the words you invent so you can remember spellings and keep track on how many you’ve used and their meanings. She also recommends making your made-up words resemble as much as possible words with similar meanings in real-world language, so that the sound fits the sense to readers’ ears. Avoid ‘blorpspargs’ and ‘glipflorps’ (unless parodying technical language or word invention in your genre).

If you want to get technical and make up an entire language of your own, the Language Construction Kit is a useful free resource. Do keep in mind that you mustn’t let the fun of invention distract you from getting stuck into actually writing and finishing your novel .

Creating fantasy animals

Besides the people that populate your fantasy world, you might want to include fantastical creatures that add biodiversity (and a dose of magic or exoticism). Remember that many mythical creatures are clichés. Dragons feature in many fantasy worlds. Think about how you can make fantasy creatures your own. For example, in the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling has a dragon guard the vault of a powerful family in the wizard bank Gringotts, combining an ancient mythical creature with a modern setting in an original manner.

This list of mythical creatures can inspire you. It provides explanations on the origins and history of many magical or otherworldly creatures.

Springhole offers useful tips on writing fantasy fiction that includes animals . One tip: ask yourself what environmental and ecological impact your creature might make.

Another website that lists and describes mythical creatures lets you sort creatures by appearance (size and similarity to real-world animals), as well as culture of origin (such as Greek or Mayan).

Ashley Lange at Elfwood provides a handy guide to creating realistic fantasy animals and creatures. One useful tip: Identify your non-human fantasy species’ purpose (do your animals serve as guides/guardians/environmental hazards/food sources or any combination of the above?)

Resources for (re)inventing magic for your fantasy novel

Mages, witches, wizards and more: Magic has been a core feature of many famous fantasy novels. In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, a child puts a magical ring on her finger and finds herself in a wood between worlds. In the Lord of the Rings the wizard Gandalf carries a staff that he uses to channel his magical powers. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books update the wands and wizards format, splicing spells and incantations with a modern-day, non-magical world. These resources give advice on how to write fantasy fiction that uses some form of magic:

Magic in your fantasy fiction should follow a system that obeys its own internal logic. This impressive table by Io9 describes the workings of magic systems in over 20 famous novels and series. This can provide helpful inspiration when you create your own magic system.

Philip Martin’s guide to using magic in your fantasy story includes helpful tips such as making sure that your magic system explicitly drives the action of your story. This will make sure your magic doesn’t distract from your novel’s key themes and events.

Writer Holly Lisle wrote this practical list of tips for writing magic into your fantasy novel. One good piece of advice: Don’t make it too easy. Another: Everything comes from something – your magic system will be harder to believe if it’s too convenient and doesn’t have explicable origins.

What resources have you found helpful in writing fantasy fiction? Share any relevant and helpful ones in the comments.

Images from here and here

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Tags Article round-up , fantasy writing , writing resources

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

17 replies on “Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites”

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing 10 Questions to Ask When You Create a Fictional Culture.

Thank you! It’s a pleasure, Alyssa. Always good to find practical writing advice being shared.

Bookmarking for later! Love the lists of resources you periodically post. Incredibly helpful.

Thanks, Ben! Glad you find some use in them 🙂

This is exactly what I was looking for 🙂 I came up with a story about a King and a girl from a village and suddenly I find myself structuring the whole world around them. Thanks for putting all these resources together!

It’s a pleasure, Liz! Really glad you found this helpful. Do join our ‘fantasy writers’ group on Now Novel if you’d like to get writing feedback from some other fantasy enthusiasts. Best of luck with the book, too.

I still think this is one of the best tools to help you avoid falling into the same old tropes and clichés. http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/

‘Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?’ Thanks for this, will share on Twitter.

Hi Bridget! Great list of resources.

Hi Martin – fantastic post. Will share it on social.

Thanks so much, Bridget!

Thank you very much!

My pleasure, Andrew. Glad you found some utility here.

Great post, thanks. I will also like to recommend the Worldbuilding Magazine, it has become an awesome resource.

This article is very useful. It’s really helpful for me! Thank you for sharing this information.

Thank you so much for your article) So much useful information I haven’t seen! This is truly epic. Let me make a small contribution too, please: 1) for a name to be meaningful and still have a natural sound, you can look up the meanings of real names (the biggest library with meanings of each here https://babynames.com/ ) Sometimes I take any real name and change a few letters (e.g. from Adélie to Akmélie). 2) but sometimes I use the generator https://instausername.com/character-name-generator – it has an interesting feature that it uses artificial intelligence and sometimes the names are very exciting. 3) I always try to make a drawing or at least the avatar to complete the character, because the visual part is very important and can help the reader better recognize the hero. If you are also bad at drawing it would probably be helpful https://charactercreator.org/

Thanks again for your article! Now my stories will be better

Hi Bridget, thank you for reading our blog and for your very helpful additions! Good luck with your next story.

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Author of THE ELEVENTH TRADE

10 Writing Resources: Fantasy

My first golden rule of fantasy: The more real you want it to be, the more solid details you should use. I don’t mean like “the blue door that was chipped around the handle except for where it wasn’t chipped, aka everywhere else, and also it smelled like smoke.” Not overwhelming, unnecessary details. But details that make the fantastical tangible. One example: In my manuscript, each magician has a sort of smell when they perform magic (sage, wood smoke, that sort of thing), often which correlates to something in their history.

Clear as mud?

And here are some great resources to check out:

1. Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre , using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

2. The Cultural Iceberg

The culture or cultures you grow up in affect your deepest attitudes and beliefs, giving you your sense of what’s good or right, what feels comfortable, what behavior is acceptable, and conversely what’s not. What other people see may be only those things “on the surface” — for example, the way you talk or act, what you eat and how you dress.

3. Crafting Plausible Maps

Building a map for a fantasy setting involves a lot of details – most of them fun! Art styles, fonts, and icons need to be chosen. But some mapping concerns go beyond mere aesthetics. If you’re building a sizable chunk of continent on an Earth-like world , you’re going to need to keep geology in mind.

