3 author websites I made-over in a day
Earlier this year I introduced my new Author VIP Design Day, and I realised recently that I hadn’t talked much about this new service. So I thought it might be a good idea to share a little bit about what this package entails, and show you a few of the author websites that I’ve given a makeover to using it!
What is the Author VIP Design Day?
Design days are a big thing in the web design industry! Especially as website builders have become easier to use, and more people are choosing to DIY their own websites (which by the way, I am a huge fan of!)
A design day is basically when you hire a web designer for a day (or sometimes half a day) so that they can finish off all the jobs on your website that you don’t have time for, or don’t know how to do.
It’s a great way of giving your DIY author website the sign-off by a professional, so you know you haven’t missed off anything vital, PLUS a way to add a little polish and finesse to the design.
I had been offering this service in an adhoc fashion ever since I first launched my web design business - allowing authors to book me for an hour or two to help them with any niggling jobs.
But then I realised it made more sense for me, and also for my website clients, to consolidate this offering into a simple, easy to understand service.
So, you book me for an entire day and in that day I’ll get through as much of your ‘author website to-do list’ as possible.
Interested? You can find out more about this service here →
I absolutely love doing these design days, it’s so satisfying to be able to transform an author’s website from something rather bland and unmemorable to something that they can truly be proud of.
It’s also SO great to be able to help authors who have taken the time to build their own sites but then got frustrated when they were up against something they didn’t know how to do.
Three author websites I made-over in just one day
Like I said, I’ve been doing this for a while, but today I thought I’d share some of my more recent design day makeovers!
Sophie had set up her own Squarespace website and started to populate it, but had never got around to setting it live. She’s a busy author with 16 books to her name (so far!) and just didn’t have the time or headspace to finish it off.
She didn’t want anything too fancy - just a one-page website that listed all her books, plus links to buy, a brief bio, and a call to action for her newsletter,
As she has a big backlist, Sophie booked two VIP days back-to-back and we managed to build and launch her brand new website in just two days.
I absolutely love how Sophie’s site turned out. It’s fun but smart and easy to navigate too, and allows her book covers to really pop.
Sophie’s verdict
“This looks lovely, thank you very much for all your hard work! And you are super speedy. Huge thanks again, you have done an amazing job and I'm really grateful!”
Juliana is a historian and academic and had set up her site herself to showcase her work and her non-fiction books. It was basic and functional but was built on an old Squarespace 7.0 template that was difficult to update and offered very limited functionality.
With her first novel being released imminently, she decided it was a good time to overhaul the website and archive some of the older content, while bringing information about her novel to the forefront.
She also wanted to add newsletter sign-up functionality, plus a press pack with materials for media to be able to access easily.
She booked me for a VIP day and I upgraded the site to a new, more flexible template, added the newsletter sign-up, plus a new page for her novel and an events page too.
I kept the template quite pared-back, keeping it simple but elegant, so that it worked for all facets of Juliana’s career.
Juliana’s verdict
“I’m absolutely delighted with my refreshed website. So much cleaner and easier to navigate. When I set it up myself I made kind of a mess of things and I kept putting off doing anything about it. I couldn’t recommend Charlotte highly enough, it was utterly painless”
Sam is the super-talented author of some truly gripping serial killer books, and initially came to me to ask me to build a website for her.
However, she then decided to have a go at making it herself 👏🏻 and did a great job with getting all the content up and structuring the site efficiently. However, she came back to me as she was struggling to inject life into the design and thought what she had created looked quite bland.
This is my favourite kind of website makeover to do!
We had a quick chat and decided to take inspiration from her amazing covers and use the imagery on them as background banners to the relevant pages. We also went with a bold black and red colour scheme, in keeping with the darkness of her books.
I finished off the day by adding some basic SEO to the site.
I really enjoyed making over Sam’s website, and I think the striking design does her books justice.
Sam’s verdict
“Charlotte, the website is fantastic! Thank you so much. It all looks fabulous!”
Book my help for a day
If this service sounds like something that might be of interest to you, then you can get in touch here to book your very own Author VIP Design Day.
You can also find out more about the Author VIP Design Day here, but of course if you have any questions then just drop me a line and I’ll be happy to advise you!
