First, make note of the strong visual connection via color and design of the book cover and the webpage.
Viewed up close you'll see the various categories that direct to added pages of interest to the viewer. In the left column are links to learn about the author, talks & appearances, invitations to speak, a sampling of other books, information about becoming a "meaning coach", his blogs, his podcasts, and a link to his main website.
In the right column, the reader can find information about this latest book, what readers are saying, the first chapter of the book to sample, book group & study questions, free group telechats, a link to join the virtual book review tour, a telesummit, and a discussion forum.If you've decided to join the virtual book review tour (which eliminates author participation in the usual aspects of a blog book tour, such as interviews and guest blogs), you'll find the page below with links to a biography, photos, questions, and an appearance schedule, all in one handy spot.
When you link to the author bio above, you get the page below which gives you loads of information about Dr. Maisel, as well as enough information about the book to discern its focus, and embedded are links to various points on the site that offer more information.
It's hard to imagine a more well-designed and informative web page for a new book, and no doubt saves the author as well as book reviewers an enormous amount of time tracking down or supplying information. Use it as a guide for your next book promotion. I might make one small improvement and that is to put a Buy-the-Book link in a very obvious place on the main page. Other than that, this website about covers it all in an attractive and concise way.
Still to come, our review of the book - watch here for links and times of broadcast.
7 comments:
Some excellent information here, and I would encourage authors setting up their sites to really take this information to heart. AND to take this to heart: Independent Booksellers DO make a difference in bookselling and it is hard to celebrate an author fully when that author sends interested readers directly to competition websites in order to purchase the book.
LINK INDIE! http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781577316428
Indiebound.org can connect your readers with nearly any book imaginable to all ABA independent booksellers in America. If there is any a problem, the staff at Indiebound.org are very fast to find a solution.
We Independents work very hard to help readers find authors, please help return the favor by including us as well as our competition.
I'd really like to see more buy buttons leading to independent bookstores rather than to amazon.com or B&N. Surely there are local retailers who would be happy to take orders and ship for authors. Why isn't this happening more often?
Dani
Great setup to follow.
Morgan Mandel
I agree that there is much to be praised about this site, but there is a problem with the red buttons and the black type. I could not read the type at all. I am slightly colored blind, which probably accounts for some of my problem, and there are a lot of other who have the impairment to some degree or another.
My daughter has been taking Web design and e-commerce classes and she tells me that using a variety of colors is not always a good approach. Different browsers will display the sites differently and sometimes text gets grayed out entirely.
I can see that there are a lot of positive points about this website design that make it stand out, but like Maryann, I find the contrast in colors very difficult to decipher. But thanks for the example. It has given me some ideas. Now for a bit of time to implement them!
Sharon Reece
http://grandmaisawriter.blogspot.com
Great information, and I'll definitely be incorporating some of this advice to clean up my own act!
It is hard to offer a lot of links to indies, so I appreciated the link to indiebound.org. Though I primarily epub.
Thanks for sharing this example with so much information.
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