Best Website Platforms for Book Editors & Authors in 2026

Choosing the best website platform as an indie author, book editor, publisher, or literary agent can feel overwhelming. There are seemingly endless website platforms to choose from, and you may feel like you’re drowning in too many options, opinions and conflicting advice.

Should you go with Wix because it’s easy or Squarespace because it has great templates? What about WordPress (WP)? It seems like everyone in the bookish world is a WP fan. Or what about investing in Showit because so many creatives rave about it? The comparison list can feel never-ending 😵‍💫

As a website designer, let me share a little secret with you: there actually isn’t a single “best” website platform for everyone in the book industry. The key is to find the best platform for YOU based on your business model, technical comfort level, and what you actually need your website to do.

In this guide, I’m breaking down the five most popular website platform options so you can make a decision without the paralysis that always seems to come with it.

What to Consider Before Choosing a Platform 💭

Before we dive into the platform specifics, let’s talk about what actually matters in a website for literary professionals.

First things first, you can’t create a good website without a well-developed brand. If you don’t have clarity on your brand positioning, know your ideal reader or client, or have any visuals, a website won’t save you my friend. And if you’re not sure if your brand is setup to support a new website, I’ve got more support for that later in this post.

When I create a website, I like to go through four different phases, or what I call My 4 S’s of Website Design. These elements should also guide your platform choice:

1. Structure: does the platform let you build the pages you need with clear, easy navigation?
2. Story: can you control the messaging flow and journey of those who come to your site?
3. Style: does it support your visual brand (logos, fonts, colors, and photos) with ease?
4. Stay: can you maintain and update the site on your own as your business grows, or will you need help?

Website Platform Comparison Chart

Here’s a quick overview of every platform we’ll discuss along with fast facts you can reference in the future.

Platform	Best For	Starting Price	Design Flexibility	SEO Capability	Learning Curve
Showit	Established creatives who want full design control	$27-47/mo	Highest	Excellent (due to WordPress connection)	Hard
Squarespace	Authors & editors who want beautiful templates fast	$25-36/mo	Medium-High	Very Good	Easy
WordPress	Tech-savvy pros who want total customization	Free on .org, $10-20/mo on .com	High (with plugins)	Excellent	Very Hard
Shopify	Literary pros selling a lot of books/merch directly	$39/mo or $5/mo for starter	Medium	Very Good	Medium
Wix	Budget-conscious beginners testing the waters	Free-$29/mo	Medium	Good	Very Easy
Canva	Ultra-beginners who need something up TODAY	$15/mo	Low-Medium	Poor	Extremely Easy

*Prices listed are estimates and reflect pricing as of February 2026.

Showit – A Designer’s Dream 🎨

What It Is: A drag-and-drop website builder designed specifically with creative professionals in mind. It runs on WordPress for blogging and search engine optimization (SEO) enhancement, but you have complete visual control over your design through Showit’s interface.

Best For:

• Established book editors and literary service providers who want a really unique, custom website
• Authors with a strong visual brand that want their website to stand out
• Literary creatives ready to invest in their online presence
• Anyone who wants their website to look nothing like a template (even if they use a template)

Pros:

• Complete design freedom – You can drag anything anywhere. No blocks or boundary restrictions holding you back.
• Custom mobile-responsiveness – You design mobile separately from desktop to create a really unique mobile experience.
• SEO-friendly – Since it integrates with WordPress for blogging, you get all of the SEO benefits of WP.
• Integration-friendly – It works with pretty much any online tool you use like ConvertKit, Dubsado, Calendly, Patreon, Payhip, and more. If there’s an embed code or link, you can add it to your site.
• Professional aesthetic – With the right design plan and principles, your site has the ability to capture attention and showcase you as a true professional.

Cons:

• Steeper leaning curve – If you’re not design-savvy, it can be overwhelming to start with a completely blank slate.
• Requires blogging on WordPress – This is both a pro and a con depending on how you feel about WordPress. WP is great for SEO but can feel complicated to use for blogging and other things that Showit relies on (more on that later).
• Higher investment – It’s one of the more expensive platforms to use, especially when you consider the lack of integrations other platforms come with natively. It can also be a big time commitment to design yourself if you don’t use a template.
• No built in e-commerce – You’ll have to embed a different tool for selling like Shopify Buy Buttons or WooCommerce and Payhip via WP plugins.

If you want to read more specifics on Showit, check out my article on Showit Pros & Cons for Authors & Editors here.

Pricing: $27-49/month depending on if you need a blog and plug-ins or not.

My Honest Take: Showit is my current bread and butter where I design all of my client websites. As a self-certified right and left brain baddie (😉), it was one of the easier platforms for me to learn and allows me to bring my clients’ brand vision to life without compromise.

