New beginnings
January has always been a time of change and new beginnings. This year, that has meant finally getting around to the website revamp we've been talking about since Google told us we weren't "mobile friendly" well over a year ago. The last time we really looked at the layout of our website and its content was back in the days of html4, so certainly an update was long overdue. Once we made the decision it all became rather fun. Sitting in front of the fire making font choices and photo selections became a nice break from setting type and printing in the icy workshop.
On the advice of friends, Squarespace became our choice for the slick new look of the page itself (both mobile and tablet friendly!). We love how user-friendly it is (even Graham is having a go) and how many slick new features it has. Things that took us weeks to cobble together in html (hello tables), are a breeze with the new interface. We are optimistic it can meet our needs for the future. The new interface revealed all the flaws of our amateur photography. Alice Smith of Bracket Press and The Idler came to our rescue. She spent much of the Christmas break halfway up a ladder trying to get attractive photos of our books in the fading December light. Drop by the Shop and take a look; we think her results are remarkable. With multiple pictures of each title, close up and distance shots mean that you should really get a feel for the book as an object as well as a text.
These days we have fallen down the Instagram rabbit hole. It sometimes feels as if we divide all of our spare time pretty equally between 'discussing' books and politics on Twitter and posting photos of our garden, the dogs or a nice bit of printing that has caught our eye over on Instagram. As a nod to that, we've added an Instagram feed on our home page if you want All Things Incline without any distraction.
Finally, we have never really warmed to the idea of a blog; we'd rather be printing. Hopeful readers will know that the one connected to our old site rusted with disuse. Nevertheless, we intent to try to use the News heading as a forum to talk about all things Incline. Do not be too surprised if it remains the purview of Books we are thinking about and Books we are publishing (that is to say, the digital version of the pre-publication offer and the prospectus). But since #nothingbuthandmadebooks has long been our hash tag of choice, that may be just as well. Comments are enabled on the blog, and we've included our email address at the foot of each page, as well. Please get in touch. We welcome criticism and comment and positively thrive on praise.
