Trying to find a template either to buy or clone or work from that suits a publishing house like FootSteps Press has been a labour of exasperation. I have viewed hundreds and having dismissed flash as being too glitzy and bandwidth hungry, I have yet to find one that does in a simple and efficient way what all we need to do.
It isn’t so much the ability to publicise the books and detail what pages are needed, that is easy; it isn’t keeping content on site from reviews to videos to readings. Actually placing content so that is visually pleasing and accessible is not at all difficult. The difficult bit for me is choosing a colour scheme. Its how to place the various pieces on the screen so they look well designed and not just stuck wherever one could put them.
And what I find incredible is that to achieve this bit apparently I might need as much as £500 from a professional web designer. Having messed around with WYSIWYG editors I am certain sure that is too expensive. So I am going to go looking and try to get the web page in better shape for the future as more and more artists approach us to being their work in book form to the market place.