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Do Creatives Need Websites?

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There is ongoing debate about whether or not creatives need to have a web presence in addition to being on Twitter, Instagram and/or Facebook.

Many authors and illustrators have decided that their presence on social media is sufficient.

Some, who have had websites in the past, have let them crash and burn and seem to have no intention of resurrecting them.

For those who dislike social media, a website is really essential.

One of the troubles with websites is that they can so quickly go out of date, both in terms of content and design.

It is important that an author or illustrator retains control of their site, and that updates are easy to instigate.

There is no point in having a fancy and elaborate website that can only be appreciated on a laptop. A website needs to be mobile-friendly – just as functional on a mobile phone as on a full-size screen.

Many people assume having a website will involve high ongoing costs. Not so.

Annually renewing costs are limited to hosting and domain charges.

An author/illustrator site should cost no more than £50 a year to host and the domain name registration (usually free in the first year) will be a further £10. So that’s £60 a year, or just £5 a month.

A simple WordPress site is relatively straightforward to set up; much more so than it used to be. There are other options but I would strongly recommend WordPress.

Many people will like to have a little help with this initial setup. There are businesses that specialise in website design. Expect to pay upwards of £500 for bespoke design services.

But help can be found from freelancers for as little as £100. My own fee for WordPress setup ranges from £100 to £500, depending on requirements. Most of my freelance time is currently spent copyediting but I am always happy to help authors with website issues – updating an existing site, or starting one afresh. Reach out (as they say) if you need some advice.
[Other freelancers can be found on Upwork.com]

Isn't WordPress for bloggers?

Not any more, it isn’t. It’s a rich and highly versatile CMS – Content Management System. A WordPress website consists of a mix of Posts and Pages. The balance is entirely up to you. If you don’t want to blog, you don’t need to – your site can consist entirely of menu-related Pages.

So, for as little as £150 in the first year and £5 a month thereafter, you could have a professional and functional online presence.

It's a good time to take stock and decide. Ask yourself:
  • Do I need a website?
  • Is my current website fit for purpose?
  • Do I think an online presence is worth £5 a month?
  • Can I set something up myself with the help of YouTube videos?
  • Do I need the help of a freelancer?
  • Am I flush with funds and able to hire a design company?

An example of a WordPress site we like is that of Lucy Christopher:
https://www.lucychristopher.com

If you do not have a website currently,
or you have a site that is old and no longer fit-for-purpose,
take a moment to consider whether
a site like this would benefit your profile.

 

Telegraph Feature On Boy Behind Mango Bubbles

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Ruben Joseph, aged 11, has used his fondness for technology to set up a website for children’s literature. Called Mango Bubbles, it is a review site, where hundreds of children’s books have been reviewed – all by children.

In the two years since it was launched it has started to make waves in the children’s publishing industry and catch the eye of children’s authors.

But Ruben is remarkably blasé about the venture, which started because he was bored

via Is this Britain’s most influential book reviewer?.

Mango Bubbles is now listed on our Links page…

Thumbs Up, Hi-5 Etc For The Revamped Waterstones Website

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At long last Waterstones has a website worthy of a big bookselling retailer.

The new look/design is a huge improvement on the ‘pathetic’ [Daunt’s own description] previous offering.

The site is beautifully ‘responsive’, making it user-friendly on whatever device you’re using.

The landing page is crisp and clear.

waterstones01

 

And the navigation tab opens up to show a full listing of the online shop’s different ‘departments’.

 

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I would like to see more detail on the individual title listings. The Publisher and ISBN should be included in the box that shows the price, rather than underneath the synopsis.

 

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Amazon is more successful in summarising basic descriptive information. For the same title:

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And also in linking to other editions.

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But all good websites are works in progress and I’m sure Waterstones will want to make improvements in its listings design in the weeks and months ahead.

What the site does really well is promoting its John Lewis style Click-and-Collect service. A good deal of thought has clearly been given to making the website a user-friendly experience for this type of buying. In most cases, the online price will be lower than the store price.

How well this works out in practice will be a determining factor on customer satisfaction. It does mean that individual stores will need to be very on top of their stock audits and that this information will need to be updated to a central database. I assume that this will be done through the till, at point of sale. It is not altogether clear whether the click-and-collect service will apply to same day purchases.

waterstonesclick

A shame that the site’s copy-editors have let that ‘recieve’ slip through 🙁

It’s been a time a-coming, but on the whole then, an extremely promising relaunch.

 

https://www.waterstones.com/

Anthony McGowan’s New Site

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Anthony McGowan has a new site.

mcgowan01

Anthony McGowan’s new mobile-friendly site is now live. I have worked closely with Tony over the past few weeks to achieve a user-friendly design that works on all devices. Our aim was to have a site that firstly looked good on a handheld mobile phone and also scaled up to look fine on a large screen. The result we hope is a clean, simple easy-to-navigate design.

