This document has been written following a meeting between Elizabeth and David of Transworld Publishing Ltd and Tim and Kruger of HOOP Ltd. It's purpose is to propose the tasks and associated costs of developing a Web Site for Transworld Publishing Ltd, the UKs 4th largest Publisher. The site will need to cater for 2 distinct audiences;
Both audiences need to be wowed by the site, and take away a feeling of Solid Professionalism. In addition books consumers need to be entertained, and the site should stick in their mind as a fun place to find out about books and a safe place to buy them.
Transworld publish a number of imprints, most of which are strong brands in their own right. Initially these brands will be detailed within the main Transworld's site. In the future it is anticipated that each imprint will have it's own URL that caters for the specific audience. All such 'shadow' sites will continue to link to the main Transworld shopping trolley and checkout.
There is a vast amount of exciting technology that can be used to promote Transworld online. The nature of web sites is that it doesn't all need to be achieved at once. The first phase of the site will provide a solid foundation from which Transworld can build. This document details and costs the tasks required to achieve this solid foundation, it also provides further (uncosted) ideas that will enhance the site in the future. A phased development is preferable for all parties;
An often overlooked aspect of launching a web site is that of promotion, both online and off-line. Off-line promotion will be handled by Transworld and used on 'all above line advertising, marketing campaign & press releases'. Online marketing will be coordinated by HOOP, who will contract a specialist online marketing company. This is important as online marketing requires very specific skills.
The majority of people who visit the Transworld site will not have heard of Transworld before, therefor an important aspect of the design should be to establish credibility. This is essentially done by providing highly polished graphics, and references to the 'real' company (a map to and picture of head office, and phone numbers for real people).
Beyond the requirement for a solid feel, the site should be fun with judicious use of animated graphics, and Flash technology (flash is a animated vector graphic content format from Macromedia, that is rapidly becoming a standard for fun things). An example home page design has been produced and can be seen here.
The navigation needs to be consistent, straightforward and intuitive;
A feature of many large sites is 'pesonalisation', where information is gathered about visitors, and then used to deliver customized content (e.g.. SF fans could be identified, and a special home page for SF fans delivered when they visit the site). This is not a feature that will be included in the Transworld site at this stage, as there is a feeling that customization delivers little or no additional value, and can actually annoy and frustrate the visitor by 'pidgeonholeing' them. However it is a technology that will be watched so that if it gains consumer acceptance (and the techie bits work a bit better), we can incorporate it into the site.
Every time we mention a book throughout the site, we will provide a link to the book entry in the database. This will allow visitors to the site to make 'impulse' purchases based on editorial content.
This menu will form navigation to the primary areas of the site. It will contain links to the following pages:
Most of these pages will have a secondary menu listing items in each section.
The home page will contain a brief introduction to the Transworld site, so the visitor instantly knows where they are. The page will then go into brief detail about things happening on the site. For example, a major book launch, or a chat session with an author would be highlighted here. It is important that this page changes regularly, so the visitor is constantly seeing fresh content. A 'quick search' will also be provided where the visitor can easily search the database for a book they are particularly interested in.
The secondary menu on this page will also change frequently, but will start by providing links to some of Transworld's hot authors and impressions. For example:
This page will highlight new items on the site, new publications and press releases. Like the home page, this page will be used to drive people to exciting and interesting areas of the site.
This page will target journalists, allowing visitors to enter their email and area of interest. They can then receive press releases via email.
An archive of press releases will be accessible (What Was New), providing a 'corporate memory'.
The secondary menu of the What's new page will contain links:
Transworld's biggest asset for making an impact online are their authors. Many of these are household names, and can be used to bring people to the site. Initially a couple of Transworld's top authors will be profiled, and the rest simply listed. At least one Author profile should be added each month.
Profiled authors will have their own page, with biographic details, and other tip-bits. It is important that visitors can interact with the authors that are profiled, this can be achieved using email, or by setting up 'chat rooms' where visitors can chat live with authors at specified times.
This page will also be used to give details of Author Tours, and will allow people to join emails lists for news of their favorite authors. Interaction will be encouraged with short quizzes that result in discounts on books etc..
