When I was contacted about Authory potentially sponsoring a newsletter, I said "no." I don't accept sponsors for any of my newsletters. But... I took a look anyway. I was impressed. So I offered to write up a review instead.
That's what you'll find in this post: one part review, and one part tutorial on how to set up your own Authory account.
This post is not sponsored. I'm not an affiliate. There's nothing in this for me other than connecting you with something I genuinely believe might help you. So if you're looking for a way to host a self-updating portfolio, or you're looking for a substitute for hosting your own website, this one's for you.
What is Authory?
Authory is a portfolio platform for writers and other creators.
It allows you to manually or automatically add samples to your portfolio. You can build a subscriber list right on the platform. And you can add additional pages, basically using Authory as a substitute for a self-hosted professional website.
Authory Features
Here's a quick look at some of Authory's core features:
- A self-updating portfolio
- The ability to manually add portfolio pieces via links or uploading PDFs
- A browser extension to help you add portfolio samples
- "Collections" to help you sort portfolio pieces in any way you please
- The ability to share individual collections (such as sharing only relevant industry or niche pieces with a potential new client)
- Automated archive backups, so you have a backup of published works even if the original is removed (set to private, so no republishing-related copyright concerns)
- Portable .xml or .html backups so you can move your Authory content should you want to in the future
- Daily tracking emails to notify you of where and when your articles are published
- The ability to use a custom domain (professional plans only)
- Email lists / newsletters right in Authory's platform (automatically share your latest content as daily or weekly digests)
- Social media analytics for your content
- An RSS feed for your content
- No manual technical maintenance on your part
And I'm sure I'm missing things. Authory is an impressively-complete solution.
Authory vs Professional Websites
Let me start by saying something I've preached for many years: "owned media" is better than "rented media" when it comes to your professional presence.
Platforms like Authory are rented media.
A website you own and fully control with a domain registrar and hosting company is owned media.
Learn more about owned media and rented media, and why owned media should generally be your priority before deciding if Authory is right for you.
When Rented Media Options Like Authory Make the Most Sense
All that said, I've been at this long enough (both freelancing and web development) to have seen more than a few colleagues get burned because they didn't know how to set up or maintain their own professional websites.
- Hacks because they didn't keep things up-to-date
- Years of lost work because they didn't do basic regular backups
- Forgetting to renew domain names and having their brands and domains taken over by spammers or scammers (which hurts more than yourself when every link pointing to that domain suddenly points to a malicious site)
You should have your own professional website.
But maybe not until you've picked up a basic understanding of what that involves, how you can protect your work, and the basic maintenance it requires.
Until then, Authory is an option that can take on the technical burden while still giving you a visible presence and something to link potential clients to.
It's also a great option if you're brand new to freelancing and you're still figuring out if this is a long-term plan, or if you know you'll only freelance temporarily, such as during school or in-between traditional jobs.
The Importance of Portability
If you must use rented media, portability should be an absolute requirement.
You need to be able to back up your content. In the case of email lists, you need to have access to list exports.
If you can't later move everything to another service or your own site, it's not portable, and it's not a good idea for professional use.
Tying your data into a system you can't leave is how some companies lock customers into long-time payments even when they're unhappy with the service.
Authory doesn't do this!
I was pleasantly surprised at how much attention Authory put into portability.
You can export your content archive to have it imported into another system. And if you build an email list through their platform, you can also export that list to move your subscribers into a new email marketing system if you ever want to.
So Kudos to the Authory team for that.
I have a lot of respect for companies that respect their users. And it says a lot about a service when they make it easy to leave, incentivizing themselves to offer something users love and choose to stick with.
Getting Started with an Authory Portfolio
Interested in taking Authory for a test drive? Let's go over how you can set up your portfolio.
Creating Your Account
Here's a quick walkthrough on getting your new Authory account up and running.
Initial Setup
The first thing to do is to create a new Authory login for your account. Look for the button in the image above near the top right of the Authory website. Click on "Get started for free."
This takes you to a window where you can choose to set up your new account by using your Google account or another email address.
Once you've logged into your new account, you'll see the header portion on the portfolio edit screen. It looks like the image above, with spaces to enter a headline, subheadline, a photo, and a cover that will stretch across the top of your portfolio.