If you’re an established editor or author who’s ready to be seen as the expert professional you are, Showit is worth the investment.

It’s a favorite among creatives for a reason. And as mentioned above, you can embed almost anything into the site, which is great if you want to use very specific tools that would otherwise be duplicative with another platform. But if you’re just starting out or want to go the DIY route, it may be overkill and not worth the learning commitment.

When To Skip: You’re brand new to your business, you don’t have a strong brand identity or professional brand photos, or you need to sell more than 20 books or products directly from your website.

If you know Showit is the right website platform for you, my Season Two offer can help you launch in just one week. We’ll create a semi-custom Showit website that matches your established brand. Learn more here.

Squarespace – Beautiful Templates to Get You Started 🖼️

What It Is: An all-in-one website builder known for stunning templates and user-friendly design.

Best For:

• Authors or editors who need a professional site without a huge learning curve
• Literary professionals who value aesthetics but aren’t as design-savvy
• Anyone who needs built-in e-commerce for book sales

Pros:

• Gorgeous templates – You can start with something that already looks professional.
• Easy to use – The platform is pretty intuitive, and no coding required unless you want more customization.
• All-in-one – Probably the biggest pro: you have hosting, domain, analytics, email campaigns, and more all included. No outside tools needed.
• Built-in store – You can sell books, courses, or services directly from the platform for easier management.
• Reliable and stable – It rarely crashes or glitches.

Cons:

• Template limitations – You’re working within structure constraints that limit the design you can create without code.
• Potential for “sameness” – Your site might look like others in your niche which doesn’t help you stand out as well.
• E-commerce fees – You run into transaction fees on lower-tier plans which can add up if you have hefty sales.

Pricing: $25-36/month depending on if you want to use code on your site. Plans that have lower transaction fees cost a bit more.

My Honest Take: I’m adding Squarespace to my design toolbelt later in 2026. I think it’s a genuinely solid platform for literary professionals that want something beautiful & functional without the learning curve & management hassle after the site is up and running. The fact that it’s all-in-one is also a great contrasting option to Showit for clients that just want everything under one roof.

When To Skip: You have a very specific design vision that doesn’t fit any templates, you want complete creative freedom, or you have other tools you love and don’t want to duplicate use of.

WordPress – The Tech-Savvy Powerhouse 🔋

What It Is: If you’ve even remotely looked into a website before, you’ve heard of WordPress. It’s the world’s most popular content management system (CMS) that utilizes themes and plugins to bring your website to life.

Best For:

• Really tech-savvy editors and authors who want total control
• Literary professionals who blog frequently and seriously
• Publishing houses or companies who need complex functionality
• Anyone willing to invest in time learning (or hiring a developer)

Pros:

• Highly flexible – With plugins, you can have just about any feature.
• SEO powerhouse – This is where the real power of WordPress lies.
• Longtime blog engine – WP started as a blog-only site at the turn of the century and evolved from there, so it’s clear why their blog functionality is so robust.
• Scalable – When done well, you can scale your business as high as you need.

Cons:

• Steep learning curve – WP is not beginner friendly at all and the platform back-end can be incredibly overwhelming to get acclimated to.
• Maintenance requirements – There’s a lot of updates, security, and backups that you’ll be responsible for.
• Can get expensive – Sure you can start a site on WP for free, but after hosting, using premium themes and plugins for functionality, the costs start to add up.
• Plug-in overload – More plugins means more weight on your site that will ultimately slow it down. A slow website is a big SEO and user experience killer.
• Domain confusion – There’s wordpress.com and wordpress.org. While they’re technically the same company, if you don’t understand the difference between the two, you could end up building your site on the wrong platform.

Pricing: Free on .org, $10-20/month on .com for hosting, but like I said, the themes and plugin use can quickly increase your monthly expenses.

My Honest Take: WordPress is a beast, but it’s really overkill for most literary professionals unless you’re running a really content heavy site like a large publishing house. If you love blogging or want to maximize your search engine capabilities, I’d recommend Showit instead since it uses WP for the blog OR make the investment in a proper WP designer & developer.

When To Skip: You’re not tech-savvy, you want something low maintenance, or you need a simple site that still looks professional.

Shopify – The Go-To for Big Product Sales 🛒

What It Is: The top e-commerce platform designed to sell products online.

Best For:

• Authors selling books, courses, merchandise, or book bundles directly
• Publishing consultants and houses offering digital products
• Anyone whose business model is primarily e-commerce or product-based

Pros:

• E-commerce giant – Truly one of if not THE best platform for selling products. They’ve made their name on e-commerce functionality and they’re really good at it.
• Inventory management – If you have a lot of products, they make it easy to track stock, variants, order details, and more.
• Payment processing – They have a built-in checkout and varied payment options.
• Marketing tools – Discount codes and abandoned cart recovery are easy to setup.
• Professional store – A true storefront that serve both online and in-person businesses.

