Summer is a great time for reading. School’s out, and it’s probably too darned hot to do much of anything else. That’s why you see so many summer reading and “best books of the summer” lists floating around the Internet. But speaking of the Internet, technology is changing how we approach summer reading, just like it’s changing just about everything else.
Chances are you’ve heard of beach books, right? They’re the “easily digestible” books that are perfect for reading on a long flight, in a poolside chair, or, of course, at the beach. The kind of books that you find in airport bookstores or the book counter at your local Walmart. The books you reach for when it’s “too hot out for Tolstoy,” as Kim Rollins put it. Beach reads used to be mass market paperbacks, cheap, thick books you could snag from a spinner rack. Those days are mostly in the rearview now, though, and this summer you’re more likely to see someone reclining poolside with their Kindle or Nook than a disposable paperback.
People read everywhere nowadays, thanks to the ubiquity of mobile devices, whether it’s on the bus, in the park, on their lunch break, you name it. Nobody wants to pack along a bag full of paperbacks, so instead they just stock up their Kindle with new titles, and when they finish one book, it’s easy to buy another one direct from their device. So this summer, make sure your books are easy to find and buy with the click of a button. A Clockpunk Studios website that’s optimized for mobile browsing can help!
In the first quarter of 2015, vendors shipped more than 334 million smartphones. That means that just about everyone has got one, and they use them for, well, just about everything, from surfing the web to shopping to, yes, reading books. People in the United States spend an average of almost 3 hours a day looking at their mobile devices, and more than half check their phones within 15 minutes of getting up or going to bed. That’s a good argument to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile browsing, regardless of what device your readers happen to use. Luckily, that’s something we can help with here at Clockpunk Studios.
So whether your book is a classic beach read, or something else entirely, chances are this summer people will be reading your work and visiting your site on their mobile devices, so it’s high time that you get your website ready for mobile browsing today. Then you can kick back with a cold drink, some nice shade, and a beach book of your own, and enjoy a relaxing summer without needing to worry.