4. Writing Things: How Drawing House Maps Can Help Your Writing

You know at the beginning of some books, there are maps of the particular world, or area in the world. These are really helpful with introducing one to the book’s geography and if the book is centered around a fictional world, or a real world place. They’re kinda like road maps, but for a story. I love drawing these maps for different stories of mine.

5. Land Travel Before Engines

Many fantasy stories involve traveling from one city to another, often in worlds without engine technology. Before cars and trains, traveling over land was exhausting and dangerous. The logistics of a trip were completely different from today. Here’s what you should know before your characters wander through an enchanted forest or sneak into enemy territory.

6. Research is the Spice of Life

It doesn’t matter what genre of fiction you write, chances are you will have to research at least a few details throughout the course of writing your novel. It can be time consuming, and the material you find can be overwhelming. Worse, when the details you uncover are used inexpertly, it can bog down your writing.

7. The Half-Blood Prince Guide to Question Arcs

A question arc in your novel can help build suspense (a state or condition of mental uncertainty or excitement, as in awaiting a decision or outcome, accompanied by apprehension or anxiety). The desire to know the answers to riddles or mysteries will keep many readers hooked. Let’s look at how a question arc captivates readers in Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince .

8. Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 50: Info Dumps

On its most fundamental level, a novel is nothing more or less than the dissemination of information. As such, the writer who understands exactly how and where to share information is a writer who understands the most fundamental skill of storytelling.

That’s why info dumps are such a big, bad deal. They’re peanut butter in the delicate gears of your story’s machinery. They’re clunky, awkward, and they gum up the works — sometimes fatally.

9. The Rules of Magic, According to the Greatest Fantasy Sagas of All Time

Magic is mysterious and ancient, and its workings are often beyond the understanding of mere mortals. But that doesn’t mean that magic doesn’t have rules.

Art by Donato

10. The Initial Steps of Worldbuilding: Architect, Gardener, Tourist

Listening to the news in the real world – that horrid place where dragons are small and kept in vivaria and pixie is just a kind of haircut – it is very apparent that life is a very complicated place. Anything from the politics between two warring countries, down to a neighbourly dispute on a single street, the world we live in is complicated, intertwined and gorgeously abundant with issue. So, when you sit down ready to begin that next big fantasy epic – like I decided to do about a year ago – how do you make sure that your disputes between elves and goblins are as interesting and in depth as reality itself. In another sense, how do you make your world feel real, when it is populated with the exact opposite?

Stuff I’ve written:

10 Questions to Ask When You Create a Fictional Culture
Questions for Worldbuilding

20 Prompts to Uncover Characters’ Hearts

Characters! Those cheeky fellas. I love seeking out my characters’[...]

4 Tips for Historical Fiction

Last spring, the Roman Baths Museum in Bath, England, approached[...]

The Madwoman’s Outlining Technique

Since my WIP, Illuminate, is also the thesis project for[...]

The Ultimate Guide To Writing A Fantasy Novel

You just finished reading a fantasy series that has left you reeling.

You’re satisfied with the way things turned out, but the thought of saying goodbye to those characters just hurts.

You want to keep the magic going.

So now you’re looking for the best guide on how to write a fantasy novel — because you want to be the kind of writer who can work that kind of magic.

Who knew fantasy fiction could be so transformative?

Fantasy Writing Tips

Fantasy plots, how to write a fantasy novel outline, how to start a fantasy story, 1. develop your characters., 2. develop your (story’s) world., 3. develop your backstory., 4. craft an interesting and believable plot for your characters., 5. decide how your story will begin., 6. write the first chapter., 7. decide on your story’s climactic event., 8. keep writing chapters until you reach the end., 9. print out your first draft and take a break., 10. self-edit., 11. revise your self-edited draft., 12. edit your draft., 13. revise your professionally-edited draft., 14. get your novel ready for publication., writing fantasy.

Writing a fantasy novel presents some unique challenges to the storyteller. For one, you’re expected to know about the magical elements you use in your story.

For example, if your story involves werewolves or vampires, you’ll need to research all the folklore related to both in order to portray them in a way that will build trust with your reader.

Making things up as you go when there’s already known folklore or mythology in place will irritate knowledgeable readers and likely earn you some scathing reviews.

Second, fantasy fiction usually involves an imaginary world created by the author.

Research is important here, too, since some magical creatures are associated with particular environments.

And just because it’s a made-up world doesn’t mean you have to defy every expectation.

The sky doesn’t have to be a different color unless that detail adds an essential something to your story.

But you should know this world as well as the one you live in (when you’re not writing).

Also, some — if not all — your fantasy characters will be magical or mythical beings, humanoid or otherwise.

And the more you know the mythology surrounding them, the more convincing your character building will be to your readers.

As with your setting, you should know these characters as well as you know the people in your closest circle — recognizing all the while, of course, that they can still surprise you.

If you want to know how to write a good fantasy story, learn from those who’ve written before you.

Many of them are only too happy to help fellow writers with their story crafting.

For all they know, you could be the next Rick Riordan or J.K. Rowling.

So, helping you write better stories is in everyone’s best interests. To that end, consider the following tips for writing a fantasy novel:

Become a voracious reader of fantasy novels — especially the kind you want to write.
Research the folklore and mythology related to any magical elements you want in your story.
Research potential markets and marketing strategies for your book based on genres that are currently selling well.
Choose the perspective and point of view for your story’s narrator.
Get into your fantasy characters’ heads.
Sketch out a timeline for your story’s events and key moments.
Get acquainted with every detail of the made-up world where your story happens.

As one of the ten key parts of your story , your plot is what gives your story its overall shape and direction.

To more clearly see how it does this, we can follow Gustav Freytag’s lead and break down your plot into the following five elements:

With fantasy plots, these elements often tie into the stages of the hero’s journey — a universal story structure based on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

It’s because the hero archetype resonates within the psyche of every individual that the most memorable and endearing stories follow this structure.