Some of Transworld's authors have a large enough following to justify their own Web Sites, we will look to develop sites for popular authors in partnership with pages that have already been built by fans. These 'unofficial' sites should be encouraged, in paticular, we should look to provide the webmasters with privileged information, in exchange for which they will provide links directly to the bookshop.
The secondary menu of the Authors page will contain links to profiled authors (as we do them), and a link to 'List of all Transworld Authors'. Where possible email and website addresses will be given for authors.
The Transworld Impressions typically have a higher public profile than Transworld. they include:
Like the Authors these Impressions will justify their own web site in time. For stage one, however, we will simply provide a page of information, and list the books and authors published by each. Visitors will be encouraged to leave their email address in order to receive press releases about specific impressions.
This page will also provide an interface to browsing the books in a similar fashion to the Transworld Stocklist. Categories of books are:
Each category will be briefly described, and a 'book of the month' highlighted. A full list of publications in each category will be shown, by selecting a book, visitors will be taken to the database from where they can purchase.
The Audio category has great potential as an online resource. The Internet can now deliver good quality audio which can be used to give prospective customers a sample of the story.
Competitions will be used to promote new books, and generally encourage interaction with visitors. The ultimate aim of all the competitions will be to capture an email address to add to the Transworld mailing lists. Initially the site will be launched with a single competition, built around a major book launch. The competitions should offer tangible rewards, discounts on books, promotional posters, or signed copies.
Transworld regularly have books on the bestsellers lists, and it is worth making the most of this. This page will list the Guardian Fastsellers List, the Transworld Bestsellers List, and a Best-selling Books Online list.
The Search page will allow books on the database to be found by ISBN number, Author, Title, Category and Format. Other fields can also be searched if required. The search will be 'loose', and try and make the best matches possible. This is important as there is nothing so disheartening as a message saying 'Sorry no books matched your requirements'. The results will be returned as a list from where the visitor can review individual books and make purchases.
A help page will be accessible from the Trolley. It will describe the ordering process, and contain answers to Frequently Asked Questions such as 'How long will I have to wait for my book'.
Before the user goes to the checkout, they will be asked for a delivery option, where they will specify where and how they want the books delivered. They can also choose to recalculate the order quantity into whatever currency they prefer. It will be explained that this calculation is for guidance only and their actual transaction will take place in Pounds Sterling.
This page will allow visitors to contact TWP in a number of ways;
Additionally, we will encourage visitors to sign up to a number of Transworld mailing lists. Lists divide into 2 types:
2) Interactive Lists, are used by everybody for discussions. They tend to be moderated only to the extent that 'spam' is kept off. We will need to judge the demand for interactive lists, perhaps by providing visitors with the ability to comment on specific books and authors we will satisfy the demand for comment.
This page is about providing corporate information. It will give information on the following:
It is important not to make this page too stuffy, this is a window into the company and should reflect the fun side of publishing.
The database will be used to hold details of books, it will have a single table for book information. Initially it will contain some 2000 books, growing at about 50 per month. Each record will contain the following fields:
ISBN Number (primary key)
Title
Author
Price (in Pounds Sterling) inc VAT
Price (in Pounds Sterling) ex VAT
Published Date
Format (Hardback/Paperback/Audio)
Category (as per the stocklist)
Description (about 100 words, probably from the cover)
Short Reviews (from the cover)
Scan of cover (as jpg approx. 300 pixels high)
The database will be created using Transworld's stocklists which are currently held in a database. We will write some scripts to extract the data and copy it online. We can provide an online updating interface so that the database can be updated independently.
Cover images will either need to be scanned or provided in electronic format.
The database will be primarily accessed through the Search engine. Throughout the site when books are mentioned, links will provide access direct to books in the database. Some pages (e.g.. for the catalogue) will be generated by reading the database.
Many visitors to the site will not be from the UK. It is important that they can see the price of books in a currency they understand. Wherever a price is displayed, an option will be given to change the currency. Currency conversion rates will be held in the database and can be updated automatically from a reliable web site or maintained by Transworld. It will always be explained that the converted price is for guidance only, and the transaction will take place in pounds sterling.
Having a picture of the cover to the books is essential. Book covers are designed to sell the book, and contribute significantly to both the online and off-line purchasing. The book covers will be stored in .jpg format and have a specific width or height. Images will be referenced from the database.
