How to Build an Author Website with ChatGPT Sites

I’m an author, and I’m also a web designer. That made Obiwey.com an interesting test: could I give ChatGPT Sites the materials, constraints, and judgment I would normally bring to a website project, then let the AI carry much of the implementation through conversation?

After launching the site, my answer is yes — with an important qualifier. The quality of the result came less from saying “build me a website” and more from giving the AI a clear brief, approved materials, real boundaries, and then reviewing what it built as carefully as I would review work from any other creative collaborator.

You can see the finished project at Obiwey.com. It became more than a static book page: English and Mexican Spanish versions, interactive moments from the story, a book-edition chooser, video, accessibility controls, privacy choices, and a custom domain all came together inside one project.

What excites me is how much of this begins with skills authors already have. You know your book. You know when a sentence feels wrong, when an image does not belong, and what you want a new reader to understand before they decide whether to keep going. Those are useful website-directing skills too.

If you’re a self-published author who has already used AI somewhere in your writing or publishing process, building a home for your book may be a natural next experiment. I’ll show you what I prepared, what I learned from building Obiwey.com, and how you can begin without first becoming a web designer.

I’ve also adapted my project brief into a free author website prompt template you can request at the end.

What is ChatGPT Sites?

ChatGPT Sites is OpenAI’s website-building environment for creating, previewing, publishing, and sharing websites and lightweight web applications through conversation. OpenAI currently describes Sites as a public-beta feature available through Work and, on supported desktop setups, Codex; availability can still depend on your plan, workspace settings, rollout, and region.

For this project, I used Sites through Codex. I described what the website needed to do, supplied the source material, reviewed the result, and asked for changes in ordinary language rather than manually building every component myself.

That does not mean the planning disappeared. In many ways, the planning mattered more because the AI could implement decisions quickly. A vague instruction produced room for vague choices; a precise instruction gave it something meaningful to build from.

For an author, a focused first project might simply be one book: its story, cover, description, author information, media, and verified purchase links. You do not need to begin by recreating Amazon, Goodreads, your blog, a store, and your entire publishing life in one website.

Obiwey Gave Me a Real Project to Test

Obiwey: Heart of the City is my story about Leo, a sensitive eleven-year-old, and a small companion robot whose listening is guided by choice. The Spanish edition is Obiwey: Corazón de la Ciudad.

The website needed to introduce their world while reflecting some of the ideas inside the story: noticing, listening, privacy, personal space, consent, and technology that makes its state visible rather than quietly deciding for you. I wanted someone to understand that there was a book to continue into, but I did not want the entire experience to feel like an advertisement waiting for a buy button.

Fortunately, I was not starting with nothing. I already had finished manuscripts, approved artwork, covers, a logo, retail destinations, visual guidelines, an English promotional film, and an older book page that could be audited rather than blindly copied.

The bilingual structure created one useful design problem. The website needed a full English experience and a full Mexican Spanish experience, each with its own address and enough room for the language to breathe naturally on a phone.

Commerce created another. There were twelve Amazon destinations: two book languages, two marketplaces, and three formats. Twelve buttons would have turned a simple choice into a wall of decisions, so the site uses one selector instead. A reader can choose English or Spanish, Amazon USA or Amazon México, and then Kindle, paperback, or hardcover.

That distinction matters. Reading the site in Spanish should not assume you live in Mexico, and reading it in English should not assume you buy from the United States.

Other details came from the book itself. We used existing artwork rather than generating replacements, kept unavailable audiobooks out of the live purchase choices, made the English film load only when someone chooses to watch it, and left the Spanish video honestly unavailable until the Spanish version exists.

The result taught me something simple: a good AI-built website still begins with human decisions.

You Probably Already Have More of the Brief Than You Think

Authors often have the website ingredients scattered across different places. Your final cover may be in one folder, your latest description in another, and the correct purchase link buried in an email you sent three months ago.

Before you ask an AI website builder to make decisions from that pile, bring the approved pieces together. I would start with:

• your exact book title, subtitle if applicable, and author name;
• a book description you are comfortable publishing and a short author bio;
• the final cover and any other artwork you have permission to use;
• current purchase links, clearly labeled by edition, marketplace, and format;
• a simple explanation of who the book is for and what you want a visitor to do next;
• any existing page, brand colors, fonts, or examples that show the feeling you want.

If AI has already helped with your publishing process, you may also have notes about audience, themes, voice, or visual direction. Review those before handing them over. An old brainstorming document can contain ideas you later rejected, and an AI builder cannot know which version won unless you tell it.

You also do not need to upload every file you have ever created. Give it enough verified source material to build accurately, then add manuscript passages or deeper reference material when a detail actually needs checking.

For Obiwey, I made the intake itself part of the instructions. ChatGPT first inventoried the files it already had, then waited while I supplied the image package. Nothing moved into construction until I said, “That is everything. Begin.”

How to Build an Author Website with ChatGPT Sites

1. Give the website one clear job

Before thinking about sections or buttons, write one sentence explaining what the website should help someone do.

Mine could have been reduced to something like: Help a new visitor understand Obiwey, experience enough of its world to become curious, and choose the right edition if they want to continue.

Your goal may be simpler: introduce the book and make it easy to buy. That is enough. You can add a larger author ecosystem, events, courses, memberships, or a blog later when those things have a reason to exist.

2. Give the AI your materials and your boundaries

Tell the builder which sources are current, which files are only reference material, and which things it is not allowed to invent.

