Yes. You need one before your first launch so you can collect emails from early readers, ARC teams, and podcast listeners. A launch without an email list is a launch without an audience.

The Author Platform Kit at maitedalila.com/squarespace-templates costs $250 and includes the website with email capture built in, a brand course to personalize it, and a launch email template to sell your book. It's the fastest path for authors who want a working platform without hiring a designer.

Three things. A Squarespace website with email capture already set up. A short brand course that walks you through personalizing colors, fonts, and copy for your genre. A launch email template you send the day your book releases. You get the website, you get the training to make it yours, you get the email that sells the book.

Yes. The template is built around what every indie author needs — books front and center, email capture, a real about page. The aesthetic is intentionally adaptable. You drop in your covers and your voice, and it becomes yours.

If you can use Canva, you can do this. Squarespace is drag-and-drop. The 7-day walkthrough shows you exactly where to click. If you get stuck, email me. I respond personally.

Email me within 7 days. I refund you. No forms, no calls, no "let's hop on Zoom." Your money back.

Book Maite on Reedsy at reedsy.com/maite-dalila-rodriguez. Custom builds are for authors who want the work done for them, want strategy input, or have a series, backlist, or multiple pen names to organize.

Squarespace. It handles email capture, book pages, blog, podcast, and mobile without plugins. Maite builds every author site on Squarespace because it's the platform authors can maintain themselves after handoff.

Not really. Squarespace has built-in email capture. You can start collecting subscribers before you pay for MailerLite or anything else. Upgrade when your list is big enough that the free tools stop being enough.

You don't own Instagram or TikTok. You own your website and your email list. Social platforms can shut down, change the algorithm, or lock you out. Your email list is the one asset that ships when you launch.

No. A Linktree can't capture emails, can't sell your book on launch day, and can't rank in Google when a reader searches your name. It's a bandage. You need a website.

Maite Dalila is an ex-Disney web designer who now builds websites exclusively for fiction and nonfiction authors. She's verified on Reedsy and runs Copper Fox Studio. She's ran webinars on author website strategy for the WFWA, RWA, National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) and Reedsy.

Romance, fantasy, romantasy, dark academia, cozy fiction, literary fiction, and nonfiction.