This has taken long, but it is in its last throes. I’m refreshing the P’kaboo Bookshop page so that it is mobile compatible.
A sneak peek behind the scenes: I’ve broken the page into 5 genres (to be divided further as they grow). One of our pet peeves has always been a too-slow-loading page. I know that the connectivity isn’t always that great here; we often wait for a page to load, but it’s a point of pride trying to avoid this on our own website. (Inevitably, what slows down the loading are the social media buttons, and occasionally the Paypal buttons. There isn’t much we can do about that.)
The whole idea is to get the shop mobile-friendly without it losing its appeal on the PC.
What is already updated, mobile-compatible and active:
The home page (www.pkaboo.net); the “about” page; Submissions; Contact Us, and Review a Book page. Furthermore the Young Writers’ Contest (a temporary page); and a few other less important ones.
The Bookshop:
The big project was the Bookshop page (the actual web shop). It was (in its current upload) based on a tables layout. This was the best and most visually logical layout for a decade, until some trendy web teccies decided for no conceivable reason that it’s not “cool” to use tables as a basis for web pages. They changed the way browsers read things, and now tables “break” on smaller screens, i.e. they end up with a load of nonsense stuffed into them sideways by default by the browser. I discovered this, as Murphy’s Law will have it, in the conceivably most embarrassing moment of trying to show off my page to an important mentor. I still don’t know what he was doing with an inferior-sized screen, but just as well, as I would not have discovered this otherwise.
A table was the logical layout of the shop, it made things easy to find. Never mind, check out the nifty accordeon with the links, on the left. All the books are linked into that table. They are still easy to find.
Conceptualizing this and trying out three other (non-successful) options for layout was what took so long with the web shop.
The 5 genres are: Children’s books (including picture books, readers and children’s novels); Science Fiction & Fantasy (a lot of books here!); Poetry and shortstories (lumped together for now, soon to be joined by esoterica); “general” (meaning “other”) and then the music shop (which includes both original music CDs and music books). I am still brainstorming on how to include the imprint of Honeymead into the web shop, and what to call our music imprint.
The music shop is a tough issue, as it contains both “A Tensional Guitarist” and “Krag en Ander Stories”. It doesn’t, and will now never contain the comprehensive guitar method Iain wanted to write. It doesn’t yet, but will in time contain his other originals, an early album he called “No Imagami”, and whichever of his originals he made recordings of, bundled together in a tribute album. This is a project I have not yet started and it may take a long time as it is very emotional. But except for me, there is nobody to do it. And he would definitely want his songs out there. He was such an extrovert.
This page was one of the first that went up on P’kaboo. I think it dates back to 2011. I have not had the heart to remove it; I don’t think I will, but I’ll put an updated page in between linking to this one. R.I.P. Mello Muso.
Book and Author Pages:
These will be the last things I’ll update, and I’ll be selective. Unique and quirky is currently fashionable, as is “retro”. Different authors have different pages, even from different eras of the website; I don’t want them to lose their unique touch; only update them to work on mobiles. But they are right in the back of the queue, as I’m updating the functional pages first.
The new bookshop is of course not yet live, and I’ll have to fix up all the Paypal buttons to reflect the correct pricing and only sell available products. For books that are available in paperback in South Africa, I’ll have to add something into the buttons.
New Books:
Not so much to do with the website but yes, there are a number of them! Even across a number of genres. But I’m also in the deep of setting up processes here in Ireland. If I don’t, I’ll never find my way out of the forest of admin and what-needs-to-happen-next.
Affiliate Program:
Thinking of offering one of those. Keep your eyes peeled for the options.
… and that’s the news with me and the website. Keep your ears peeled and your eyes… er…
🙂 … signing of
gipsika