Check out this Authority Pub post for more information on the ten key parts of writing your story.

And read on to learn how to write one of your own.

How to Write A Fantasy Novel

The writer’s journey in writing a book is similar to the hero’s journey just mentioned.

Like the hero in your story, you’re going on a journey of your own — though at first there’s some reticence to go any deeper than your comfort level will allow.

At some point, though, like Bilbo as he listened to the dwarves’ song about the Lonely Mountains, you feel pulled out of your cozy bubble into a new and sometimes terrifying world.

And, like Bilbo, you find you have more courage in you than you thought you had.

Good thing, too. Writing an unforgettable story takes courage. No one breaks new ground when they don’t venture beyond what they know.

Outlining your fantasy novel will be similar to any outline you’ve created in the past — for other books or your English Lit class.

The key difference here is thinking ahead to determine whether or not your fantasy book will be a standalone or part of a trilogy or tetralogy.

If your book is standalone, you will need to compress the introduction of your characters and the fantasy world you create to fit into one book. So consider this when developing your outline.

For a series, you’ll have more time to unravel your characters and develop the magical world in which they reside.

You don’t have to outline all of your books initially, but if you choose a series, just be sure you leave enough action and character development for future books.

Try to think ahead about plot progression and the struggles your characters will face throughout the series.

Either way, your first book is the key to hooking readers into loving your characters and story and wanting more.

In your outline, be sure you include a cliffhanger at the end to ensure your readers can’t wait to buy the next book.

Getting started looks different for everyone. If you’re a plotter, you know that an outline helps you sort out your ideas so you can tackle the actual writing with a clearer head — one idea at a time.

See this Authority Pub post for more information on getting started with your novel.

If you’re a pantser, you might think outlines are “too stodgy” or that you won’t follow it anyway.

But even writing a bulleted list of the main things you want to happen in your story can help you write with a better sense of direction.

The following tips and questions can help you create an outline that comes to life even before you start writing your story:

Interview your fantasy characters. Get to know them at their deepest level so you can speak and act as they would.
Get clear on your character’s arcs. How will the events in this story change them?
Give old tropes a dash of something new . Think of how J.K. Rowling reinvented the witch’s broomstick.
Get clear on your story’s main events and defining moments.
Write a draft of the final chapter — detailing the outcome for each character.

Think of this step as simply jotting down the main elements of the plot or character that made you want to write this story in the first place.

You can also start with an elevator pitch. Tell me what will happen in your story in 30 seconds or less.

See if it makes sense to you when you articulate it out loud.

Then, nail down those critical details and leave the rest to your imagination.

How to Write A Fantasy Novel Step by Step

Once you’ve created your outline, follow these steps to write a fantasy novel your readers will tell all their friends about:

Interview them. Do some voice-journaling for them. Create character profiles.

Do whatever helps you get into their heads and make them real people to you.

The more they come to life for you, the more they’ll do the same for your reader.

The more real this world seems to you, the more easily your readers will step into and lose themselves in it.

Make it a place they won’t want to leave. And make every detail matter.

What made your characters and your world as they are now? What details from the past are essential to the story you’re telling.

Get clear on what happened in the past that created the reality of your story’s present.

Give them a problem and show how they recognize and deal with it. Show how it changes them. Show us what they want most and how far they’ll go to get it.

Show what’s at stake – what they could gain and what they have to lose.

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Kara Barbieri is a twenty-two year old author with a love for the weird and mystic. Her debut novel, WHITE STAG, will be published by Wednesday Books/Macmillan in January 2019.

When I joined Wattpad, I gained a second family who were as passionate about reading and writing as I am.

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Ali Novak is a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's creative writing program. She started writing her debut novel My Life with the Walter Boys when she was only fifteen. Since then, her work has received more than 150 million hits online and My Life with the Walter Boys has been optioned for television by Komixx Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television.

Being a Wattpad Star is the foundation for everything I do as a writer, from the behind the scenes wrangling to the big, game-changing projects.

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Benjamin Sobieck is a Wattpad Star and editor of “The Writer’s Guide to Wattpad,” published in August 2018 by Writer’s Digest Books and featuring contributions by 23 Wattpad Stars, ambassadors, and staff. His stories on Wattpad, such as “When the Black-Eyed Children Knock,” have drawn more than 1.5 million reads.

Having been active on Wattpad for several years, I knew it would be the perfect platform for a thriller with lots of cliffhangers for readers to discuss. Teen horror is my passion, so I can’t wait to be able to share Light as a Feather with other horror aficionados on Hulu.

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Announcing the 59th nebula awards toastmaster: sarah gailey.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) is excited to announce that author and SFWA Nebula and Hugo Award finalist, Sarah Gailey, will serve as toastmaster for the 59th Annual Nebula Awards® Ceremony! The ceremony will take place in Pasadena, CA on June 8th, 2024. Continuing on with SFWA’s commitment of inviting and including the […]

New to Your Public Persona? Handling the Non-Writing Parts of Being an Author

By Noah Sturdevant Who are you? No, not in a “name, rank, and serial number” kind of way or the physical parts on display. Not the broad character traits you associate with yourself, either. It’s a complicated question, right? It can be hard to define, even to yourself, much less others. In fact, just […]

Yes, We Need Diverse Books, But We Also Need Diverse Reviewers–Still*

by Erika Hardison This essay is the fourth of eight in the Publishing Taught Me: A SFWA Anthology Project. Ever since Black YA Fantasy author L.L. McKinney set Twitter (now known as X) ablaze with her hashtag #PublishingPaidMe in 2021, the traditional publishing industry has been scrambling to give the appearance that they are truly […]

