Reyna By Design: Chapter 11.11, a Memoir by a Trinidad-Born Creator
Published · Education & Coaching
Reyna By Design is a one-book website. Everything on it points to Chapter 11.11, a memoir by Reyna with the subtitle "Stories of the Extraordinary Within the Ordinary." The page opens on a set of beach photographs at sunset, and as you scroll they slide apart to make room for the book. Below that are lines from the book itself, the table of contents, and the full title chapter, free to read.
At a glance
- Who they are: Reyna, a Caribbean creator, artist and entrepreneur. She was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago and lives in Cabarete, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.
- What they sell: Chapter 11.11, a digital memoir, listed at $35.
- Where: Online. The book is read on her site, on any device.
- Who it's for: Readers who want a frank first-person story about hitting bottom and rebuilding, with money, love, forgiveness and spirituality all in the mix.
- Website: Reyna By Design
What the book covers
The book has fifteen parts: a dedication, an introduction, the title chapter "11.11," and twelve numbered chapters. Her site estimates about five hours of reading. In the introduction she says people had been telling her for years to write a book, and this is the result: some of her most private and vulnerable moments, and what she learned from them.
The lines her sales page pulls from the book give a fair idea of the ground it covers.
- In Chapter 5 she is sitting on a beach in Europe with her daughter asleep on her lap and no idea where they will sleep the next night.
- In Chapter 4 she is living in a beachfront villa with nothing to eat.
- In Chapter 8 she asks why, after years of studying business, marketing and sales, she was still broke.
- In Chapter 9 she writes about grieving without guilt and forgiving without forgetting the lesson.
- By Chapter 12 she no longer needs anyone to rescue her, and describes a life she loves living.
The chapter titles set the tone. Some are gentle, like "There Can't Be a Rainbow Without the Rain," "Surrender and Embracing the Unknown," "Forgive Them" and "Mi Pavo Real." Others don't bother with polite language, and the writing is the same way. It reads like someone talking straight to you, not like a self-help manual.
The title chapter is free
The page has a section called "Read before you buy." It holds the chapter that names the book, so a reader can decide whether her voice is for them before paying anything. That chapter explains the idea the book is named for, and her page sums it up in one line from it:
"Not waiting for a miracle, but recognizing that we are already part of one."
The full book is $35. It is a digital book, read in the browser on her site rather than downloaded, so it works the same on a phone or a laptop. You can see it listed under Books by Reyna, and the free chapter sits partway down the Chapter 11.11 page.
A site built around one thing
Plenty of creator sites carry links, a shop, bookings and a gallery all at once. Reyna's does one job. There is no menu of offers to compare. The photographs, the quotes and the contents page all lead to the same button.
On a desktop, the cover appears as a 3D book that comes into view as you scroll. On phones it shows as a flat, tilted cover so the page stays quick to scroll. The page is ivory and gold, to match the cover: gold lettering over a pastel watercolor of flowers and flowing water.
The book's dedication closes with a thank-you to every reader who buys it, for letting her story into their world. Selling the book from her own site means that thank-you goes straight from the author to the reader, with no bookstore in between.
CloserAccess built and hosts Reyna By Design. You can find her among our clients at Reyna By Design on CloserAccess.