Websites, Social Media and the Small Press: What You May Be Missing - Part I

Posted by Donna on January 10, 2010 under branding, creative writing programs, publishers, web design | Read the First Comment

Imagine your small press website was a book’s jacket cover.  Would you keep reading?

This week is bittersweet. My final semester in the MFA program at Wilkes University is coming to an end. For our MFA internship, we could take either a teaching track or publishing track. I chose publishing because I felt it made more sense given my background in marketing; I wanted to blend my two loves. So, my publishing internship was with Etruscan Press, a small, non-profit literary press housed at Wilkes University’s creative writing offices. This was a perfect match, as it allowed me to take my professional experience in eCommerce and social media and put it to use in the literary and publishing world.

The Etruscan Press website was outdated and the small press was very eager to learn the ropes of blogging and social media for itself and its authors. So, I presented a project plan which included a redesigned website and blog, a social media guide for Etruscan Press authors, and a social media plan for the press itself. This week, a half-year of work comes to a close: the new website will go live the week of January 11. All parties are thrilled with the new look and feel of the website. Have a peek:

Screen shot of Etruscan Press' redesigned website. Shown, the homepage with cascading navigation.

Which brings us to the point of this post.

This blog is focused on social media, but I really feel I should write something regarding website design. After all, Twitter and Facebook are just a few strategies to the overall marketing plan for writers and publishers. One of the higher level goals may be to get traffic to your website and that means how your personal or professional website looks matters. You don’t want Facebook to be your sole web presence. And, when you link to things from Twitter, your site should look presentable.

While investigating how to set up the website, we looked to other small press websites for inspiration.  And, while editing the former Etruscan’s links page to make sure all links still worked, I came across dozens of other literary websites. What I found in my travels left a lot to be desired. There was so much room for opportunity on many of these independent press websites. I don’t want to be critical of an industry I love, but I guess this is just some tough love. I’ve been told often I am too nice, so this post is a way for me to also show that I can really be a critic, too! And, lots of types of people read this blog, so while small press websites were the inspiration for this post, the information is useful to anyone with a website. In fact, literary magazines are another area I see that could overall use an overhaul in the website department.

Feel fresh, new and more professional

As a small press, you are likely seeking out the newest book that, in addition to be a great piece of literature, will look great on store shelves. The same care should be taken with your website design. Think of your small press website as the book cover for your small press. Would you want to be published by you, solely based on the way your site looks? And, when old classics get reprinted, don’t the covers often get a fresh look? The average website should be designed every 2-4 years, depending on your industry. If you were early to the websites game and started with a free Geocities or Homestead site and then let it go, you’ve let a whole world pass you by.

The times, they are changing (Thanks, Bob!). Think about what image you are portraying to your audience, who could include writers, agents, editors, critics, and other consumers of literature who visited your site for a reason. Let your site convey professionalism.

There are general industry guidelines for submitting queries, right? The same could be said for web design. There are best practices to follow, no matter what the industry. By day, I work in eCommerce, and am often asked to do mini-deconstructions of online stores. That said, I am always in that mode whenever I land on a website. I may be a bit more critical than some, but for good reason – you have less than ten seconds to captures someone’s attention when they land on a website. And, the eye looks at a website a certain way. Now that the Internet has been a part of our everyday lives for some time, trends have emerged. These trends have trained us to know where to click and if your site’s layout and navigation ignores the norm, you could be turning people off.

What are some key signs your small press website may need a redesign? Here are some of my observations:

