This summer I have spent a lot of time upgrading websites from Squarespace 7.0 to Squarespace 7.1.  It’s one of my favourite things to do as I get to tidy up websites at the same time, and can usually get the migration done in one day.

AI chatter is all the rage in all the author communities I am a part of - and very little of it is good! Authors, agents and publishers are - understandably - grappling with this huge change to our industry and at the moment, it feels as though we are all just waiting to see what happens when the dust settles.

Several web designers (including me 😠) have recently been targeted by phishing emails that impersonate us.

These days, it truly is possible to create your own stunning website without being an expert. All it takes is time – most web platforms such as Squarespace and Wix are easy to use – once you’ve got over the initial learning curve, and learnt your way around their content management systems.

You’ll be surprised at the number of authors I talk to who say they don’t think author websites are necessary. 

Did you know most people will visit your author website on their phone?

So it’s super important that your author website looks just as good on mobile as it does on desktop!

Oh, thrillers… the twisty plots, the unreliable narrators, the heart-in-your-mouth pacing. What’s not to love?

If you’re an author, it’s tempting to think of your website as a static thing. You build it once then leave it. A bio, a list of books, a contact page, job done! 

I had an email from one of my most recent website clients recently asking me if there was anything she should be doing to back up her new website.

One of the things I love the most about Squarespace is the fact that the platform is constantly evolving. In fact, they add so many new features that often - even as a professional designer - I find it hard to keep up.

If you have a site on Squarespace 7.0 and you have been quietly pretending that the newer version does not exist, trust me, you are not alone!

If you’ve ever sat down to plan your author website and had no idea where to even start, you’re definitely not alone!

One of the most common issues I hear from authors is not knowing how many pages they need on their shiny new author website.

I’m super excited today to be introducing a brand new service at the studio: Squarespace Fridays! 

I speak to many authors about their websites and one of the things that often crops up is their lack of confidence when it comes to making design decisions, especially when it comes to colour. 

You know that moment when you look at your author website and think… ugh? Maybe your last book cover is missing, your newsletter sign-up is buried three clicks deep, and your bio still says you live with “two small children” who are now in secondary school. You keep meaning to fix it, but life (and, let’s be honest, writing deadlines) keep getting in the way.

Oh to be able to write proper romance (my attempts were way too dark and provoked many an angry Goodreads review 😆)! There’s something so uplifting about the genre…  And don’t we all need something uplifting and hopeful in these uncertain times!?

If you're using Squarespace for your author website, then that makes my heart happy for many reasons! Not only is it easy to use and beautiful right out of the box, it’s also packed with brilliant features for authors.

I’ve been building author websites for nearly six years now (WHAT?!!!) and I have definitely learnt a few tricks in that time. While I did complete a comprehensive web design course before launching my studio, there are always things to learn, and I pick up different ideas and tricks with each website I build.

Blogging may feel a bit old school in the age of TikTok trends and lightning-fast Reels, but here’s a little secret: for authors, it’s STILL one of the most powerful tools out there - especially when it comes to building a long-term, loyal readership and boosting your visibility online. 

Email addresses! When was the last time you thought much about yours? Or more pertinently – when was the last time you changed yours? I suspect not for a long time. Email addresses are a bit like bank accounts – you set one up when you’re young and then stick with it for life.

If you're anything like most of the authors I work with, adding alt text to your images is either a) one of those website tasks you know you should do… but never quite get round to; or b) something you have never heard of.

As you’ve might have seen on the Squarespace website, they offer lots of different pre-built templates, all with their own specific look and feel. There are so many that sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming – when I ask my web design clients to take a look through the templates and let me know which they like best, a lot of the time they say they feel bamboozled and come back to me with the same question: ‘but which Squarespace template is best for authors?’

So, you’ve finally launched your brand-new author website - congratulations! It's a huge step in your writing career. But now comes the next challenge: how do you actually get your website to show up on Google?

It occurred to me the other day that I haven’t really shared much on my blog about what it’s like for my clients when they pick me to build their author website, so I thought perhaps it would be of interest if I shared my process in a little more detail!

Before I start this post, allow me a disclaimer. I think Wordpress is brilliant. I really do. There’s a reason that more than 30% of ALL websites are built using this platform. I used Wordpress for my own websites for years, and was a huge advocate of it.

Over the five years I’ve been building author websites, I’ve built quite a few sites for authors who have yet to sign book deals and it’s always really exciting working with writers who are so forward-thinking in their ambitions.

Excuse the rather glib title to this post - but it occurred to me recently that some authors I work with come to me because they want an author website, but at the same time, they aren’t exactly sure why they want one.

It’s been a while since I shared one of my web design projects with you – so today I’m really happy to be taking a more in-depth look at one of my first projects of 2025: a website for award-winning author and forest dweller, Will Dean.

I’m in quite a few writer Facebook groups (which I love!) and I’ve heard a lot of chatter lately about people ditching their author websites / blogs and moving everything over to Substack.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I feel very passionately that all authors should set up a mailing list as soon as (or even before) they get their book deals. All my author website packages include this functionality as standard – that’s how important I think it is!

