Why is there a new SCBWI website?
Technology moves fast, and our old site became outdated. The SCBWI website isn’t just a page for people to find information about the organization. It’s a place where members need to be able to experience their member benefits with ease and fun. A vibrant place to learn and grow as a creator, connect with the children’s book community, apply for awards and grants, showcase your work, get discovered, get inspired, and sell books. It also needs to be an enticing place for new members to join, for industry professionals to discover talent and connect with SCBWI members, and for the public to find books for young children. We are confident that the new site will allow us to provide more to our members and the entire children’s book community.
How will this benefit me as a member?
Besides the new site being easier and more fun to use, and allowing you better access to all that SCBWI membership provides, the site will also be up to date with all current technological functionality, for example, SEO, so that more people can find you and your work. With new and improved design and analytics, we can track how people use the site and can make additions and improvements to the site based on what SCBWI members and industry publishing professionals need and want.
What’s different from the old site?
We’ve striven to keep what’s good about the old site and let go of anything that wasn’t working. We switched from a WordPress format, which the organization had outgrown, to an open-source, customized format that allows us to change and grow as we need. The new site is easier to navigate, the design is fresh, and we can now feature many more members’ artwork throughout the site, allowing for more exposure for SCBWI members. The new payment system, Stripe, allows non-US members to pay for membership and events in their home country’s currency. The entire site is now GDPR compliant, ensuring online security for members around the world. The new site is one of the ways that SCBWI is shifting into a more truly global organization and providing value for members around the world. A big change with the new site is the emphasis on the Member Home, and our ability to share content, news, and opportunities with our members without relying on emails crowding up inboxes. In the new Member Home, you’ll find your Feed (so the content comes straight to you), your library of resources, your events info and access, and your galleries where you can upload your books and illustrations. The new Member Home will be your online home base at SCBWI. Your new public member profile will look great and be informative–it will be a page that you’ll want to share widely.
Is the site completely finished?
The new SCBWI website will never be completely finished, and that’s the beauty of it! When we launch the new site, it is just the beginning. We already have a few additions planned for the site after we launch including Critique Groups and Speakers’ Bureau. We’ll also gather member input and feedback to keep making improvements, changes, and additions to the site as time goes on. We will review feedback and analytics on an ongoing basis so that we can continue to improve the site so that it never gets stale or outdated. The more that SCBWI members use the site and share feedback, the better the site will be.