Journal

The ten-minute monthly site check

A short routine that keeps an author website accurate, fast and trustworthy all year.

Author websites rarely fail dramatically. They decay: a broken link here, a stale "coming soon" there, a newsletter form that stopped connecting months ago. A short monthly check prevents almost all of it.

Minute one to three: the home page

Open it on your phone. Is the newest book visible? Is anything announced as upcoming already out, or cancelled? Does the first screen still say who you are and what you write?

Minute four to six: links

Click the buy links for your newest and best-selling books. Click the newsletter link from your ebook back matter to confirm it lands somewhere sensible. Check your social links still point to accounts you use.

Minute seven: the newsletter form

Subscribe with a spare address. Confirm the welcome email arrives and any promised download works. Then unsubscribe.

Minute eight: events and news

Remove past events or move them to an archive. Add anything confirmed for the coming months.

Minute nine: contact

Send yourself a message through the contact form or address shown on the site. Forms fail silently more often than anything else.

Minute ten: write it down

Keep a short note of what you changed. When a reader says something looks wrong, you will know whether it is new.

Ten minutes a month is two hours a year. That is a small price for a site that always looks cared for, because to a new reader a cared-for site signals an author worth trying.

Field notes from Spinecrest · October 4, 2026