One option authors have is using Authors On the Web. They specialize in creating web sites just for authors and do pretty good work. Prices start at about $3,000 for a basic site (five pages, all HTML).
At any rate, here's a few good ones:
Tony DiTerlizzi (author/illustrator of the Spiderwick Chronicles)
Nice, rich Flash interface. Not that every author needs something so rich and interactive, it sure is fun.
Neil Gaiman (Coraline, Stardust, The Graveyard Book)
Not eye-popping, exactly, but clean, thoughtfully designed and well-organized. He's also got one of the most popular author blogs on the web.
Jon Scieszka (Time Warp Trio series, Stinky Cheese Man, Trucktown series)
Although it's not exactly an award-winning site in terms of design and look (it's pretty chaotic, actually), I can tell it was put together by someone who knew what they were doing (and not thrown together by an inexperienced author with some cheap WYSIWYG web software). It's certainly not near as butt-ugly as most of the sites I've seen. It is littered with Jon's trademark off-beat sense of humor, which is always entertaining.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter... duh)
Now here's someone with the money to pay for a good site. Rich interactivity (she had a good time hiding clues to her upcoming books on there, you know, back when people looked forward to something from her) Only thing is, it doesn't look like she updates it too often. Most authors keep a fairly regular blog, which is nice, but Jo's a little busy, I guess.
Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl, Airman, Half Moon Investigations) I remember his old site, and that thing was hideous. This is soooo much better. Clean and well-organized, and I really like the electric purple/green color scheme.
That being said, here's a brief list of some of the, uh, homeliest:
Judy Blume
Dave Barry
Cornelia Funke
Jenny Nimmo
Louis Sachar
Dan Gutman
Mary Pope Osborne
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