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Author Website Design required by LCBarlow
Lindsey Barlow paid $2299 for a new Website Design and received 14 designs from 7 Designers.
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By San
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Author Website Design required by LCBarlow By Lindsey Barlow

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    Note : Design brief last updated on  
    Contest title

    Author Website Design required by LCBarlow

    What is your organization or website name?
    L. C. Barlow
    Briefly describe what you do and your target audience.
    My name is Lindsey Barlow (I write under L.C. Barlow), and I recently signed a three book deal with California Coldblood Books, an imprint of Rare Bird Books, for a horror trilogy I have been working on for the past five years. I have quickly realized that I need to get an author website set up as soon as possible.

    The books - Pivot, Perish, and Peak - will be published in 2019, 2020, and 2021. My first book, Pivot, I had originally self-published, and it received over 65,000 downloads. I never set up a mailing list for my fans, and so this website would be making up for a huge oversight on my part. I would like this site to direct traffic to the pre-order pages for my books on Amazon, as soon as they're up, as well as provide an area for people to submit their email addresses for updates on new books.

    I have a couple of head shots and images for the first and second novels.

    In addition to having links to my books, I would like to have an area for my blog on the website. I have also recently interviewed twelve successful self-published authors, including Andy Weir, Christopher Paolini, Michael Sullivan, and Orna Ross, and I thought it would be cool to set up a separate page to include those interviews.

    I want the website to link to my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.

    I would like the following pages: home page, books, about, blog, and potentially a page for the interviews I conducted. This last page might just be labeled "Other Projects" to include several items, including the interviews.

    I would like the URL to be www.lcbarlow.com.

    I would need the website to be user-friendly so that I can easily go in and create a new blog post or add updates.

    Author websites I like include Josh Malerman's, Anne Rice's, and Ashwin Sanghi's.

    My target audience would be readers of paranormal horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction.

    I have attached a few photos that will be included in the site.

    Thank you so much for your time.
    Select your industry
    Entertainment & Arts
    If you have an existing website, please list it here.
    I have no existing author website.
    What ideas do you have for the style/theme of your website design?
    This is a little tough to answer. I like small artistic details in websites (such as what happens when you hover above a link - whether there's a circle around the text, or a flash of color). I like the idea of a website seeming dainty but also having texture. I like flashes of colors. I do think my book covers should be front and center. I like the idea of having some sort of depth to the website. Small images related to writing - like a stack of books or typewriter on a velvet chair - might be nice additions, though I could see a website being designed well without them. I don't mind the idea of having a slight Victorian touch to the website, potentially, such as containing gold frames - like that around a mirror. Again, though, I could see receiving a design that doesn't necessarily have this.
    What websites can designers draw inspiration from?
    http://joshmalerman.com/ - I like the splash of colors, the texture, the layers.

    https://www.sanghi.in/index.html - I like the small artistic details.

    www.annerice.com - I like the immersion and opulence.

    I really like the texture on the following websites:

    https://timothylobrien.com/
    http://www.onarussell.com/
    http://laurenkatenovels.com/
    http://joshmalerman.com/

    They all have a sense of depth.
    What do you like about these site?
    http://joshmalerman.com/ - I like the splash of colors, the texture, the layers.

    https://www.sanghi.in/index.html - I like the small artistic details.

    www.annerice.com - I like the immersion and opulence.

    I really like the texture on the following websites:

    https://timothylobrien.com/
    http://www.onarussell.com/
    http://laurenkatenovels.com/
    http://joshmalerman.com/

    They all have a sense of depth.
    What would you like on each page?
    In the home page, I would like links to the books as well as one of the author images. At the top should be links to my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. In the about page, an image of myself and a place for the author description. In the blog page, I would like a simple blog with the ability to add tags. In the Other Projects page, I would like an area for the interviews I conducted with self-published authors, as well as the ability to add other projects at a later time.

    Author Bio: L.C. Barlow is a writer and professor working primarily in the field of speculative fiction. She has an MA in English and is currently attaining her MFA in Creative Writing with a focus on popular fiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. She has studied with popular writers, including Nancy Holder, Elizabeth Hand, Ted Deppe, James Patrick Kelly, Elizabeth Searle, David Anthony Durham, and Theodora Goss. Her work has been published in Oak Bend Review, Flash Fiction World, Linguistic Erosion, Flashes in the Dark, Separate Worlds, Every Day Fiction, and Popular Culture Review. Her fiction has reached over sixty-five thousand readers and garnered praise, including a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Awards, a winner of the Indie Reader Discovery Awards, a winner of the eLit Awards, and IndieReader's Best Books of 2014. Barlow’s horror trilogy – Pivot, Perish, and Peak – was picked up in 2018 by California Coldblood Books, an imprint of Rare Bird Books. The first of the trilogy, Pivot, will be released in the Fall of 2019. Barlow lives in Dallas, TX with her two cats, Smaug and Dusty.
    List any colors, themes or other elements that you don't want included.
    I would avoid making the website out of purely dark colors. I don't want an overwhelmingly dark website.

    Also, I am not sure there is a need for drop down menus. All the links to all the pages should be straight across at the top of the website.
    Visual Brief - Style
    Visual Brief - Color

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