The ability to securely process a credit card transaction and quickly get the book to the customer are crucial to the success of the site. Visitors will return to the site if they have been well served. If books are dispatched late, or credit card transactions get confused, an online shopper can be lost for good.
Security (or lack of it) is a hot topic when discussing ecommerce. If you do not set up your system correctly you are vulnerable to people steeling numbers, and the bad press generated could easily sink your website. We therefor advise that you pass the transaction processing completely to a 3rd party, this removes any handling or processing of credit cards from Transworld. There are several companies that provide this service (such as Netbanx). We will need to discuss the most appropriate partner to handle this side of things.
We have had a brief discussion with Book Services by Post who currently handle the mail-order distribution for Transworld. They have a 'secure site' for processing credit cards, however vulnerabilities exist, as numbers are still handled physically. It is important to remember that it don't matter who is responsible for a security breach, it will be the Transworld site that suffers.
Time moves quickly online, and people expecting a delivery of books are not impressed by delays. It is essential that the fulfillment house dispatch goods promptly, and provide customers with timely and accurate information. An example of good fulfillment procedures are:
The launch of a major new website is a significant PR event and should be handled as such. The site launch will be tied to a major book lunch which will be heavily promoted on the site, the advantage of this is that a book launch has consumer appeal, whereas a launch of a 'corporate site' is less exciting. As part of the Book / Site launch, we will have a live Internet chat session with the author.
Search Engines are a black art. They are nasty untamed beasts which the entire online community battle with, and there are many hopeless warriors out there offering bulk search engine registration. Unfortunately there is no alternative for hard graft. To appear on the first page of a search engine is a significant achievement and will bring many visitors to the site. HOOP will look to outsource the search engine promotion service to a specialist online promotion agency.
Banners are a good way of bringing qualified visitors to the site, there are essentially 2 types of campaign:
This is the best way to generate traffic to your site. Exchanging links with sites that are relevant to the publishing / book industry will both support individual books, and build more general traffic. It must always be remembered that we are working on a network (the Internet), and networking is crucial to success. Good amateur sites should be supported, even to the extent that we may not seek to do a author profile of our own if a good amateur site can be supported that covers the author.
HOOP do not recommend spam email campaigns. Although they are an easy way to generate traffic to your site, they are strongly detrimental to the image of your site (and therefor company). In the long run, you are looking to build a strong base of loyal customers. Bulk email will not encourage this.
Visitors to the site will be encouraged to leave their email address through a number of mechanisms, including during the purchasing process. If consent is given, these email addresses will be used to build targeted mailing lists. Campaigns that support books, and the site in general will then be run on these lists. Maintenance of Email lists is non-trivial, and can be handled in-house by Transworld, or outsourced to HOOP. It is important that these lists are not abused, online customer loyalty is hard won and easily lost.
Transworld have an existing relationship with Pipex for connectivity, and have registered a domain name with Demon. Neither of these ISPs offer an ideal package for hosting of the Transworld site. All ISPs offer very similar packages, but we require sophisticated access to the back-end server in order to build and implement the database. HOOP have an established relationship with I-way where we have good access to the back-end. We recommend hosting with I-way.
Initially it is probably unnecessary to have a dedicated server for the Transworld site, but this may become required as the site traffic builds.
As part of the hosting service Transworld will receive detailed statistics regarding the site traffic. These will show details such as which pages are most popular and where in the world most traffic comes from. Analysis of these stats is crucial to building a successful site.
It would probably be sensible for Transworld technical staff to meet with I-way (based in Soho), in order to discuss the details of the hosting arrangement.
Site maintenance breaks down into 3areas:
This is designed to keep the site up and running, and breaks down into a number of regular tasks:
The site needs to be kept fresh with new content, this is in addition to simply adding new books to the database. The best mechanism for organizing new and fresh content is around book launches. The site should offer a significant campaign for the big book launch of the month. All of the following can form part of the campaign
Over the first 6-12 months of the site we will look to enhance the Impressions section of the site by doing detailed pages for the Transworld Impressions. As mentioned these are really sites in their own right, and may well benefit from having their own URLs (e.g www.anchor.com)
We can also look to develop pages based around the Catalog headings. For example a Sci-Fi page would detail Transworld's publications in that area, and raise the profile of Sci-Fi books.
