A custom-built website was seen as very desirable until relatively recently. Using templates was seen as restrictive and provided little scope for the broad range of content, functionality and branding that marketers wanted for their site.

However, this has all changed with the introduction of "publisher themes", a set of interactive templates designed specifically for book publishers and giving most of the benefits of a custom website at a fraction of the cost. Pooling years of experience building publisher websites, our themes include seamless integration with ONIX data; in-built web accessibility; and all the features you would expect from a "best of breed" publishing website: an engaging homepage, fast and accurate search, product pages for each book, author information and bios, events calendar and more.

Our experience shows you can have more, not less, functionality, provide faster access to market, better analytics, tried and tested features, all without having to pay for a custom handbuilt website.

Think of the analogy of buying a car: with all the sophistication that you now expect as you travel from A to B, would you rather pay more for a hand built motor with key driving features, e.g. traction control and navigation, developed just for you, or pay less for a tried-and-tested model that has rolled off  production lines and has been exhaustively road tested and benefits from extensive customer feedback?

When you buy a Supadu templated site all the difficult ground work has been done in advance leaving you to focus on what makes your company, books and authors stand out. From a design perspective our "publisher theme" allows you to customise the templates (almost) as much you wish without messy compromise.

So can a large enterprise really consider these templated themes or frameworks for their complex business needs and infrastructure? Not in all cases for sure but in many cases yes. One of our larger customers has developed their own "publisher theme" to roll out websites in different languages across the world at a fraction of the cost of developing individual sites.

And the final big advantage is perhaps the most precious of all: your time. Building a custom website will require a large commitment from your end involving countless decisions. Don't set out to build your own motor when Supadu has one ready to go!

Templated website:

PROS:

• ‍Reduced time to launch
• Lower cost
• Higher security
• Easier upgrade path
• Easier to support
• Lower requirement for resource
• Frequent feature updates
• Accessible templates
• SEO optimisation
• You won't know they are templates as they all look different

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CONS:

• ‍Potentially functional and design compromises

‍
Customised website:

PROS:

• ‍‍Freedom of design
• Custom functionality

‍
CONS:

• ‍Time
• Cost
• Support
• Upgrade Path
• Resource
• Accessibility