Tie Up the Loose Ends: A Writer’s Guide to Sailor’s Knots

By May Haddad Knot tying (“nodology” in Latin, “kompology” in Greek) is a time-honored skill honed in seafaring for millennia. Its history intertwines with maritime exploration, naval warfare, and the development of trade routes all over the world. Even as synthetic ropes replaced natural fibers, knots used by sailors centuries ago remain in wide use […]

In Memoriam – Jubilee Cho

Jubilee Cho (13 April 1998 – 06 March 2024) was a writer and dreamer, and the author of the upcoming middle grade fantasy novel Wishing Well, Wishing Well. Cho grew up near Disneyland, enamored with stories of fantastical princesses. Yearning to see herself included in such tales, she wrote her own to help give new […]

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80 Best Fantasy Book Blogs and Websites

Fantasy Faction
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist Blog
The Fantasy Hive
Fantasy Book Critic Blog
Hodderscape
Fantasy Literature
NewInBooks » Fantasy
Perpetual Page-Turner Blog » Fantasy
Den of Geek » Fantasy Books
Lindsay Buroker
Fantasy Cafe
Dragonmount.com » Fantasy Reviews
SciFiChick.com
Jo Fletcher Books
C.A. King Blog
Alma Alexander
Aconite Cafe
Charlotte's Library Blog
D.B. Jackson Blog
Fanna for Books
FanFiAddict » Fantasy
FantasyBookNerd
My World...in words and pages
Sci-Fi Fan Letter Blog
SFBook » Fantasy Book Reviews
The Fantasy Inn
Fantasy and Sci-fi Focus
Justincalcala Blog
Mighty Mama Bear's Book Blog » Fantasy
Fantasy Author's Handbook
Stars Uncounted - Ian's Fantasy Bookshelf
Fantasy Book Place
Sarah Ash Blog
A Phuulish Fellow
She Reads Romance Books » Fantasy Romance
G. Scott Huggins
Thinklings Books Blog
Making Believe
Morgan G Farris
Nicholas Kotar Blog
Grasspeople
The Fantasy Nook Blog
Katie Rodante Blog
Chelle's Book Rambling » Fantasy
Land of Oyr
Revolutionary Readers
A Maze Of Words
Risingshadow
Culturess » Fantasy Book
The Fiction Factory Blog
The Emerald City Book Review by Lory
Always Trust In Books » Fantasy Books
Books: A True Story » Fantasy
Christopher Patterson Blog
Thoughts on Fantasy
The Middle Shelf
Fluff about Fantasy
Aderyn Wood Blog
Dark of Winter Blog
Fantasy Muse
Attilio Guardo Blog
Jennifer Zamboni Blog
H.A. Byrd Blog
Wilbur Arron Blog
Sefiros Eishi Chased by Flame
The Second World

Fantasy Book Bloggers

Fantasy Book Newsletter

Fantasy Book Blogs

Here are 80 Best Fantasy Book Blogs you should follow in 2024

1. Fantasy Faction

2. SFFWorld

3. Pat's Fantasy Hotlist Blog

4. The Fantasy Hive

5. Fantasy Book Critic Blog

6. Hodderscape

7. Fantasy Literature

8. NewInBooks » Fantasy

9. Perpetual Page-Turner Blog » Fantasy

10. Den of Geek » Fantasy Books

11. Lindsay Buroker

12. Fantasy Cafe

13. Tim Lebbon

14. Dragonmount.com » Fantasy Reviews

15. SciFiChick.com

16. Fonda Lee

17. Jo Fletcher Books

18. C.A. King Blog

19. Alma Alexander

20. Aconite Cafe

21. Charlotte's Library Blog

22. D.B. Jackson Blog

23. Fanna for Books

24. FanFiAddict » Fantasy

25. FantasyBookNerd

26. My World...in words and pages

27. Sci-Fi Fan Letter Blog

28. SFBook » Fantasy Book Reviews

29. The Fantasy Inn

30. Fantasy and Sci-fi Focus

31. Justincalcala Blog

32. Mighty Mama Bear's Book Blog » Fantasy

33. Fantasy Author's Handbook

34. Stars Uncounted - Ian's Fantasy Bookshelf

35. Fantasy Book Place

36. Sarah Ash Blog

37. A Phuulish Fellow

38. She Reads Romance Books » Fantasy Romance

39. Fine Print

40. G. Scott Huggins

41. Thinklings Books Blog

42. Making Believe

43. Morgan G Farris

44. Egretia

45. Nicholas Kotar Blog

46. Grasspeople

47. The Fantasy Nook Blog

48. Katie Rodante Blog

49. Chelle's Book Rambling » Fantasy

50. Land of Oyr

51. Revolutionary Readers

52. A Maze Of Words

53. Risingshadow

54. Culturess » Fantasy Book

55. The Fiction Factory Blog

56. The Emerald City Book Review by Lory

57. Always Trust In Books » Fantasy Books

58. Books: A True Story » Fantasy

59. Christopher Patterson Blog

60. Thoughts on Fantasy

61. The Middle Shelf

62. Fluff about Fantasy

63. Aderyn Wood Blog

64. Dark of Winter Blog

65. Fantasy Muse

66. Attilio Guardo Blog

67. Jennifer Zamboni Blog

68. Iris Marsh

69. H.A. Byrd Blog

70. Wilbur Arron Blog

71. Sefiros Eishi Chased by Flame

72. The Second World

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13 Author Websites That Get It Right

Most professional authors will have their own website , both as a way to market themselves and connect with their readership. It's the one corner of the internet that the author fully controls — without interference from publishers or social media rules.

In this short guide, we'll show you some examples of effective author websites before giving you a step-by-step process for building your own. By the end, you'll be ready to take on the world (wide web).

Here are 13 examples of excellent author websites:

1. Austin Kleon

New York Times bestselling author Austin Kleon identifies himself as “an author who draws” and uses his website to talk not only about his own books, but also about art and writing in general, offering creative inspiration to fans and casual visitors alike.