All web sites should undergo a significant review every 6 months or so. This should include:
HOOP will act in a proactive manner for all maintenance tasks.
As requested, the initial site build costs have been kept to a minimum by limiting the amount of content on the site for launch. This means that there will be a significant monthly cost as we profile authors and add other content to the site. All costs given here are for guidance only, and will be revised as we discuss this document.
All prices are exclusive of VAT.
The HOOP payment schedule works as follows:
| Commitment to project | 25% |
| Signoff of skeleton and design | 25% |
| Completion and launch | 50% |
Design and build includes site launch and maintenance tasks for the first month.
| Task | Details | Time (hours) | Cost (pounds sterling) |
| Pre Sales Consultancy | Initial Design, Documentation and Meetings | 50 | 1800 |
| Design and Skeleton Site sign-off | HOOP will provide a final design for look, and a text based site (with no content) to establish 'feel' and navigation. Transworld will sign off this look and feel before the site is built | 60 | 2160 |
| Build of Database | The database will allow books to be entered and amended, and allow searches. | 40 | 1440 |
| Population of Database | The database will initially be populated using data supplied by Transworld. A special script will be written to import this data. Scripts will also be written to process the images of covers into a format that is appropriate for the Web | 50 | 1800 |
| Book launch, Author profile: |
Full biographic details, picture of author, list of publications |
15 | 540 |
| Book launch, chat session with Author | Implementation of chat program | 25 | 900 |
| Book launch,Game or competition | A game or competition based on the book being launched. This is difficult to estimate, and will need further cost breakdown. | 35 | 1260 |
| Book launch, Audio or Video interview | This does not cover generation of the content, but rather conversion and editing for the Web | 20 | 720 |
| Build of Home Page | Build of the Home page | 10 | 360 |
|
What's New Page |
Initially this will contain a couple of press releases, and highlight forthcoming events. | 30 | 1080 |
| Authors | In addition to the profiled author, this page will list all Transworld authors, with their email address and web pages (if they have them) | 25 | 900 |
| Impressions and Catalogue | This will provide a brief introduction to each impression and list the bestseller titles for each. It will also list the catalogue sections with a book of the month for each. | 40 | 1440 |
| Competitions | This will contain the game or competition for the book being launched | 10 | 360 |
| Bestsellers | 3 lists of bestsellers | 15 | 540 |
| Links | A links page will be built so that we can reciprocate link exchanges | 10 | 360 |
| Shopping Trolley | This will allow books to be added and removed from the trolley, the delivery method to be specified, and VAT to be calculated. A help page will be written | 30 | 1080 |
| Contact TWP | a variety of contact information | 10 | 360 |
| About TWP | corporate information | 30 | 1080 |
| Integration with ecommerce site | Build a transparent interface to our chosen ecommerce solutions provider, allowing customers to enter their credit card details and delivery address. | 30 | 1080 |
| Currency Converter | This would either be automatically or manually updated and be closely integrated with the Shopping Trolley | 15 | 540 |
| Totals | 550 | 19800 | |
HOOP recommend spending at least 25% of the cost of the site on promoting it online for, and directly after launch. This will cover the design of 2 banners - 1 for Transworld and 1 for the book being launched
Total Cost £5000.
The web site, including the catalogue will probably take up some 25MB of web space. Database hosting is also required. The hosting budget should be £1,400 for the 1st year (including set-up, and Webtrends statistical package). This cost will be payable directly to the chosen ISP. HOOP do not mark-up hosting costs.
Total Cost £1400.00.
| Task | Details | Time (hours) | Cost per month (pounds sterling) |
| Regular Maintenance | As detailed in section 7.1 (excluding addition of new books which can be undertaken by Transworld). HOOP can maintain the books database at a cost of £20 per book added. | 25 | 900 |
| New Content | For a high profile book launch as details in section 7.2. This cost will vary per launch. | 80 | 2880 |
| New Content | Home page and site for an Impression | 50 | 1800 |
| New Content | Page promoting a particular subject area in the catalog | 30 | 1080 |