• Cookie cutter templates – I still see some small press websites that look like they were designed with a default Microsoft Publisher web page template – the one with the ovals and bars. You are different; your publishing house website should be, too. From simple color tweaks to a fully custom design, don’t slack on the originality department. You don’t for your books, do you?
• Animated graphics – these are so outdated. In the early 90s, they were cute. Today, they are laughable. Not talking flash here; that can be very tasteful. I’m talking about the Send us an Email graphic where a note folds itself up and pops itself into a mailbox and similar .gifs.
• Left justified and/or sites – best practices deem sites should be centered and widened. Monitors have grown in recent years.
• Cluttered menus or poor navigation– Do you have a very long menu, or do people have to click many times to get where they are going, perhaps to find hidden pages? All higher-level pages should be linkable from the homepage menu, and ideally, some kind of expanding or cascading navigation to show subcategories. There should be some clear structure to point people where to go so they don’t have to guess. The navigation menu should also be global, meaning the menu doesn’t disappear or change when you are on a certain page. This may happen if you create your site in a program where you make each page individually. If you are one of those who are still creating your website one HTML page at a time, good news. Those cumbersome days are over! Wordpress is a fantastic platform that will save you a ton of time because it dynamically generates a lot, and at its basic level, its free.
• Image-based navigation -text-based navigation is best for SEO and just looks better than big graphics everywhere
• Gobbledygook – so many sites had no consistency in branding or layout from page to page. When you design a book or lay out a literary magazine, there is a set of fonts and rules you use. (A Colophon?) But, I see websites with one color and font here, another over there. I see big fonts, small fonts, everywhere a new font, font. I see cluttered images and just no consistency with page flow.
• Hidden information – no one wants to be overwhelmed with queries, but you also shouldn’t bury contact information. Chances are, a good chunk of people are visiting you to find submission guidelines. Link directly to that page from your homepage. Also, is your phone number and mailing address on your website? People often use your website as a source for information. Make your contact information available easily so that people can contact you. Maybe a bookseller wants information about buying books or booking a reading. Maybe an agent wants to contact you about a potential author. Maybe the media wants to talk to you. Don’t make this information hard to find.
• Website missing – If you are a small press that used to have a website, but no longer do, listen up. That website address may still be out there and it may come up when people are searching for you. What is there now? I don’t want to embarrass the press in case they still do exist, but one small press link I clicked on went to a site for Hot Russian Brides. The domain had expired and someone new took it. Curious, I Googled the name of the press to see if there was a new domain for it. I didn’t find a new website, but I did find a ton of market listings that linked to this publisher as well – with the site that goes to the Russian Bride site. So, watch your domain name! Don’t let them expire. (For more tips on owning your brand in the search engines, read this post.) If you moved your site, contact everyone you know of that is linking to you so they can also update accordingly.
• Google Ads - Google ads are a fine way for some to generate revenue, but I strongly feel it cheapens a professional organization’s website. It’s one thing to have on a personal blog or hobby website, but for a true company that makes its money selling books, I think Google ads just look in poor taste. If you do want to find ways to make money from your website, perhaps partnering with companies as an affiliate with literary-related or other companies that offer products/services valuable to your audience makes more sense. Besides, unless you really customize your adsense account, you have little control over what ads show.
• Social media missing - there were so many sites I came across that did not list Twitter, Facebook, a link to a blog It could be very well that a lot of these small presses are active in these spaces, but have not updated their websites to reflect this. Bridge the two. That’s what it’s all about!
• Piece-mealed sites - sometimes, just by looking at a site, you can see that it’s just pieced together. Maybe the original webmaster/designer is no longer in contact, so whoever took over did the best they could, with what they had. Over time, this leads to sloppy code on the back end, slow load times, and on the front end, a lot of the gobbledygook I discussed above. A redesign is often needed to wipe all that out and start fresh.

I realize as I write this, this this is turning into a very long post, so I will stop with those few. I just am so passionate about a properly-designed, professional website that I can’t shut up about it sometimes! Based on the length so far, I just decided to make this a two-part series, so stayed tuned for the second part on social media and small presses. But real quick, here are some reasons some small presses may be outdated:

It’s too hard to redesign a website for a small press
It’s not hard at all! Sure, there may be a learning curve, but when you use a platform like WordPress, which is what I used for Etruscan Press, it’s so user-friendly. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use Wordpress. It’s what is known as a WYSIWYG editor - what you see is what you get. Although, you can edit in HTML, too, or go back and forth. Wordpress has free themes you can use, and for more customization, you can host your own site and purchase and modify templates to match your branding, or have a custom template designed for you. The most important thing is to get on a new, updated platform, so if you need to take baby steps, at least get on a clean platform that will give you room for growth.

It’s too expensive to get a redesign for a independent press website
If you take the nearly-free route of using WordPress, it won’t cost you much. You may want to have someone make custom graphics or a custom header. You may want to buy some stock photos to use. You may choose to host the site yourself. So, there could be minimal costs, but as you can see, there are cost-effective and even free ways to get a small press website redesigned. Of course, my full-time job is for a web developer and therefore I am a huge advocate of totally custom design. That’s the route I’d ultimately suggest, but working with a small press, I understand the budget limitations many may face, especially if they are non-profits. On the other hand, see what types of grants are available. Technology is so huge right now in the arts. Having a quality website can help you take your press further, attract more readers, attract more writers, etc. Use that to your advantage. Use that to justify the cost. The long-term benefits of a professional design are worth it.

There’s not enough resources to build or manage a redesign project
Small presses are often that: small. Look to MFA programs and find design interns. There are folks, like me, who are getting MFAs and need internships who are more interested in the business side of writing goes where the internship is concerned. Interns can work as project-based interns. That’s how Etruscan got their new website! Once the site is created and the main pages are added, there really isn’t much maintainence. You may want to add new books as they are released and keep events updated, so there are few key pages you may regularly update, but it’s managable. If you have a blog along with your website, that should be updated several times per week. For help with that, enlist guest bloggers or create a bunch of posts ahead of time and preschedule them.

I don’t know how to find a good designer
There are freelancers and professional companies alike that can come to your aid if you do want to leave it to a professional to build and design your site. Start with your local area. Contact me privately if you want some recommendations, as I enlisted a programmer I know to help with the Etruscan site. I would also highly recommend Solid Cactus, and not because I work there, but because I’ve seen what my colleagues have done to transform websites. (Especially if you are looking for a way to sell books online - you will also need a secure shopping cart solution.)

>>Want feedback on your website? Whether you are a independent press, an author, a bookseller, or whatever type of site you have, please comment below with your website and I will, within a week of your comment, provide some feedback on your site. I would love to help you find an opportunity to get your site up to date! Notate if you want me to send your comments to you privately, otherwise I will write them in the comments so that all can learn. It’d be great to start a nice dialogue!

In closing, here’s another screen shot of the new Etruscan site. The homepage features rotating banners. The image above showed one, and here’s another:

New Etruscan Press homepage, showing another view as the banners rotate through to show new titles, and other messages