Simple to navigate, and signposting all the relevant information — from blog posts, to his books, a newsletter mailing list , an author bio , and contact information — one of the main advantages of Kleon’s website is that it’s kept up-to-date with seasonal posts and frequent life updates.

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Takeaway: Keep your website up-to-date

Knock, knock. Who’s there? You should be. Unless you’ve got a ghostwriter on your team or you can uncannily churn out quality books constantly, you probably won’t always have new bookish updates. However, when people visit your site, you don’t want it to seem like it’s been idly collecting dust for years between publication dates. You want it to seem as though someone is home.

Austin Kleon’s website achieves this with fresh blog posts displayed front and center. Straight away, you know that he’s active behind the keyboard. Not only does it feel like he’s talking directly to you, but it also incentivizes you to come back, which can be handy for your next book launch . Studies confirm this: businesses that run blogs have 55% more website visitors than those that don’t.

Something as simple as an up-to-date Twitter feed or a list of upcoming events can keep your website fresh and show that you’re committed to interacting with your readers. If you're able to blog regularly, all the better! If your blog gets popular enough, it could become the foundation for your next book .

How to Build an Amazing Author Blog

10 lessons to help you start your blog and boost your book sales.

2. Rupi Kaur

Rupi Kaur holds up her latest book under the headline

You’d expect nothing less than a well-designed website from the queen of Instapoetry herself, Rupi Kaur . Her elegant homepage immediately exudes “Rupi Kaur” and the message she wants her readers to receive. It’s on brand — aesthetically pleasing, with short guiding phrases, and creative with form (here through typography ) — and much like her poetry, it sticks to the essentials to deliver a core message in just a few words.

Rupi Kaur's website links out to her shop with photos of a chair and a print of her poetry

But make no mistake; this is no minimalist, bare-bones version of a website. With customized stickers, an integrated webshop for merchandise, and links to both an Amazon Prime special and a world tour, it’s clear that Kaur has invested some time and dollars on making this a comfortable browsing experience for her readers.

Takeaway: Invest in branding and user experience

Granted, not every author can inject cash into a website like social media sensation Rupi Kaur. However, her online presence features several practices that are good takeaways for any author website. Kaur, for instance, doesn’t send her subscribers “newsletters” like Kleon does. Instead, she sends “love notes”. Readers can also follow the journey of her third book, Home Body , as it travels across the US, “sisterhood of the traveling pants” style. These touches make her website feel authentic and true to her brand.

Paying a bit extra to get a custom-made website that fits your needs perfectly and appeals to your target audience can improve user experience significantly, making it not only pleasing to the eye, but also easy to navigate.

Tell us about your book and we'll match you with a website style!

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LJ Ross's website background picture features a castle in sunlight and mist rolling in. It announces Ross's bestselling series.

You can make your website stand out from the crowd by adding dynamic and interactive elements, and self-published author LJ Ross is no stranger to this strategy. Just like in her bestselling mystery series DCI Ryan, LJ Ross’s website takes inspiration from the atmospheric landscape of Lindisfarne (also known as Holy Island), located on the northeast coast of England.

This eye-catching website is brought to life with some well-chosen dynamic elements: a bird flying across the landing page, mist rolling in as you hover your cursor, and a hamburger menu that folds out to direct you where you need to go, to name a few.

LJ Ross also gets a bonus point for subverting the expectations for what a crime and mystery author’s website should look like, with a sunny background picture and a lighter color scale throughout the site.

Takeaway: Bring your site to life

If your site is a pretty-but-static thing, you may be missing an opportunity. With some simple dynamic elements that draw the eyes, you can elevate your website and give visitors a reason to extend their session on your site. And the longer they stay, the more likely they are to engage with what your website offers.

Start by capturing people’s attention with cool visuals, highlighting what you want visitors to see first (in this case: Ross’s different books series and a link to an audio drama production on Audible), and then invite them to engage by linking to your social media.

4. Miquel Reina

Another author who incorporates some movement into their author website to really bring it to life is Miquel Reina . This can be a risky maneuver — more often than not, flashy gifs and scrolling text scream “tacky.” But when it pays off, it creates a beautiful effect that will impress and entrance readers who stumble upon your page.

Upon first glance at the homepage of Miquel Reina's author website, nothing appears out of the ordinary... until the first image begins to change. As you can see, each translation ( and gorgeous new cover ) of Reina's book Lights on the Sea morphs into the next, providing a beautifully comprehensive sense of his accomplishments.

If you’re not a web designer , this tactic could easily go awry, but Reina ensures that all his images are carefully sized and timed to create a calibrated effect. The transitions are calmly paced to give you enough time with each cover, but not so slow that you risk missing the effect entirely. He also wisely avoids cluttering the rest of his homepage with additional text and images, so the viewer focuses solely on the slow-moving book covers.

Takeaway: Keep it simple (but sophisticated)

Again, it's easy to go overboard with this tactic; you don't want your author website to look like a carnival. To keep things interesting yet professional, bring your site to life with just one or two smoothly transitioning GIFs.

Fun fact: You can find Miquel Reina, who designed his own website (!), right here on Reedsy. Click here to check out his other projects .

💡Pro tip: Keep site speed in mind! On the technical side, a simple setup will help your site load faster. Heavy images will slow a site down and frustrate visitors. They came to find out about your book, not wait around watching their fingernails grow.

5. David Sedaris

David Sedaris' latest book, Happy-Go-Lucky, and a description of what the book is about.

Authors sometimes make the mistake of thinking that people visit their websites just to read their bio. Are you, the author, important? Sure, but your books are way more important. Let people know they’re on an author’s website by making your product the star of the show, as David Sedaris does. A minimalist setup makes it impossible not to notice the main event: Sedaris’ newest book.

Takeaway: Put your book front and center

If a reader visits your site and doesn’t immediately realize that you’re an author with a book to sell, you’re probably doing something wrong. Placing your book front and center announces that, whatever else you may be offering through your site, you’re first and foremost an author who wants to share their stories with the world.

