In a very short time, I will be launching my self-published short-story collection, WITH A LITTLE HELP. This is a complicated beast: there’s a free ebook in several formats; the paperback is a print-on-demand that comes in four different covers; the hardcover is a super-premium item in a limited edition. There’s a free, downloadable audiobook, licensed for easy inclusion in your podcast feed; you can also buy the disc. You can donate cash to me, you can also donate copies to worthy institutions that are seeking same. If you report a typo, I’ll give you a footnote on that page, and I’m also releasing a monthly status update giving all my income and outgo. There’s also a gallery of hundreds of scans of paper ephemera donated by writer friends for inclusion in the limited-edition hardcover.
Since 2003, I’ve used the same template, with minor tweaks, for each of my book-sites; it was designed by the amazing Mena Trott for my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and great as it is, it’s not quite up to par for this.
Which is where you come in: I’m looking for a quick-and-handsome template that is identifiably of a piece with the rest of my sites, but accomodates four covers, the downloads, the audiobook, the limited hardcover, the special reports, the gallery of scanned ephemera, the two donation methods…
Got any ideas? Sketches? Send them along and if I use your design, I’ll trade you one of the first twenty limited-edition hardcovers to come off the press.
