What Is The Best Template For an Online Novel?

Aloha

   I wrote a cli-fi historic novel called No Man Needs Nothing last year.

    The story involves the homeless situation in California, the English transportation laws of 1718, solar trees and the main character, a homeless man in San Francisco who calls himself Hunter Gatherer.

   Arrested and jailed for Grand Theft Auto With Special Circumstances for stealing a Tesla, Hunter Gatherer is standing in line shackled wearing an orange jump suit, and is walking toward a C5A Galaxy that will transport him to the Northern Territory of Australia - which has been terraformed with solar trees into a wide open penal colony where the vagrants, drug addicts , thieves and other desirables are transported to.

    And now I want to publish the novel online, a chapter at a time, and leave it open to comment and suggestions, the way the writer of The Martian first showed that story to the world.

    I am looking for a template that will allow these elements:

     1. A home page with a title, subtitle and images from the story.    

     2. A page with the author's biography and the thesis/synopsis for the story, and how it came about and what it intends to accomplish.  

      3. A table of contents page where each chapter is listed and each chapter clicks through to a page with 1000 - 2000 words, and images with clickable links.

       4. A way for people to comment on each page - edits, suggestions, criticisms, etc.

      Does that make sense? 

      All suggestions for the ideal template appreciated.

      Mahaloha and Happy New Year.

      ben

Hi. With this question, you should post on some FB groups, you will get more opinions.

+ Squarespace Customization Resource Group
+ Squarespace Community

+ Squarespace Entrepreneurs
 

Have you looked at the templates at < https://www.squarespace.com/templates >? Did any of them peak your interest?

From your list I'm not seeing anything that looks particularly difficult at first glance. But the devil is in the details so it could be more involved as you dig deeper into the process.

From what you describe almost any template would be able to handle your list as long as you like the look of it.

19 hours ago, thebenmalibu said:

4. A way for people to comment on each page - edits, suggestions, criticisms, etc.

If you want commenting across many of your pages then Disqus is a starting point.

Please as @tuanphan suggests reach out to the communities mentioned to get a wider perspective on the issues. Someone may have done a self-publishing type of website of their own and might have some valuable insights.

Of course this forum is here to help with what issues we can.

As a writer myself, lots of templates could possibly do this, but from my experiece look at Avenue. 

Here is the demo:

https://avenue-demo.squarespace.com/ 

And here is mine with a lot of emphasis on story writing. 

my random views