If you’re an author (published or aspiring), you need a way to connect with readers, grow your audience, and build excitement around your books. But what if you don’t have a website yet—or don’t want to spend hours (or a fortune) setting one up?
Want to grow your newsletter to connect with readers? This step-by-step guide helps you create an author landing page in MailerLite—no tech experience needed! By the end, you’ll have a one-page author website that helps you:
- Build an email list before launching a book
- Offer a freebie (reader magnet) to attract subscribers
- Promote a book launch, pre-orders, or exclusive content
- Grow an engaged fanbase beyond social media
Getting a website ready to go live can be a significant investment. However, I know that having that website live is one of the moments when the “I really am an author” feeling is real.
I have a post specifically about one-page websites—or landing pages—and why they’re a great fit for authors. If you want to learn more about the concept, you can read it here.
Let’s get started and create an author landing page in MailerLite.
Elements to Include on Your One-Page Author Website
First, before you start building anything, you want to take some time to decide what you want to be on your author landing page. Collecting all of these pieces before you open your tech will make the process go much faster.
I took this list, put it into my notes app, and then started writing each section. You can do this in a Google Doc or wherever you prefer, but I recommend it’s somewhere you can copy and paste from!
Here’s what I would consider as a starting point:
- Your Author Bio
- Your Books – include blurbs and links to purchase
- An email newsletter opt-in form – bonus if you have a freebie that people receive when they join
- Book Reviews
- Links to your socials
- Contact Info
You may not have all these pieces yet, especially if you’re like me and have an unfinished manuscript. There’s no book to list, no reviews to share! I’m not letting that stop me yet. I want to put together my skeleton to fill it in later.
A Few Notes about Best Practices for High-Converting Landing Pages
One last note before we get into the actual how-to. If you’re new to the business part of the writing world, don’t let any of this formal language intimidate you. A high-converting landing page is a page that has a high percentage range of visitors opting into the freebie or email newsletter sign-up.
You want people who land on the page to like what they see and want to hear more from you. So here are some of the basics to consider when designing your page.
Keep the design simple. Simple doesn’t have to mean boring. You can use pictures and color, but you want the page to focus on you and your books as an author.
Use clear headlines and calls to action. Headings make it easy for users to skim a page to find the content they want, and a clear call to action lets visitors know what to do—subscribe, buy a book, etc. Keep it to one call to action per visual section, and the fewer on your page, the clearer it is to visitors.
Ensure mobile-friendly viewing. When building your page, remember to check out both desktop and mobile views. Nothing is more frustrating than a page that doesn’t work well on a mobile device.
Add social proof. If you have reviews, influencer endorsements, awards, etc., include those for people to explore.
How to Create a Landing Page in MailerLite (Step-by-Step Guide)
Finally, to the good part. How do you actually do this?
Step 1: Log into MailerLite and navigate to the landing page builder under “Sites”.
Step 2: Choose a template or start from scratch. If you’re on the free plan like me, you’re starting from scratch.
Step 3: Customize the design (adding text, images, colors, and branding). This is where you start adding sections for the list of things to include from above! Have fun playing around with this.
Step 4: Add an opt-in form and connect it to an email list. I love that the webpage is already part of MailerLite—no extra integration is required between your site and your email newsletter.
Step 5: Set up SEO settings and a custom domain (if applicable). If you’re on the free plan (again, like me!), you won’t be able to add a custom domain to MailerLite. I’ll share a workaround for this in a future post.
Step 6: Preview, test, and publish the landing page.
Want to see it in action? Watch me set up a landing page in the quick walkthrough below.
Looking for specific function I don’t get into in the video? Check out MailerLite’s YouTube tutorials for even more help!
Your Turn: Time to Create an Author Landing Page in MailerLite in Just 30 Minutes!
Now it’s your turn to get your author landing page – that beautiful one-page author website – started and hopefully finished! I’m challenging you to create an author landing page in MailerLite in 30 minutes or less using their drag-and-drop editor.
The key is to have your sections figured out and primarily written beforehand so you can plug and play with your set-up.
Once your page is live, I’d love to see it! Share your link with me, and I’ll check it out.
Happy creating!
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