Challenge: Creating an in-depth one page site for an academic book with broader appeal for a first-time author.
We created a site for the history professor and author Nina Kushner who needed an online presence for her book Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth Century Paris. The site is also a proof of concept for a responsive one page book site. Online activity around a title like this takes place on; Amazon and Barnes & Noble, on review pages and sites of both traditional media and blogs, on goodreads, on Twitter & Facebook, and even the Publisher’s site. So a single page book site isn’t to become a destination but to serve as an online reference that the author can control and a place where someone who is following a link. The site is responsive and works on laptop, tablet, and phone. It provides a summary, an excerpt that is inline and can be read on all the devices, it holds links to a few reviews, and provides links to buy. The site can also be expanded to be rather deep with a blog, a calendar, a mailing list.
We believe that authors should also develop sites like this for their titles that tie in and complement their author sites. In Nina’s case it was her first book, she wasn’t blogging but most importantly the name of the book determined the URL where we built the site. As you can imagine the name was not available.
Nina is coming out with another book and also is planning on doing some blogging so the site will soon have another iteration.