Also important: are the buttons that urge people to buy your book and steer folks to their retailer of choice. To build the perfect author website , it’s important to generate retailer links to your books and make sure people can easily add them to their basket.

6. Brit Bennett

Bennett's bestselling book 'The Vanishing Half' and praise from reviewers.

Another author who has embraced the idea of putting their book front and center is Brit Bennett . Her hugely successful upmarket fiction novel The Vanishing Half is clearly the star of the show as you enter her landing page, and unlike David Sedaris’ lengthy book description, Bennett focuses on some strong endorsements in the form of quotes to sell her book.

Takeaway: Include testimonials and reviews

There’s nothing quite as effective as word-of-mouth marketing when it comes to book sales. With a well-chosen quote from the right person, you may see your book sales soar, so it would be wasteful not to use the prime real estate of your website to let others highlight your writing prowess through testimonials and reviews.

💡Pro tip: Testimonials and reviews are a great way to market your work and authorship so make sure to leave some space for that on your website.

For more marketing insights, check out our course on the fundamentals of book marketing:

Book Marketing 101

Learn seven tried-and-true strategies for boosting book sales.

7. Lesley M. M. Blume

A photograph of the bombing of Hiroshima held up by yellowing tape and a short text about the event to the right of the picture.

When you first land on Lesley M.M. Blume’s website , you are met with an old, faded picture of an atomic bomb, held up by tape and a short journalistic description This documentary approach quickly envelopes readers into the topic material that Blume — an award-winning journalist — has written about in her latest book, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed it to the World .

Within moments of arriving on Lesley’s site, you become aware that she is a writer and journalist. This quick preview of her book grabs your attention and sets the tone.

Takeaway: Give readers a visual taste of your book

As an author, your medium of choice is often the written word, but your website is an excellent opportunity to expand on the imagery you’re trying to capture and make your messaging more vivid. By focusing on the visual aspects of your website rather than the textual, you allow readers to get an idea of what your book is all about straight off the bat — and you can present it in a way that is quicker and easier to consume than a full synopsis.

Is your book a fluffy romcom, or is it hard facts? Offer a glimpse of what readers can expect of your writing, and don’t fall for the temptation to clutter your website with too much text; instead, use the power of images to elevate your message.

8. Maggie Stiefvater

Your author website should always include a good reason or two for visitors to offer up their email addresses. When you navigate your way to Maggie Steifvater’s website , you’re immediately presented with the opportunity to sign up for her newsletter. But the opt-in choices on her email list are plenty. For instance, you can sign up for an 8-hour seminar to improve your writing craft, led by Stiefvater herself!

In marketing, this is known as lead magnets 一 offering something of genuine value in return for an email address — a marketing strategy we highly encourage authors to use..

Takeaway: Use a lead magnet

In publishing, a lead magnet usually means offering free content in exchange for an email address, such as downloadable PDF prints, exclusive interviews, or bonus chapters of your upcoming release. This helps you build your mailing list so that when you publish another book, you already have a group of people to advertise it to.

💡Pro tip: A free sample does more than just incentivize people to offer their contact info. If you’ve read our Reedsy Learning course on how to run a price promotion , you’ll know that offering a free book is also a great way to hook readers and create a loyal fanbase for future publications. A free preview can work similarly, giving readers a commitment-free chance to get drawn into your book, leaving them more likely to pay to read the rest.

9. Megan McDonald and Peter H. Reynolds (Judy Moody)

An illustration of the character Judy Moody over a tiger pattern and white circles that link out to parts of the website.

Using images is perhaps even more essential when you’re in the picture book genre. The illustrative style on the Judy Moody website gets the brand across almost immediately: fun children’s books! And if there were ever any doubts, it cements the message that the best author websites are extensions of the author’s novels and wider brand.

The creators of the website know the Judy Moody audience, with nudges and winks in the direction of teachers and parents, as well as younger readers with playful phrasing such as “Way-Not-Boring Stuff,” which links to several fun lead magnets, in the shape of games and downloadable PDFs, perfect for kids’ birthday parties.

Takeaway: Speak to your target audience

When designing your own website, some of the questions you should ask yourself, like Judy Moody’s publicist clearly has, are all about personal branding:

Are you branding yourself or a series?
What’s the voice and tone of your book?
Who is your target audience ; and
Would your site resonate with them?

Judy Moody's authors have chosen to highlight the eponymous character of the series rather than themselvces, but whichever way you lean, there should always be a recognizable red thread that runs between your books and your website. Keep the voice and tone of your website distinctive and consistent, so people immediately recognize the relation to your work.

🎨 If you’re thinking about how you can develop your own author brand, check out this article about how Lara Coates enlisted a Reedsy designer to help establish hers.

10. Fonda Lee

One way to ensure that you’re speaking to your target audience is to match your website to the genre you’re writing in. Fonda Lee leaves no room for doubt with her Y2K style logo and dark color pallet. But just in case you missed it, she makes sure to signpost herself as a “science fiction and fantasy author,” and uses a gallery of pictures to highlight her catalog of published works.

Takeaway: Signpost your genre

While many visitors to your website may already know what genre you’re working in, it’s always a good idea to make sure you match your website to the content you’re publishing. This goes hand in hand with author branding, but the visual elements of your website can also add another dimension to the worlds you’re building in your books.

11. Neon Yang

The upper half of Neon Yang's website is set against a backdrop of the book cover of their 'Tensorate series.' The lower half features a photo of the author and a short bio on a lime green background.

Whether you’re a maximalist or a minimalist when it comes to design, the use of bold or contrasting colors is another way to make your website pop and highlight something particularly important you want to draw attention to. And you don’t have to have a name like Neon Yang in order to do so. But choose your colors wisely, and stick to one or two for the best effect.

