Penny C. Sansevieri writes on Huffington Post about a number of key mistakes that authors make. It’s a great list and worth checking out. Among them:

You should never cut your own hair or design your own site. Period. End of story. But ok, let me elaborate. Let’s say you designed your own site which saved you a few thousand dollars paying a web designer. Now you’re off promoting your book and suddenly you’re getting a gazillion hits to your site. The problem is the site is not converting these visitors into a sale. How much money did you lose by punting the web designer and doing it yourself? Hard to know. Scary, isn’t it?

She’s spot-on.

Today the world is noisy. Getting noticed is the hard part. Once someone heads over to your site, do you want that person to leave because the presentation is not professional? What’s that person going to think about your book? Are you willing to take that risk?

Lessons for First-Time Authors

Get yourself a professional web presence.

You may be thinking that Craigslist and Seth Godin can get away with borderline ugly websites. And you’d be right, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Get yourself a professional web presence and a domain that conveys professionalism. (Maybe even a dedicated one for your book.) While there are no guarantees, those two things should increase the chances of success.