New Beginnings

writing

Apr 21

That time when my daughter told me that I needed to update my website.

After she reminded me that I hadn’t updated my website since 2022, I realized that I needed to refresh my writing life. So I spent the majority of my spring break working on updating my site. Here are some things I did to facilitate the process.

A Wedding in the Lowcountry by Preslaysa Williams

01. MY LATEST BOOK

The first thing that I noticed was that my latest release, A Wedding in the Lowcountry, was nowhere to be seen on my site. So I made sure that this lovely story was up front and center.

02. MEDIA MENTIONS

I have a lot of wonderful media mentions. Some of those mentions are from my acting life while others are from my writing life. I wanted to have those prominently displayed on the home page, and so I made sure that I did just that!

03. REVIEWS, REVIEWS, REVIEWS!

The next thing which I wanted to showcase were reader and industry reviews for my novels. I also wanted that to be on the Home page of my site. So I meticulously gathered all of those reviews and placed them in a scrolling section of my Home page.

Refreshing my website has been an uplifting and healing experience. At first, I thought the task would be daunting, but while I was tweaking and updating everything, I felt motivated and inspired about my creative work!

04. BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS

I wanted my website to have the ability to hold all of my books, including the future books that will be published. I made sure that there was a scrolling section on the Home page of the website, as well as on the "Newest Release” page, that easily featured all of my books.

05. SHOP, SHOP, SHOP

I also wanted to add a Shop page to my new website. I want readers to be able to purchase signed bookplates for my traditionally published books and/or signed copies of my self-published books. I also have ideas for future merchandise! So now I have that feature on my new site.

06. GOING LIVE

Finally, the new site had to go live. There were a few hiccups along the way, however. I have learned a lot about website coding and more technical information than I ever wanted to know. In the end, it served me well because I know how to update my site myself, and I can train others to do so in the future. I’m happy about that.