The Bearing is NGANDIWEB's self publishing platform for African authors. I built the author writing and publishing side of it on my own.
The brief was to collapse the whole journey into one place. Write the book, keep it consistent, get a cover, buy an ISBN, order the services you need, publish. No exporting, no re-uploading, no lost work.
So the manuscript is the spine. It saves as you type, keeps a version history you can roll back, and never needs uploading again when you move between writing, ordering a cover, and buying an ISBN. The AI sits inside the editor rather than beside it, suggesting as you write and running consistency checks across characters, plot and timeline on demand, metered against a monthly quota so nobody gets a surprise bill.
From there it opens out. Eight services with real prices and stated turnarounds, some bought outright, most quoted, all tracked in one place. Then the part I did not expect to enjoy building: a public author profile, short Knowledge Drops that go straight to followers, and reading Circles hosted around a book once it is out. A writing tool at one end, a small publishing economy at the other.
Three ways to sign in including magic link. English and French throughout. Light and dark. A guided tour for first timers and a public roadmap authors can push on.
"Lumigrid built and delivered our entire full-stack platform from the ground up. Clean code, a beautiful interface, and it just works exactly like it's supposed to. We couldn't be happier with the final product."
