Portfolio

Sharon Reamer is an SF author who wanted a site made using a WP theme whose quirks included a slide out sidebar and a banner on the left side of the screen. The theme had a number of limitations imposed by the designer’s whim, and customizing the graphics and the formatting was a fun challenge.

D A Carey is an author of post-apocalyptic fiction. I built his site on the Genesis frramework using a dark color scheme and complimented it with images of wrecked cities. Long term plans include adding a store, but that is an ongoing project.

website

The Creative Penn is a site where authors can learn how to create, publish, and market their first book, and where to go from there.

I provide ongoing maintenance and updates including SSL and plugin replacements due to conflicts, and I add new features on request. Recent changes include tweaks to the site’s AMP pages, a new more efficient search feature, and the addition of a search box in the menu bar.

website

Lateral Action is the site of author, poet, and business coach Mark McGuinness. I helped Mark update a decade old site. First we switched it to HTTPS, and then I identified and replaced outdated plugins, tech that modern web browsers no longer support (Flash video, for example), and page elements that could look better (outdated signup forms).

Mark is also a current support client.

website

Mike Quick is a plumber based in Fredericksburg, VA, and he has also written a few books. He has several sites,  and one of them (onlineplumbingadvice.com) was a very basic affair based on the twenty eleven WordPress theme (Wayback Machine).

I replaced the theme with a better design, tweaked it to suit his blogging style, and fixed spelling and formatting errors in the content. I also added the usual security and SEO plugins on the backend.

website

Lisa’s site needed a lot of work, including both updates and a migration to a new hosting company.

I added HTTPS, imported blog posts from Lisa’s old blog, and then moved the site from Godaddy to Bluehost. The site is now faster, costs less to run, and and will have better SEO as a result of the added blog posts.

website

Dreamwatch is an indie press. It had a well established site that needed a refresh.

I created a new front page for the site, and added a second blog. The new home page is designed to bring all three of Dreamwatch’s main activities to your attention, and entices you to find out more.

website

The New Praetorians is a new series from an author named RK Syrus. I was tasked with creating a minimalist low-effort site on WordPress.com that promotes the series and is easy to update.

website

This is an event calendar I designed and launched in early 2020 / late 2019. The site collects all the writing events in the Northern Virginia region, including conferences, workshops, book fairs, etc. The site was built by adapting my Author Website in a Box project to fill a very different purpose.

website

Jody Lebel is a book narrator and voice-over actor. She wanted a simple single-page site which promoted her services. The site I built (and host) is colorful in an understated way. It tells visitors what they need to know without getting in the way.

website

Mystic Writers is a small collective of writers based in Connecticut. Their site was scratch-built, and deliberately kept simple so that you noticed their work rather than the site itself.

website

This was a simple rebrand, and it came out rather well. Julia is an established SF author with a new urban fantasy series which was being shopped to publishers. I had to rebrand her site so that it looked less like an SF author’s site and more like the site of an urban fantasy author. I did not have a lot to work with (the series is still unpublished) but I think this project came out well.

website

My local writing club’s new website was a fun project which I proposed and carried out pro bono. It has a simple design which we all think looks great.

website