Takeaway: Be selective in your use of colors

The psychology of color can have a big impact on how people perceive something, but don’t make the mistake of trying to catch ‘em all; using all of the colors of the rainbow together at once is unlikely to have the desired effect of drawing the eye to one thing. Instead, too many colors can be distracting and more confusing than helpful, making the message you want to communicate murky and sometimes even hard to read.

When using bold colors, one or two is enough to draw visitors’ focus toward the most important things. Neon Yang fittingly uses neon lime green to contrast against a darker background, which effectively highlights key information, fits their unique brand, and adds a tongue-in-cheek touch to the whole website.

💡Pro tip: When using accent colors, choose them carefully, and avoid writing huge chunks of texts in colors that are hard to read to make your website more accessible to all visitors.

12. Brené Brown

A photo of the Brown recording a podcast or audiobook together with the text

Speaking of accessibility, no matter how beautiful and well-crafted your homepage is, or how nicely your logo fits on the corner of that picture you’ve chosen, here’s your official reminder to make your website compatible with all types of devices. Brené Brown has made sure her website will meet everyone’s needs, regardless of their browsing weapon of choice:

Takeaway: Optimize for mobile navigation

Nothing is as frustrating as a clunky website that you can’t read, especially when you’re on the go. Today mobile traffic accounts for almost 60% of all web traffic , so your website should be made to fit all devices to make it as easy as possible for visitors to explore.

13. Angie Thomas

A photo of Thomas together with the words

Finally, one of the biggest reasons people visit author websites is to get a better sense of who the person behind the words on the page is, so don’t be afraid to show your face. Angie Thomas goes straight for the kill with a beautiful, professional headshot that is both inviting and confident. This, paired with some hand-picked words to the left, is a strong introduction to Thomas both as a person and as an author.

Takeaway: Show your face

Whether you want your brand to focus on you as an author or on your books, it’s a good rule of thumb to use your website to introduce yourself to the world. Unless, of course you’re a ghostwriter or writing under a pen name and prefer to work in anonymity. But even then, your writing website should include an avatar at the very least.

You don’t have to place your author photo front and center, but your site should contain some indication that your work was written by an actual human and not an AI . Your ‘About’ section is a good place to start, but sprinkling a few photos that show who you are throughout your different sections is a good way to make your readers feel connected to you.

In the next part of this guide, we'll show you how to create your very own website using some of the most popular tools in the internet.

11 responses

Brent Jones says:

02/06/2017 – 12:29

Well, never did I ever think I'd appear on the same list of authors as JK Rowling for something. Wow! You guys over at Reedsy made my day. Thanks!

Kristen Steele says:

21/06/2017 – 15:29

Great examples! Branding is a powerful element, but works best if all of your books follow a specific theme.

arushi says:

30/08/2018 – 05:47

Nice Article www.booksoul.in

Zain Khan says:

06/12/2018 – 09:28

Thanks for the awesome blog post. keep it up. Recycling Media

Michael Barrett says:

05/03/2019 – 15:00

mbbarrett.com

christopher sparacino says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

I wrote a book i'm trying to get out there, feel free to read it! it's free, about 70 pages... http://bit.ly/evolveordiebook enjoy

Oohgirlbybk says:

Good info! Thank you! My website is live, but I will be contacting my web designer :)

Sayli@digitalmarketing says:

22/05/2019 – 10:25

This the list every digital marketer and web designer should have! Thanks for this amazing list!

Paul Nieto says:

23/05/2019 – 17:00

Thank you for the ideas and examples. I signed up for the checklist also.

amber says:

05/09/2019 – 09:50

wow, what a great example. branding is the most powerful tool. I am also an author

David Evans says:

17/11/2019 – 10:05

The Lesley M. M. Blume site and the Austin Kleon site are pretty good , i often find that alot of sites go for design over typography which mostly doesnt work , your right about having blog posts front and centre , problem is most authors ive encountered never want that ( customer is always right etc ) .. which is a shame

Comments are currently closed.

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The best new science fiction books of May 2024

A new Stephen King short story collection, an Ursula K. Le Guin reissue and a celebration of cyberpunk featuring writing from Philip K. Dick and Cory Doctorow are among the new science fiction titles published this month

By Alison Flood

A new short story collection from Stephen King, You Like It Darker, is out in May

Shane Leonard

Every month, I trawl through publishers’ catalogues so I can tell you about the new science fiction being released. And every month, I’m disappointed to see so much more fantasy on publishers’ lists than sci-fi. I know it’s a response to the huge boom in readers of what’s been dubbed “ romantasy ”, and I’m not knocking it – I love that sort of book too. But it would be great to see more good, hard, mind-expanding sci-fi in the offing as well.

In the meantime, there is definitely enough for us sci-fi fans to sink our teeth into this month, whether it’s a reissue of classic writing from Ursula K. Le Guin, some new speculative short stories from Stephen King or murder in space from Victor Manibo and S. A. Barnes.

Last month, I tipped Douglas Preston’s Extinction and Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain as books I was looking forward to. I can report that they were both excellent: Extinction was a lot of good, clean, Jurassic Park -tinged fun, while Samatar’s offering was a beautiful and thought-provoking look at life on a generation ship.

The Language of the Night: Essays on writing, science fiction, and fantasy by Ursula K. Le Guin

There are few sci-fi and fantasy writers more brilliant (and revered) than Ursula K. Le Guin. This reissue of her first full-length collection of essays features a new introduction from Hugo and Nebula award-winner Ken Liu and covers the writing of The Left Hand of Darkness and A Wizard of Earthsea , as well as her advocacy for sci-fi and fantasy as legitimate literary mediums. I’ve read some of these essays but not all, and I won’t be missing this collection.

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

This isn’t science fiction, not quite, but it is one of the best and most important books I have read for some time. It sees Jacobsen lay out, minute by minute, what would happen if an intercontinental ballistic missile hit Washington DC. How would the US react? What, exactly, happens if deterrence fails? Jacobsen has spoken to dozens of military experts to put together what her publisher calls a “non-fiction thriller”, and what I call the scariest book I have possibly ever read (and I’m a Stephen King fan; see below). We’re currently reading it at the New Scientist Book Club, and you can sign up to join us here .

