Back when I was a dewy-eyed young writer, I paid a ridiculous amount of cash for a website, because that's what I thought I should do.

My "official" website was never anything more than a parrot of identical postings on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, & Tumblr. And if anyone wanted to look for one of my books, Amazon and Smashwords or wonderful Goodreads are the places to go.

Now, five years in, I cannot speak as to a single reader that cash cow of a website has ever gleaned.

So my question to you (if you're reading this): Are official websites really necessary? I mean really. Do you, as a reader, visit the websites of your favorite authors? Would you start or stop reading an author's material based on the author's "official" webpage?

Interested to hear your thoughts.