Add your profile photo.
Click on the circle to add your profile photo. This will generally be a headshot.
Enter a headline.
Click where it says "Enter headline." This is a good place to enter your full name, or your brand name if you operate under one.
Add a subheadline.
Next click on "Enter subheadline." This is where you might include a title or description of the type of writer you are or the type of work you take on.
Add your portfolio cover.
Click where it says "Edit Cover." Here you'll be able to choose an image or color to stretch across the header area of your portfolio. It will display behind your profile photo, name, and subheadline.
For your cover, you can choose an image from Authory's collection. You can upload your own image. Or you can choose a solid color for your cover background.
Include your social media links.
Next, you can add some optional sections to your portfolio. Start with your social media links.
Look for the buttons in the image above in the top right of your header area on the portfolio edit screen. Click "add social media" first. You'll see a pop-up with a list of social media platforms you can include.
I chose to just include LinkedIn as it's the most professionally-relevant one.
This is also where you can add a link to your existing professional website if you have one.
Add buttons to subscribe or contact you.
Next click the button on your edit page that says "Add Contact & Subscribe." You'll then get a window that looks like this when both button options are selected:
On this screen, you can choose to add a subscribe button (for a list managed on Authory's platform). You can also choose to add what they call a "highlight button."
This can either link to a contact form through Authory (so potential clients can message you directly), or you can have a custom button point to a link of your choosing.
The latter would be ideal if you have your own email marketing service and want to link to an off-platform subscribe page, or if you have your own contact form, such as a project brief form on your own site.
Adjust your layout.
Near the top-right of the portfolio edit screen, you'll see a link called "Layout." Click that to access basic layout options for your portfolio.
Here you can choose to center or left-align your header (headshot, name, et.). You can also choose how your profile items will display (grid format, as a list, etc.) I kept the example below simple, with a centered header and list-style for portfolio items that would display below.
You can preview more layouts by browsing freelance writer portfolio examples on Authory's site.
Adding Portfolio Pieces
Now that your basic portfolio page is set up, you'll want to add portfolio pieces.
First, decide how you want to add these to collections, or if you'll only have one primary collection. For example, if you work on different project types or for different industries, you might want to create specialized collections to feature those samples together.
To add a new collection, click the "Add collection" link. You can give each collection a name, description, and its own cover background image or color. Once you've done this, it's time to add portfolio pieces.
Add Portfolio Pieces to Collections
When it comes to adding samples to your portfolio, Authory gives you several options. Start by opening a collection. Then look for the button that says "Add work samples to this collection." Click it and you'll see two options:
- Import or upload new content
- Select content from my content archive
As your portfolio is new and there's nothing in your archive yet, you'll want to click the first option to import or upload new content.
As a freelance writer, you'll likely focus on articles, PDFs, and the "Webpages & Emails" options.
Let's focus on adding articles. Click the "Articles" button and you'll see you have several ways to add these portfolio samples.
Adding Articles to Authory
You can add articles to your Authory portfolio by:
- importing articles with your byline from specific websites;
- adding links to individual articles you want to include;
- using the browser extension to add published clips;
- using Authory as a blog of sorts, publishing articles directly to your portfolio.
Normally I'd recommend only blogging on your own site. But that last option could be helpful if you're brand new to freelance writing and you don't have any published clips yet.
The ability to import articles in a semi-automated way is a huge bonus. I'll admit though... I was concerned when I first saw this option.
You see, another writer married into my name. And another service (Muck Rack) used to add this other writer's work to my profile without my consent or approval.
It wouldn't have been a big deal except for the fact that some of those samples were on the kind of site I'd spent years warning other freelancers about. It made me look like a hypocrite, and that didn't exactly make me happy.
Fortunately, that hasn't happened in a while. But my concern was that this feature risked something similar happening.
Thankfully though, Authory has protections built in.
Rather than randomly scouring the web for any mention of your name that could be a credited clip, you can simply tell it which sites to search for your bylines.
For example, share a link to one of your bylined posts on a client's website, and Authory can then automatically find other content there credited to you and add it to your portfolio. Then, if you continue to publish new content with that source, Authory will continue to import new pieces to your content archive automatically.
You then have the option to move those portfolio pieces into collections as you see fit.
