In my search around the web for publishers sites, two stood out. Tin House Books, and, surprisingly, The Mountaineers Books. I tried to find sites that encapsulated the following criteria: navigational ease, number of audiences addressed, home page layout, and if I were a book buyer, would I keep searching past the homepage?
I thought Tin House did a great job of addressing pretty much everyone except children. The site was well laid out, they had a good sampling of books to sell, and it seemed authors would have an easy time finding what they needed in the General Info button. They're holding a writing workshop in July, which was easy to find, not buried under seven links. Everything is at the top of the page, not near the bottom. I think the site accomplished the task of addressing each audience well due to the nature of the way it was laid out. Sometimes publishers are tab-happy, and have everything on their site, like Chronicle Books, although I LOVE their stuff. Chronicle's site is great, but there is so much going on that it's almost overwhelming. The message on their site is so BUY, BUY, BUY, that for authors and writers trying to find information may not get to that portion of the page, because they push products, gifts, and calendars so aggressively.
So, I stumbled upon The Mountaineers Books, which is a run through The Mountaineers Club. What a fantastic job they did defining and addressing their niche market! It may not have all the flash plug-in software like 'ol Chronicle, but they did a better job addressing their customers through easy to find tabs, interesting related topics, and a cool book on the homepage (I have a thing for all things owl-y). There's an interesting video, product purchasing information, and links to Facebook and other nature-oriented organizations that have similar markets. I really think linking to other pages is important.
Then Jen told me to check out the atrocity that is Future Tense Books, which is having a launch party tomorrow for a pretty cool book, that got a pretty rad review in the Portland Mercury. Yet, I have no idea who the #@%! they are trying to address. The site is all black and has juvenile-looking graphics, and looks like it's built for buying books, but the book page is one huge list of author, after author, after author. There has to be a better way. Like, perhaps, organizing the books link under genre, or a link to your mission statement, or NOT USING BLACK AS A HOMEPAGE COLOR!!! I didn't get the sense that they cared who their audience was, as long as they had a website up so they could sell to this mystery market. The site was an overall turn-off and therefore, a loser.
N.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Yes, owls are very cool. Tin House gets an A+. Are you sure you didn't get Chronicle and Mountaineers mixed up? Future Tense? Yeah, what were they thinking? Still, I was curious about the book launch that Jenn posted. I'd go, too, if I weren't too busy trying to figure out how not to make a website like that one.
I understand why you would think I mixed these up. I understand that the layout of Mountaineers Books was clunky, but in terms of niche marketing, I thought it was well organized. And they understood what their readers were there for. I do think Chronicle is a great site, but like I said, much of their information is buried under glitzy flash and the drive to sell. Which I understand. I think they're doing an amazing job generating sales from their site. But for me, it was kind of overload. Like I was going to have some sort of seizure. Perhaps I'm still on the fence.
I was interested in that launch, too. I'd go too, but I'd have to be there right now.
Post a Comment