Reedsy profile URL https://reedsy.com/emily-carlin

Overview

I'm a designer and web developer with a specialty in custom WordPress websites for authors. I've been working with authors for over 10 years including New York Times and USA Today Bestselling authors Jill Shalvis, Maisey Yates, Sarah Morgan and Monica Murphy. Working with so many authors has led me to develop systems to make their lives easier by not having to spend hours tinkering with their websites. I created a customized interface inside WordPress so you can quickly and easily add new books, including covers, excerpts, links to booksellers, reviews and other information all in one single place.

Since I’m both a designer and a developer that means I’ll be working on every aspect of your website from the initial design to the development (coding) and installation of the site. I don't disappear once your site is complete, either. I'm happy to provide ongoing maintenance to all clients that would like the help. I don’t use theme frameworks or templates, all my code is clean, semantic and completely customized for you and your project.

Working with me, you'll get a WordPress-powered website with a completely custom mobile-friendly design, a custom logo, social media buttons and contact form. I’ll also include my recommended plugins to help optimize, backup and secure your site, as well as a few I’ve found that just make updating your site easier.

Whether you’ve been writing for years or you’re just starting out, creating and maintaining a website can seem like a daunting task and I'm here to make it as simple as possible to efficiently promote your work and broaden your readership so that you can focus on the important stuff–your books!

Services

Website

Fiction

Children's - Middle Grade

Paranormal Romance

Romance

Women's Fiction

Young Adult & Teen

Non-Fiction

Cooking & Food Wine & Spirits

Law

Works with

Squarespace

WordPress

Web Designer and WordPress Developer

Self-employed

November, 2005 – Present (about 13 years)

I am the owner of a web design studio that works with authors, bloggers and small businesses. I create custom websites with the goal of elegantly and efficiently promoting my client's work and broadening their readership/brand to the widest possible audience.

Author Heidi Betts

Heidi came to me wanting a fresh update on her website to reflect her flirty, funny, yet genuinely romantic style. She loves being able to play around with her site and make her own headers that she can switch out to reflect new releases, different pages or even different times of the year. I worked with her to create a design that matched the colorful, energetic tone she wanted for the site while still letting her add her own personal touches.

Author Vivienne Lorret

I initially designed Vivienne's website back in 2015 but she came back this year wanting to refresh the design and simplify things a bit. The design was always meant to match the tone of her historical romances as well as have a fun nod to the copious amounts of tea she drinks. For the update I simplified the graphics and added a slideshow of her books on the home page so they would be much easier to browse. I'm also in the process of updating the site to be more mobile friendly.

Taste of Beirut (Cookbook author Joumana Accad)

Joumana Accad is a cookbook author and blogger who came to me wanting a cleaner and more streamlined website that matched with the branding of her cookbook and showcased all of her recipes and services. Her website had to incorporate her many passions including food, writing and photography. I worked with her to create a website that promoted her cookbook and recipes with a clean, organized and easily browseable design.

Author Carla Laureano (C.E. Laureano)

Carla wanted to create separate websites for her romance and fantasy novels. She wanted the website for her romance novels to be very light and fresh. Water features heavily into all of her romance novels, so I used water/wave imagery to give the refreshing tone she was looking for. She wanted the website for her fantasy series to be dark and moody. I worked with her to create two designs with completely different tones but with enough similarities that you could tell they were from the same author.

Author Sarah Morgan

Sarah came to me wanting an easier to maintain website with a design that matched the tone of her contemporary romance books. She lives and works in the UK, but all of her books are released in the US as well. This makes things complicated since her books have different UK and US covers as well as different release dates. I moved her site over to WordPress and created a custom interface so she could easily add all of the covers and book info in one place. And I worked to create a design that displayed everything clearly so that both UK and US readers could easily find and buy her books.

I currently still work with Sarah when she needs website updates/maintenance and to send out newsletter updates to her almost 6000 subscribers.

Author Melissa Wiley

Melissa is a longtime client who came back to me wanting to refresh her website design to focus on her newer children's books. I came up with a fun and colorful design incorporating lovely illustrations provided by Melissa's friend. Melissa also has a very popular blog and she likes to be able to play with it from time to time to change up the header or sidebar graphics. I worked to create a design that matched with the rest of her site while giving her the freedom to change things up whenever she liked.

Author Beth Williamson

Beth writes historical and contemporary romance and as she notes on her site, she has a special place in her heart for cowboys. I had an absolute blast designing this website with it's focus on cowboys and the Southwest. I came up with a design that matched the tone of her books while still being elegant and fun.