Coming Soon: The Barbara Donsky Author Website
Coming soon is the Barbara Donsky Author website. We’re stepping into a whole new world, but the devil is still in the details. Under construction and nearing completion, there are a few snags that need to be ironed out. I’ve become quite fond of this website, as have a number of you, but after two years, it was time for a change. We’re hoping to launch next week. Stay tuned.
Website Designer
Designed by the talented Beth Beauchamp, of Beauchamp/Artist Services, the new website is an imaginative interpretation of the soon-to-be-published Veronica’s Grave: A Daughter’s Memoir. As such, it combines elements from the early years in the beautiful Bronx with those from the later years of traveling the world with TWA and falling in love with Paris. Yes, everything old is new again.
Nearly all of the elegant websites in the Beauchamp/ Artist Services portfolio have been done for artists; mainly, for classical musicians. Creating a website for an author presented a challenge of a different sort, which Beth handled with élan and style. I couldn’t be more pleased with the result, and I hope you will be too.
iBook Designer
There are many new details and features on the site, but the one I’d like to tell you about today is a new iBooks widget that will appear at the end of each blog post. The widget brings you to the iBook of Desperately Seeking Paris, the digital version that was created with the help of Andrew Grachuk, a master eBook designer—aka Jingo-the-Cat.
The iBook is a collection of 13 posts, a baker’s dozen, that I’ve done on art and artists and museums and galleries, both in New York and Paris. As many of you have already seen the original posts, it’s an eye-opener to see how they look when brought together in a digital collection.
The photo of the Eiffel Tower, taken from a moving bus last summer, now adorns the cover. To see the photos in a grouping is dazzling, with every one of the 91 pages having at least one photo.
Around the World
What’s hard to wrap my mind around is that, thanks to Apple, the iBook Desperately Seeking Paris is available in more than 55 countries. For sale at $1.99, it’s a gorgeous compilation showing off the art to maximum advantage. If a daunting task at the outset—even the amazing tech support team at my local ‘Apple’ knew nothing about iBooks—seeing the finished product was worth the effort. All I need do is learn how to promote it in 55+ countries.
Here’s how to find it. Simply use the iBooks app on your iPhone or iPad or Mac. If you’re on a PC, go to the iTunes store. Search for iBooks. Search for Desperately Seeking Paris or Barbara Bracht Donsky. Click on the book. Click on ‘Get Sample.’ Or: ‘Buy Now’.
I’d love to hear what you think about the digital version of Desperate;y Seeking Paris, and of iBooks in general.
Hope to see you next week. I’ll have the coffee ready. And remember, guys and gals, sharing is caring… Merci beaucoup.