I Finally Built an Author Website

For months now, people have been asking me some version of the same question:

“Do you have a website?”

Until recently, the honest answer was… not really.

I had a manuscript.
I had a book deal.
I had opinions.
I had a Substack.

What I didn’t have was the one thing every author is apparently supposed to have: a proper author website.

That finally changed.

This week, I launched www.ShantanuRai.com.

And while that might sound like a small, almost administrative milestone, it feels surprisingly significant—because this site represents something I’ve been slowly, cautiously stepping into over the past few years: claiming an identity not just as a physician who writes, but as a writer who happens to be a physician.

If you’ve been following along here, you know that my debut novel, A Dangerous Diagnosis, will be published in February 2026. It’s a medical thriller, but it’s also a story about burnout, moral injury, healthcare inequities, and what happens when medicine drifts too far from its human core.

As the book moves from something intensely private (years of late-night writing, doubt, and revision) into something public, I realized I needed a home for it—and for the broader conversations around it.

The site is intentionally simple. No pop-ups. No hard sells. No “10 steps to optimize your creative funnel.”

Instead, you’ll find:

• The book – what A Dangerous Diagnosis is about, and why I felt compelled to write it

• About me – my path through medicine, writing, and the uneasy space where they overlap

• Media & speaking – for journalists, readers, and organizations interested in the themes the book explores

• This Substack – because this is still where I think most clearly and honestly in public

Over time, it’ll grow. But for now, it’s a starting point.

Building this site felt a bit like publishing my first Substack post all over again—hitting “publish” on something that says, quietly but clearly: yes, I’m doing this.

Medicine trains us to be cautious. Writing—especially fiction—requires a different kind of courage. Putting up an author website is somewhere in between: a small act of visibility that still makes you feel oddly exposed.

But if A Dangerous Diagnosis is about anything, it’s about refusing to stay silent when systems fail people. The website is just another extension of that refusal.

If you’re curious, take a look:

👉 www.ShantanuRai.com

And as always—thank you for reading, for engaging, and for making this strange second career feel a little less solitary.

More soon.

—Shantanu Rai