Read an extract from Nuclear War: A scenario by Annie Jacobsen

In this terrifying extract from Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario, the author lays out what would happen in the first seconds after a nuclear missile hits the Pentagon

The Big Book of Cyberpunk (Vol 1 & 2)

Forty years ago, William Gibson published Neuromancer . Since then, it has entranced millions of readers right from its unforgettable opening line: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel…”. Neuromancer gave us the literary genre that is cyberpunk, and we can now welcome a huge, two-volume anthology celebrating cyberpunk’s best stories, by writers from Cory Doctorow to Justina Robson, and from Samuel R. Delaney to Philip K. Dick. I have both glorious-sounding volumes, brought together by anthologist Jared Shurin, on my desk (using up most of the space on it), and I am looking forward to dipping in.

You Like It Darker by Stephen King

You could categorise Stephen King as a horror writer. I see him as an expert chronicler of the dark side of small-town America, and from The Tommyknockers and its aliens to Under the Dome with its literally divisive trope, he frequently slides into sci-fi. Even the horror at the heart of It is some sort of cosmic hideousness. He is one of my favourite writers, and You Like It Darker is a new collection of short stories that moves from “the folds in reality where anything can happen” to a “psychic flash” that upends dozens of lives. There’s a sequel to Cujo , and a look at “corners of the universe best left unexplored”. I’ve read the first story so far, and I can confirm there is plenty for us sci-fi fans here.

Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

Not sci-fi, but fiction about science – and from one of the UK’s most exciting writers (if you haven’t read The Essex Serpent yet, you’re in for a treat). This time, Perry tells the story of Thomas Hart, a columnist on the Essex Chronicle who becomes a passionate amateur astronomer as the comet Hale-Bopp approaches in 1997. Our sci-fi columnist Emily Wilson is reviewing it for New Scientist ’s 11 May issue, and she has given it a vigorous thumbs up (“a beautiful, compassionate and memorable book,” she writes in a sneak preview just for you guys).

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

Dr Ophelia Bray is a psychologist and expert in the study of Eckhart-Reiser syndrome, a fictional condition that affects space travellers in terrible ways. She’s sent to help a small crew whose colleague recently died, but as they begin life on an abandoned planet, she realises that her charges are hiding something. And then the pilot is murdered… Horror in space? Mysterious planets? I’m up for that.

In Hey, Zoey, the protagonist finds an animatronic sex doll hidden in her garage

Shutterstock / FOTOGRIN

Hey, Zoey by Sarah Crossan

Hot on the heels of Sierra Greer’s story about a sex robot wondering what it means to be human in Annie Bot , the acclaimed young adult and children’s author Sarah Crossan has ventured into similar territory. In Hey, Zoey , Dolores finds an animatronic sex doll hidden in her garage and assumes it belongs to her husband David. She takes no action – but then Dolores and Zoey begin to talk, and Dolores’s life changes.

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

Davi has tried to take down the Dark Lord before, rallying humanity and making the final charge – as you do. But the time loop she is stuck in always defeats her, and she loses the battle in the end. This time around, Davi decides that the best thing to do is to become the Dark Lord herself. You could argue that this is fantasy, but it has a time loop, so I’m going to count it as sci-fi. It sounds fun and lighthearted: quotes from early readers are along the lines of “A darkly comic delight”, and we could all use a bit of that these days.

Escape Velocity by Victor Manibo

It’s 2089, and there’s an old murder hanging over the clientele of Space Habitat Altaire, a luxury space hotel, while an “unforeseen threat” is also brewing in the service corridors. A thriller in space? Sounds excellent – and I’m keen to see if Manibo makes use of the latest research into the angle at which blood might travel following violence in space, as reported on by our New Scientist humour columnist Marc Abrahams recently.

The best new science fiction books of March 2024

With a new Adrian Tchaikovsky, Mars-set romance from Natasha Pulley and a high-concept thriller from Stuart Turton due to hit shelves, there is plenty of great new science fiction to be reading in March

In Our Stars by Jack Campbell

Part of the Doomed Earth series, this follows Lieutenant Selene Genji, who has been genetically engineered with partly alien DNA and has “one last chance to save the Earth from destruction”. Beautifully retro cover for this space adventure – not to judge a book in this way, of course…

The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer

Two sets of people have had their minds uploaded into a quantum computer in the Ontario of 2059. Astronauts preparing for the world’s first interstellar voyage form one group; the other contains convicted murderers, sentenced to a virtual-reality prison. Naturally, disaster strikes, and, yup, they must work together to save Earth from destruction. Originally released as an Audible Original with Brendan Fraser as lead narrator, this is the first print edition of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Sawyer’s 26 th novel.

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

Just in case you still haven’t read it, Justin Cronin’s gloriously dreamy novel The Ferryman , set on an apparently utopian island where things aren’t quite as they seem, is out in paperback this month. It was the first pick for the New Scientist Book Club, and it is a mind-bending, dreamy stunner of a read. Go try it – and sign up for the Book Club in the meantime!

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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for a... Read all Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike. Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

Josh Friedman
Amanda Silver
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Freya Allan
Kevin Durand
187 User reviews
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65 Metascore

Proximus Caesar

(as Ras-Samuel Welda'abzgi)

Honored Elder

Youngster #1

Youngster #2

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Trivia Director Wes Ball 's pitch for the film was " Apocalypto (2006) with apes."
Goofs Despite being a bonobo, Proximus Caesar's design is clearly that of a regular chimpanzee.

Proximus Caesar : What a wonderful day!

Connections Featured in H-Cast: Insiders Expose Marvel! Blade Reboot, The Marvels & MORE! The H-Cast EP 78 (2023)

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May 8, 2024

New and Upcoming Sci-fi & Fantasy

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May 12, 2024
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