Yesterday we talked about David J. Rosen’s I want My Pants Back site. We called that a placeholder site but it’s also a book site rather than a broader author Web site.
Another good example of a Web site devoted to a specific book is The Godmother by Carrie Adams.
We really like the design of this site. It picks up the style and artwork from the book cover very nicely and incorporates it into the Web design.
The only problem with this site is that the author herself gets rather lost in the site. Sure, there is a page devoted to her but she also really needs her own author site to highlight her activities and career as an author.
Sites devoted specifically to a single book, particularly a new release, are a very good idea but they do not replace the need for a dedicated site about the author.
Indeed, with this site it’s actually hard to determine how much – if any – input the author had into this site. The footer of the site points to three sites – Reading Circle, Mad About Books, and Waterstone’s. Mad About Books is a site managed by Hodder Headline and if you look closely at The Godmother site then you’ll see an icon that says Headline Review, not that I have any idea what that means but it must somehow be related. So, it looks like this book site may simply be a very good attempt at book arbitrage. Nothing wrong with that but authors shouldn’t feel that they their presence on the Web is complete simply with a publisher/bookseller-based Web site about their books.
& for some buzz about The Godmother by Carrie Adams