Making Indie Publishing Accessible
Making Indie Publishing Accessible
FRONTLIST simplifies the book launch process for indie authors. It relies on well-designed workflows that hide complexities of the process from users.
FRONTLIST simplifies the book launch process for indie authors. It relies on well-designed workflows that hide complexities of the process from users.
Project Summary
Industry
Author Services, B2C
Year
2023
Role
Designer, researcher, founder
Results
Market validation
The Problems
Book publishing is an old, broken industry:
heavily fractured workflows
lack of automation
extreme user overwhelm
Book publishing is an old, broken industry:
heavily fractured workflows
lack of automation
extreme user overwhelm
User Overwhelm
Authors just want to write. Yet to launch a self-published book, there is no single source of truth that explains what to do, when, and how.
Authors just want to write. Yet to launch a self-published book, there is no single source of truth that explains what to do, when, and how.
There are 60-80 milestones in any given book launch! And multiple tasks per milestone.
The information that is available can often appear contradictory because the process is conditional upon what a person’s launch goals are. So “launch goals” became the starting point to onboard into this app.
All of those milestones are conditionally exposed to the user (or not) depending on their launch goals.
The information that is available can often appear contradictory because the process is conditional upon what a person’s launch goals are. So “launch goals” became the starting point to onboard into this app.
All of those milestones are conditionally exposed to the user (or not) depending on their launch goals.
Three Core User Experiences
Three Core User Experiences
Discovering Automations
The first step in planning out the application was to consider all the workflows involved from “I have a book” to “My book is launched and people know about it.”
After I identified all the tasks, I mapped out the dependencies between them and plotted them on a timeline. For each milestone, I evaluated if and how it could be automated. The goal was not only to simply the work being done but also to remove as much of it from the user’s plate as possible.
The first step in planning out the application was to consider all the workflows involved from “I have a book” to “My book is launched and people know about it.”
After I identified all the tasks, I mapped out the dependencies between them and plotted them on a timeline. For each milestone, I evaluated if and how it could be automated. The goal was not only to simply the work being done but also to remove as much of it from the user’s plate as possible.
Results
Results
Frontlist has yet to launch, but the reaction from user validation interviews has been overwhelmingly positive. There's a clear and pressing need in the market.