A site builder will happily let you make fifteen pages, and with one book published most of them will sit empty for years. Six pages carry the load for a single-title author, and each one has a job you can say out loud. If a page has no job, it costs you maintenance time and gives visitors somewhere to get lost.
Home, 150 to 250 words
Home exists to move people on within a few seconds, so it needs a cover image, one line saying what you write and who it suits, a buy button and a newsletter box. That is the whole page. Skip "welcome to my website", skip the scrolling life story, and make sure the buy button is visible on a phone without scrolling. If someone lands on your home page and leaves knowing your genre and that you have a book for sale, the page has done its work.
The book page, 300 to 500 words
This is the page that sells to a cold visitor, so give it the cover at a decent size, the same blurb you use on the retailer listings at around 150 words, the genre and approximate length, and any content notes your readers may want. Add a sample, either the first chapter in full or the opening two pages. Two or three review quotes with real attribution help, and one honest quote from a named reviewer beats five anonymous ones. End with the buy options rather than burying them halfway up.
About, 200 to 300 words
Readers come here to decide whether they trust you with their evening, not to read a biography. Say what you write, say what led you to write this particular book, give one or two concrete personal details, and add a photo of your face. Then write a second version at around 50 words and park it on the press page for anyone who needs to copy and paste it. A 900-word life story on the about page is the most common way a single-book site turns into a chore to update.
Newsletter signup, 100 to 150 words
Tell people what they get, how often they get it, and what the sign-up bonus is if you have one. Vague promises convert badly, and "occasional updates" is vague. Use an unticked consent box rather than a pre-ticked one, say plainly what you do with the address, and link your privacy page. If you promise a free story or a deleted chapter, say how it arrives, because a reader who expects a file and gets a welcome email tends to unsubscribe.
Contact and press, one page, around 100 words plus assets
Combine them. A press page with no press coverage on it looks thin, whereas a contact page that also holds your press assets looks organised. Put an email address or a form, a line about what you do and do not take on, and a note that replies may take a week. Underneath, list the assets: cover image at web and print resolution, author photo, 50-word and 150-word bios, ISBNs, publication date, price and a short pitch paragraph.
The buy page, mostly links
A reader tapping a link in your back matter has usually finished the book and liked it enough to tap, so this page does not need to sell the book again. Give them the next thing instead.
- Use one short URL you can print in a paperback and a reader can type without errors.
- List the formats you have and the prices, including audio if it exists.
- If you sell the ebook direct, say how the file arrives and whether it goes to a Kindle, and say that tax is included.
- Keep the buttons few. A universal link such as Books2Read, or your two biggest retailers plus an "everywhere else" link, usually beats a wall of twelve logos.
- Put the newsletter box on this page too, with the promise of being told when the next book lands.
- Test it on a phone, and do not fire a pop-up at someone the moment they arrive.
Point the link inside your ebook at your own domain. KDP's content guidelines restrict what a book sold on Amazon can link to, and your own site is the safe target.
What to cut
A blog archive is only worth it if you will post monthly for a year, because three posts from 2023 date the site badly. Cut the events page until you have events, cut placeholder pages for books you have not written, and cut embedded social feeds that show your last post was in March. An FAQ page on a one-book site usually answers questions nobody has asked yet.
Six pages is also about what one person can keep current. Every page you add is another thing to update when the second book comes out.
Building those six pages across a site builder, a mailing list tool and a direct-sales checkout means three subscriptions before you have sold a copy. The •BulletPoint Toolchest covers the lot for one monthly fee, including the press kit and ARC distribution you will want by book two.