For Obiwey, that meant preserving established character and story facts, using only approved artwork, removing obsolete presale language, and never manufacturing reviews, publication facts, prices, or links. Unavailable formats needed to stay unavailable instead of being dressed up as “coming soon” unless I had actually decided that.

You can be just as direct even if you do not know web terminology: “Use these covers. Do not generate replacement art. Do not invent testimonials or retailer links. Ask me if something essential is missing.”

That is already a useful creative brief.

3. Ask for a working private website, not just ideas

Make the deliverable explicit. You want an actual Site that you can open, click through, and review before anyone else sees it.

A simple starting instruction might be for ChatGPT Work:

Use ChatGPT Sites to build a focused website for my book using the approved materials I provide. First inventory the files and identify anything essential that is missing. Make the site readable on phones and accessible by keyboard. Use only my verified purchase links. Keep the first version private for my review, and wait for my approval before making it public.

My downloadable prompt template expands that into a fuller brief covering language versions, images, media, privacy, accessibility, search visibility, testing, and domain connection.

4. Review the result as a reader, not only as the author

Open the preview on your phone first. Look at the opening screen without scrolling and ask whether a stranger can tell what the book is, what kind of experience they have entered, and what they can do next.

Then move through it like a visitor. Check the description against your approved copy, open the book selector, try the video, inspect the images, and test the footer links. If you have another language, give that version the same attention instead of treating it like a translated afterthought.

You do not need a design vocabulary to give useful feedback. “The title is difficult to read over this image,” “this sounds more like a sales pitch than my book,” or “the Spanish button needs more room” are perfectly usable instructions.

I came to Obiwey with years of website experience, so I noticed things a beginner might not notice immediately. But the most important judgment is still available to any author: does this feel clear, accurate, and like the work I meant to put into the world?

5. Make the book easy for people and search systems to identify

Search visibility begins with clarity. Use the real book title and author name, describe the book in language a newcomer can understand, and give each section a heading that tells a scanning reader what they will find there.

For Obiwey, this meant revisiting older SEO ideas rather than treating them as permanent. Phrases around “calming strategies” had once influenced the older page, but they no longer described the book well enough to lead the new site. Search language needed to support the identity of the story instead of replacing it.

Ask the AI to prepare a page title, search description, headings, language settings, and structured information, then ask it to explain what it changed. If you publish in more than one language, each version should have a real address and clear language signals rather than existing only behind a text-switching button.

Google’s own guidance is still a useful reminder here: create helpful material for people first. Clear structure can help search systems understand your work, but neither traditional SEO nor AI search optimization can guarantee rankings or recommendations. Google guidance on helpful, reliable content »

6. Test before you make it public

Ask the AI to run its checks, but do not outsource the final human pass. Click every retailer link yourself and make sure the destination actually opens the edition you intended.

For Obiwey, automated checks could verify that the site was using the approved twelve links, but Amazon verification screens prevented complete automated confirmation of every product page. That was useful information rather than a failure: the system reported its limitation instead of pretending the check had passed.

Also test small screens, keyboard navigation, language switching, video behavior, and any interactive controls. Private review is where small decisions become visible, including links that are technically correct but point somewhere you do not actually want the reader to go.

7. Connect the domain carefully

A domain is the address people type; hosting is where the website runs. ChatGPT Sites can provide the DNS records needed to connect a domain you already own where custom-domain support is available. 

Use the exact records Sites gives you for your project rather than copying DNS values from someone else’s tutorial. Keep unrelated mail, verification, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and other records intact.

You may need to wait while DNS propagates and the HTTPS certificate becomes active. Once it does, test the real production address — and every language path if your site has more than one.

8. Keep the project, not just the published page

Your website will change. A retailer link may break, a new format may become available, you may add a Spanish trailer, or the copy may simply become clearer six months from now.

Return to the same Site and project when you make those updates. Keeping the original brief, source material, and decisions together makes future work much easier than rebuilding your context every time something changes.

What I Would Keep in Mind Before You Start

ChatGPT Sites is still evolving, so check current availability and usage limits before planning a project around it. OpenAI’s current documentation covers Sites in Work and Codex, publishing, workspace controls, custom domains, and supported access.

I would also keep the first project intentionally contained. Reuse the good cover and artwork you already have, group your feedback instead of changing one word at a time, and give the builder a clear source hierarchy so it does not spend time reconciling old drafts you no longer care about.

If what you need is a large ecommerce store, membership platform, or publishing system with frequent content operations, evaluate that separately. A focused book website is a different problem, and the right tool for one is not automatically the right tool for everything.

Most importantly, keep your voice in the review. AI can make a sentence smooth while making it less yours, just as it can produce a polished website that quietly drifts away from the book it was supposed to represent. I wrote more about that in How to Avoid AI Slop and Keep Your Creative Voice.

You Can Start with the Book You Already Have

This project fits the way I approach creative work with AI: I set the direction, give the system useful material, let it help carry out the work, and remain responsible for what gets published.

You may be opening website design for the first time. I was not. But the place we both begin is the same: with the work we are trying to bring into the world.

Gather your cover, description, short bio, and verified purchase links. Explain who the book is for, give the website one clear job, and ask for a private version you can actually review.

You have already made hundreds or thousands of decisions to bring a book this far. A website is not one enormous new decision. It is the next set of smaller ones.

Get My Free Author Website Prompt Template

I adapted the brief behind the Obiwey project into a reusable author website prompt template. It walks you through what to gather, what to tell ChatGPT Sites, what to review, and what to check before you make the finished website public.

Enter your first name and email below and I’ll send you the template. You’ll also receive occasional emails from me about creating with AI and bringing creative work into the world, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.