Cons:

• Transaction fees – Unless you use Shopify Payments, you’ll be paying transaction fees to use other payment processors.
• Overkill for services – As they’re made for products, it’s not an ideal platform if you’re a primarily service-based business.
• Learning curve – More complex e-commerce functionality than Squarespace or Wix which can be difficult to get the hang of.
• Less blog-friendly – Again, Shopify is for products at it’s core, so it’s not great for content marketing like blogging.

Pricing: $39 for the solo plan for a full website, $5 for the starter plan to use Shopify Buy Buttons

My Honest Take: If you’re an author, publishing house, or literary agent whose primary business model involves selling books, courses or merch directly to readers, Shopify is a strong contender and worth considering. But if you’re mainly a service provider or an author with a smaller product suite, a full Shopify site may be too much. I’d say if you have more than 20 products to sell, go directly to Shopify.

When To Skip: You’re selling less than 20 products, are a service-provider, or want a platform that has more all-in-one functionality.

Wix – The Starter Website 🏁

What It Is: A beginner-friendly website builder with tons of templates to get you started.

Best For:

• Brand new authors testing if they need a website
• Editors just starting out who need something up fast
• Literary professionals on a tight budget
• Anyone who wants to DIY without any technical knowledge

Pros:

• Extremely easy – It’s a drag-and-drop builder that offers AI help to create your site if you want it.
• Free option – You can get started for free if you don’t mind having Wix ads and using their domain (which I don’t recommend from a professional standpoint).
• Lots of templates – Like Squarespace, you have a lot of templates to choose from to make getting started easier.
• App marketplace – Similar to WordPress plugins, you can add functionality to your site through Wix apps.

Cons:

• Design limitations – The templates can feel restrictive and even a little dated. It’s hard to make your site look truly custom.
• SEO not as strong – Wix has improved their SEO abilities significantly, but it’s still not as powerful as other platforms.
• Ads on free plan – Your site will show Wix branding unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
• Migration issues – If you’re choosing with scale in mind (which you should be), it can be difficult to move your site elsewhere later on.

Pricing: Free-$29/month for most features

My Honest Take: From design standpoint, I’m not a fan of Wix at all. The platform is slow, feels buggy, and makes it really hard to create something that feels elevated and professional without a lot of manipulation and patience. That being said, I completely understand why authors use it. It’s a good starter platform and is very low commitment while you get your sea legs in the publishing space. But I’d make plans for an upgrade once you’re more established.

When To Skip: You’re already established in your business, you care deeply about design differentiation, or you want strong SEO performance from day one.

Canva – The “Not a Website” Website 💻

What It Is: You’re probably very familiar with Canva, but they also have a website feature that lets you build a simple one-page site in a drag-and-drop fashion.

Best For:

• Brand new authors who need something up quickly with minimal to no learning curve
• Literary professionals who are VERY temporarily between websites
• A quick or simple sales page for a specific product, service, or event
• “Sketching” out design options for an actual website build later

Pros:

• Insanely easy – If you can make a Canva graphic, you can make a Canva “website.”
• Cost-effective – If you already have Canva Pro, you don’t need much extra to create and launch a site through their platform.
• Fast – Because it’s so easy to navigate, you could have a Canva page up in a couple of hours or less.
• Brand kit integration – You can use your existing Canva brand assets easily.

Cons:

• Extremely limited functionality – One-page sites only. No true navigation feature aside from linking to each section of the page or externally to individually published page.
• Poor SEO – You can opt into search engine visibility, but it’s not built for search engine optimization at all.
• Unprofessional appearance – It looks like what it is: a graphic design tool pretending to be a website.
• No scalability – It can’t grow with your business.
• Limited customization – Despite being Canva, it’s very restrictive when you consider the aspects you need access to in a traditional website platform.

Pricing: $15/month via the Canva Pro subscription

My Honest Take: Okay I know it sounds like I absolutely hate Canva. I don’t! I love it for literally everything but a website 😂 I create ALL of my brand and marketing graphics in Canva along with presentations, client templates, and even mockup website designs there. But using it as your true website platform? Can’t recommend.

I totally understand the appeal, and like Wix, it’s fine to start with if you need a placeholder while you decide what you really need out of a website. And if all of your graphics are there, why not build your website there too, right? But Canva screams temporary. Your website should be your online HOME. It’s where people come to decided if you’re worth spending money on, spending time with, or coming back to. It doesn’t allow you to showcase your bingeworthy brand or tell a story with your website the way a traditional builder can. It will push people away instead of inviting people in, which is exactly the opposite of how your website should function.