Creating Additional Pages
I won't get into a tutorial on this part, but Authory also lets you add additional pages, treating it more like a website than just a portfolio.
For example, if you don't have a separate professional website, you might set up an About page here, and a Services page to detail your writing services and rates, or whatever other pages make sense for your target clients.
You can find the link to create a new page near the top left of your header in the portfolio edit page.
Making the Most of Your Authory Account
If you opt to use Authory, here are a few ideas to help you get the most out of it:
1. Use Authory to amplify your existing presence.
If you already have a professional site, does it get enough visibility? If not, Authory can serve as another way for potential clients to find you. And if they like the work you showcase there, you can link your Authory portfolio back to your main site.
2. Create a more complete portfolio.
It doesn't always make sense to have a huge portfolio on your main professional website. It can be overwhelming for prospects to sort through. And you want them converting and contacting you, not reading everything you've written over the years.
So consider sharing only your best or favorite writing samples on your website. Then use Authory to create a more complete portfolio with everything you can find.
Set up collections based on niches, industries, or project types (or all three). Then send links to specific collections targeted to individual prospects if they want to see more samples.
3. Use Authory as a media kit / newsroom.
This won't apply to every freelancer, but as someone coming from a PR background, I immediately noticed how well-designed Authory is to serve as not just a portfolio, but also a newsroom.
Are you also an author? You could use Authory as a media kit to highlight news coverage around your book. Are you a subject matter expert using media exposure to help attract clients? Again, use Authory to highlight coverage where you're cited as an expert source, interviewed, or featured.
You could also use the option to publish directly via Authory to post your press releases there for publishing or business projects you take on. You can use the email digests to build a list of people interested in the latest updates on your books, appearances, or whatever else is relevant to your business.
As much as Authory is a focused product, the platform itself is pretty versatile.
4. Use a custom domain name.
With Authory's professional plan, you can use your own domain name for your new portfolio. I highly recommend this.
Portability of your content is great. But if you don't control the domain name from the start, you don't control redirects if you move things later.
That means any links pointing to your portfolio on Authory's domain can't be manually redirected to specific pages on your new site if you move things to another platform or host.
In other words, if you can't redirect the links, you'll essentially have to start from scratch later.
A Minor Ask...
While Authory comes across as a well-designed product, I did run into one issue at the crossroads of SEO and accessibility. And I'm hoping it's something that can be addressed in the future.
SEO will always be important if a newer writer uses a service like Authory as a primary site / portfolio. For that, it's important that writers can add at least some content to the main page beyond the dynamic list of portfolio pieces.
My initial thought was that it would be nice to be able to add a single text box above and below that feed. For example, to include a short bio in one of those places, or to be able to list services without needing a separate page.
You can technically already do this at the top of your page, using the subheadline section. It's not ideal, because then you lose the ability to add a subheading describing what you do. It also appears over your cover image or color, and that itself can be an accessibility issue due to things like contrast.
If you do add a paragraph or two in this subheadline section, and you want an otherwise centered heading area, all that text also centers. And that's the other accessibility issue. That text would need to remain left-aligned even if the photo and your name are centered.
I'd love to see some option to address this in the future so writers can add some additional content for SEO purposes without causing accessibility issues with alignment or contrast.
Other than that, no real concerns.
The Verdict
There's a lot to like here. It's rare I agree to review things here. It's even rarer I'd recommend using any rented media platform.
But Authory is a rare gem.
While it doesn't make sense for my own situation (existing platform of over 20 years, heavy on ghostwritten work, SEO cannibalization concerns due to existing properties, etc.), Authory looks like a great option, especially for newer freelancers looking for a quick and easy way to set up an initial professional presence.
Whether you're looking for a self-updating portfolio to complement your existing site, or you want a full professional site substitute, Authory can handle both and whatever you might need in-between.
Even if you're only interested in organizing and backing up years' worth of work, Authory can help with that too, even semi-automating the process.
The ability to start building an email list right on the platform is a big perk. And what seals the deal for me is the portability, both of that email list and your portfolio content.
Authory might not be necessary for all freelance writers, but if you don't want to manage running a site yourself, this is worth a look. And with a 14-day free trial, why not give it a try?
