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Gemspread Publishing

A clear front door for an independent African publisher and its two imprints.

Visit publishing.gemspread.com(opens in a new tab)
Readers and both kinds of author each have their own route
3 audiences, 3 clear paths
Every enquiry, social media included, ends at the same form
One front door
Authors get a quote and a call booking in one sitting
Interest to estimate
The problem

Why it needed building.

Gemspread Publishing is an independent African publisher with two sides to its business. Harmattan publishes books traditionally. Unbound by Gemspread helps authors publish their own books as a paid service.

Feedback from potential clients was that the old website made the offerings confusing. Readers, authors looking for a publisher, and authors looking for paid help all landed in the same place, with no clear path for any of them. The literary magazine, Ma Kẹkẹ, was also squeezed in as one section of the site, competing with the business for attention. Enquiries came in through scattered channels, and there was no way to tell how people used the site.

What I built

The features that solved it.

Feature 01

A clear home for imprints

Visitors can quickly see the difference between Harmattan and Unbound and find the one that fits them.

The homepage's Our Publishing Imprints section on a laptop: Two publishing paths. Pick the one that fits, a Traditional Publishing / Self-Publishing toggle, and the Harmattan Imprint card with a Discover Harmattan button.
The same section on a phone: the toggle above the Harmattan Imprint card, with its image and description.
The homepage's imprint section on a laptop and a phone: two publishing paths, one toggle to pick between them.

Feature 02

Book pages for the catalogue

Each title has its own page with the cover, description and author details, so it can be linked from launches, events and campaigns.

The book page for The Days We Long For on a laptop: the cover on the left; category, publication date and an Available now box with a Buy button on the right, above the blurb.
The same book page on a phone: title, author and cover, with an Available now bar and Buy button fixed to the bottom of the screen.
The same book page on a laptop and a phone.

Feature 03

A guided route for authors

Authors interested in Unbound can see what's on offer, submit details about their work through a structured form, and get a quick estimate and a link to book an initial call.

The Unbound by Gemspread discovery form on a phone: a short introduction promising an estimate and a free follow-up call, then the first contact fields.
Unbound's discovery form on a phone. It runs on Zoho Forms, linked from the site's publishing page.

Feature 04

Content the team can update

New books and updates can be added without rebuilding the site.

Feature 05

Visitor measurement

Analytics and search tracking set up.

Outcome

What changed.

A professional public face for a young publisher. Partners, retailers and authors can check the business out and find it credible.

One clear front door for authors. Enquiries now follow a single, consistent route instead of arriving through scattered messages.

Every book has a permanent, shareable page that marketing and events can point to.

A clearer site overall. Moving the magazine to its own site let this one focus on the publisher's books and services.

Measurements in place. The business now has a baseline for future digital strategy decisions.

Under the hood

How it’s built.

Next.js and TypeScript on Render, with Tailwind CSS and Framer Motion; Strapi headless CMS on Render with PostgreSQL; Cloudinary for media; Zoho SMTP for enquiries; Google Analytics. The Unbound enquiry route runs on Zoho Forms and Zoho Sheets, with Claude tailoring the reply sent from Zoho Mail.

How a request is served: from a reader, author or partner over HTTPS to Next.js on Render, which relies on Strapi CMS, Cloudinary and Zoho SMTP. Unbound enquiries run separately: Zoho Forms, then Zoho Sheets, then Claude, then Zoho Mail.

Reader, author or partner

Any browser

Next.js on Render

Pages regenerate hourly (ISR) and serve at static speed

Managed services

  • Strapi CMS

    Books, authors and posts, on PostgreSQL

  • Cloudinary

    Pre-sized images from a CDN

  • Zoho SMTP

    Enquiry email

Unbound enquiries

  1. Zoho Forms

    Discovery form, linked from the site

  2. Zoho Sheets

    One row per enquiry

  3. Claude

    Tailors the reply email where needed

  4. Zoho Mail

    Sends the reply to the author

High-level technical architecture diagram

Cost

Images arrive pre-sized from Cloudinary's CDN, so on-server image processing is off and the site runs on a 512 MB instance.

Maintainability and extensibility

The team publishes books, authors and blog posts in the CMS without code changes. One API client converts CMS content for the frontend.

Audience access

Pages regenerate hourly, so they serve at static speed. CDN images, sitemaps and structured data help readers and search engines find the books.

Security

A content security policy and HSTS, and a rate-limited contact form with a honeypot.