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 08.37.51

Too many author websites (and this was the case with Tony’s previous site) do not have responsive design. This means that the site just condenses down to fit the viewport making text too small to be readable and links too tiny to select. Or the design does not condense at all and overspills the viewing screen making awkward horizontal scrolling a necessity and spoiling the user experience.

In redesigning his old site we wanted to make the new site:

  • responsive/mobile friendly – looking good on all devices/screens
  • simple, with only a small number of landing pages that will be easy to manage and keep up-to-date
  • easily and instantly up-date-able on the fly, on the move, from wherever Tony may be
  • image/illustration light, but neveretheless visual, with photos and graphics looking good on both a smartphone and a big display screen
  • standalone and easily maintained by the author (using WordPress)
  • social media-friendly with blog content that visitors can easily share on Twitter etc.
  • an online buying portal for readers, with both Amazon and LoveReading links

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 08.38.58

The process consisted of a face-to-face meeting and photo session to talk about requirements, select a WordPress theme to base the design on, and to take some author portraits. I then worked on adapting the theme, and adding the content to the site. Tony looked at the work in progress and gave feedback, till we arrived at the finished design.

mcgowanblog

Those who follow Anthony McGowan on Facebook know how hilariously self-ridiculing his accounts of everyday life can be and by sharing these accounts on the blog more people will be able to appreciate this aspect of his writing.

I am grateful to a friend who works for Google who has tested the site on various Google devices including Google glass. Here are some more screenshots:

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 08.38.10

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 08.40.52

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 08.40.21

But visit the site and see for yourself. Hopefully you’ll find it a user-friendly experience whether you’re viewing it on phone, tablet, laptop or large screen. If not, let me know!

If you have a site that needs updating or want to launch a new site and are looking for someone to work with, I’m now available for a new commission.

http://anthonymcgowan.com

Daunt Vows To Revamp Waterstones “Pathetic” Website

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ACHUKA has been a vocal critic of the Waterstones online presence, so the news that James Daunt shares our assessment of its “pathetic” website (as reported in the Bookseller from a speech given at the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) conference in Oxford) comes as very welcome news indeed.

I wrote just over a year ago:
http://www.achuka.co.uk/achockablog/archives/2013/02/daunt-has-no-pl.html
of my disappointment at the announcement that Daunt (as of that time) had “no plans to overhaul the digital operation”, saying:

I think this is incredibly short-sighted and defeatist. Amazon may have started as a bookseller, but it is not a bookseller any more.

I believe proper investment in and development of the Waterstones website experience, alongside the refurbishment and restyling of the instore experience, could have persuaded many people who buy their books from Amazon to use Waterstones online instead.

I fully expected this to be part of the rescue plan, which is why I introduced Waterstones buy-me links when I redesigned ACHUKA in the summer.

This interview with Daunt leads me to the conclusion that there may be little point in trying to promote online purchases via Waterstones if there are no plans to improve the ‘online offer’. By any standards the current online experience at Waterstones.com is not good. The browse results by Bestselling, for example, produce some bizarre lists, with out-of-print titles sometimes appearing in the Top Ten.

At last, it seems, he has seen the damage being done by having such lacklustre online presence.

I am looking forward to the summer revamp with great excitement.

Note also what he says below about the likelihood that there will be more store closures, offset by the opening of new, smaller shops.

watslogo2012useblack

Daunt called Waterstones’ current website “pathetic” and said that it needed to be made “engaging and intelligent”.
“We will have a new platform from July which will give us something more adaptable,” he said.
He said Waterstones still had a place on the high street focused on its “single channel”, and that its relevance came “back to discoverability”. He said Waterstones ought to be “as relevant to Amazon as it is to publishers”, but warned that its stores needed to be “outstanding” to get away with charging the premium price for books it needed to charge to cover its rents.
But he said that in the future he expected Waterstones to be running more shops, but smaller ones. Shops in “inappropriate” locations or those whose customer bases overlapped would be shut as their leases came up for renewal.

via Daunt: Waterstones key to discoverability | The Bookseller.

The Wood of Words Launches | Federation of Children’s Book Groups

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The Federation of Children’s Books Website features the recent launch of Wood Of Words:

The Wood of Words is a new reading development website aimed at engaging children in exciting and engaging reading development opportunities. In order that children have access to this at all the key points in their family, educational and recreational lives, there are three distinct offers, one aimed at families, one aimed at schools and the other aimed at libraries.

via The Wood of Words Launches | Federation of Children's Book Groups.

The Gruffalo’s games-filled website | News | Design Week

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Children’s book character The Gruffalo has a new website, which is filled with games based on illustrations by Axel Scheffler.
The new website has been created by Aardman, working with digital consultancy Disctinction, and was commissioned by Macmillan Children’s Books.

The site is being released ahead of the 15th anniversary of the first Gruffalo book, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Scheffler, which is in 2014.

James Luscombe, head of web development for Pan Macmillan, says, ‘The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are all simultaneously one brand and three distinct brands, and we needed to represent this clearly for the best user experience.’

via The Gruffalo’s games-filled website | News | Design Week.