Use Canva Websites For:

• Testing an idea for a weekend workshop
• A temporary landing page while your real site is being built
• A free resource hub that doesn’t need SEO
• Literally anything except your main business website

Don’t Use Canva Websites For:

• Your professional editing or publishing business
• Building an author platform
• Anything you want to rank on Google
• Attracting premium clients or building a long-term reader community

How to Choose the Best Website Platform for Your Book Business 📝

Okay so now you have a rundown on some of the most popular (and unpopular) website platforms, but which one should you go with? Here are five things you should consider to help you choose:

1. What’s your primary business model?
   • Service-based (editing, agenting) → Showit or Squarespace
   • Author platform with less products → Showit or Squarespace
   • Heavy content → WordPress
   • Large product sales → Shopify or Squarespace
   • Just starting/testing → Wix or Squarespace
2. What’s your design comfort level?
   • Love design, want control → Showit
   • Want beautiful but simple → Squarespace
   • Need more hand-holding → Wix
   • Technical and fearless → WordPress
3. What’s your budget?
   • Under $20/month → Wix, Canva, or WordPress
   • $20-50/month → Showit, Squarespace, or Shopify
   • $50+/month → custom WordPress
4. What’s your timeline?
   • Need it live TODAY → Canva (temporarily) or Wix
   • Need it live this week → Wix or Squarespace, Showit with a designer
   • Can take 2-4 weeks → Squarespace, Showit or Shopify
   • Have 1-3 months → WordPress or any site for a completely custom build
5. Where’s your business headed?
   • Scaling to six figures → Showit, Squarespace, or custom WordPress
   • Testing viability → Wix or Squarespace
   • Building an empire → custom WordPress or Shopify

Your Website Platform May Not Be the Problem 🔬

Now I know we’ve just spent this entire time discussing website platforms, but but what no one tells you is this: the platform doesn’t determine conversions — your brand does.

The platform doesn’t matter if your brand is non-existent. And if your brand isn’t clear, your website won’t convert.

I’ve seen the most gorgeous Showit sites get zero inquiries because the messaging is basic. I’ve also seen some pretty standard Squarespace websites sell products with ease because the positioning of the brand is sharp.

So before you spend hours comparing platforms, make sure you have a strong brand FIRST. In this Atelier, that looks like:

Your website and marketing are vehicles, but they won’t run well without the engine that is your brand. A platform doesn’t fix unclear positioning. It doesn’t clarify who you serve. It doesn’t explain why you’re different. And it definitely doesn’t create authority.

That’s Brand Core → Connection → Character.

The platform simply amplifies what already exists.

Done DIYing Your Website?

If you’re an established author, book editor or other literary creative who has your branding down but are still working off the website you DIYed when you first started — Season Two is my standalone website design service for book brands that need a website to match the business they’ve built. We’ll create a 5-page Showit site in a single week that will reflect your quality of work and support you in gaining opportunities you’ve only dreamed of until now.

→ Explore Season Two: Website Design

Not sure your brand is developed enough to support a new website? Snag a free Bingeworthy Brand DM Audit instead. I’ll review your current brand across your Instagram and/or current website and shoot you a series of short, actionable voice notes via IG direct message covering what’s working and what could be tweaked to serve you better.

→ Get Your Free Brand DM Audit

Choosing a website platform for your book business can be overwhelming, but I hope you now have more guidance on which platform would best suite you. And that’s the key right? You have to choose the best platform for YOU, not just the one that every other author or editor is using. And that looks like a platform that:

• Matches your technical comfort level
• Supports your business model
• Fits your budget (both money and time)
• Scales as you grow

For most established literary professionals, that’s either going to be Showit (for unique design & storytelling) or Squarespace (for all-in-one functionality). If you’re a beginner, Wix or Squarespace will get the job done. For product sellers, Shopify. For tech lovers, WordPress.

And Canva? Only if you need something up in the next hour and plan to upgrade within a month. Otherwise, I’d skip it entirely.

But remember: the platform is just the front man. Your brand is the true foundation that turns visitors into clients or readers into buyers. So choose the platform that gets out of your way and lets your expertise shine ✨

Enjoy this read? Learn something new? Tell me everything in a comment below! And remember, it takes no effort to be kind 😊

---

Disclaimer: The information in this post is for entertainment & subjective educational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as business, legal, medical, marketing, or sales advice.

This blog post may contain affiliate links. By purchasing through these links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend things that I know, love and actually use. Thanks for supporting me!