Most of the authors I know use Mailchimp to send their newsletters. For a long time, it really was the only viable newsletter platform for complete beginners to email marketing. But in recent years, as people have come to see the incredible value in email marketing, more and more different platforms have emerged.

Ahh open rates! For those not completely au fait with email marketing terminology, the open rate is the number of people who actually open your author newsletter. It’s not the same as the number of people on your mailing list, or the number of people who actually receive it (this is referred to as your ‘delivered’ rate).

I’m so excited to be sharing today’s post! As a website designer, I get asked an awful lot about author newsletters. Which makes sense of course, as the two go hand in hand. I’m mostly asked about the technical side of setting up your author newsletter, but I also get asked a lot of more basic questions too.

How soon should you start building your email list as a debut author? Once you start writing? Once you’ve landed an agent? Once you’ve signed the contract for your publishing deal? Once your book is released?

I had such a great response to my previous blog post, sharing a little bit of an update as to where I am with my writing, and how I’ve been enjoying having a break from publishing.

Hello people. I am back from another year at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and I can honestly say it was the best yet. My seventh time! 

I recently finished my 13th novel and, as I write this, it is currently with my agent for her verdict (cue much email-refreshing and chewing of nails on my part).

Most of my author friends are, like me, traditionally published, and one theme that comes up again and again in conversation is frustration. And a sense that we don’t have control over our careers.

I was tidying up my Google Drive recently and I found this post! I originally wrote it as a guest post for someone else’s blog but I had a great Q&A session with my Debut Author group last week and a lot of these topics came up… so I thought it was worth a repost here!

I want to start this article off by saying that if you have been offered a traditional publishing deal for your book, then this is a MASSIVE DEAL.

Happy new year to you and welcome to 2026! I have just turned 45, which feels like a weird milestone. I turned 40 during covid so it was a bit of a non-event, but 45 really does feel… well, grown-up.

I know I start this post the same way every year but I truly cannot believe that 2025 has almost come to an end! What a year.

My new suspense novel, Connie, is coming out in January - in just under two months’ time! 

It’s an experience unlike any other, finally being told that your novel is going to be published. And because of that, it’s quite hard to work out how you should feel.

I haven’t done an ‘honest thoughts’ post in a while, but this topic has been niggling at me lately, so today’s the day! Let’s talk about publicity.

Ah podcasts! What did we do without them? How did I ever motivate myself to clean the house before they existed? It feels as though they came out of nowhere and now there are tons of them and not enough time in the day (or cleaning chores) to get me through them all. I love them, and so I thought it might be interesting to share my current favourites today.

Hello! We are already more than half way through the year, so I thought I’d do a little behind-the-scenes update this week (also, it’s the summer holidays, and nobody really wants to read another post about SEO - right?!)

I can’t believe it’s been a year since my post about Harrogate went kind of viral (as viral as anything in the crime-writing-book-festival-niche can go, anyway! 😆).

I came across the following post on Instagram this week and it brought out a very wry smile in me.

For the past few days I’ve been feeling pretty good about my writing. I’ve just finished my eleventh novel, and for once, I’m really, really pleased with it.

I recently finished the second draft of my latest novel - my eleventh novel that I’ve written (I read somewhere that to become a ‘master’ at writing you need to have written a million words and I reckon I’ve surpassed that now - can someone send me a certificate please needy for validation?!)

Linkedin inspired me to write this blog post! That’s definitely not something I ever thought I’d say.

Allow me to share this Instagram post with you that freaked me out recently…

Ahhh! It’s nearly the end of 2024 and this is my most favourite of all my blog posts to write so I may be a little bit overexcited.

A bit of a different post than usual from me today, but I know how important competitions like this can be for aspiring writers, and so I wanted to spread the word.

My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. Like many (most?) writers, I was academic. I did well at school, I was pretty quick at most subjects and I was very good at English and assimilating a lot of information and then, well… writing about it in an accurate and relatively concise way.

I just want to put something out there, in the full knowledge that it might make me seem like a spoilt brat. But being a writer is hard. Really. It is.

I can’t remember who told me that most authors hate their covers. Perhaps hate is too strong (I have a tendency towards hyperbole - hey I’m a storyteller! 😆).

Another post that might get me into hot water but here we go anyway. The somewhat controversial topic of author blurbs. What do we think of them?

Like many authors, when I first got my book deal, I was completely overwhelmed. It’s such a huge goal - to get a book published - and for many writers, it takes so long to achieve that we often don’t look much past it. 

My seventh novel, After The Fire, was recently published in both the UK and the US, by a division of Bloomsbury (of Harry Potter fame). Even when I type that now, it amazes me that it’s true.

I think writing this post might be even more nervewracking than launching a book. Maybe. Maybe not. Even so, I am super nervous to share something very exciting today, that I’ve secretly been working on for months!

I’m back from Harrogate - my fifth trip to the annual Crime Writing Festival (not ‘Crime Festival’ as I have a habit of calling it and thus confusing/alarming my non-writing friends).

I guess it’s a bit late for a spring update technically, as it’s already June (WHAT!) but I thought it would be nice (for me) and possibly interesting (for anyone reading) to do a little mid-year round-up of 2024 so far.

Hello people. I am back from another year at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and I can honestly say it was the best yet. My seventh time! 

I recently finished my 13th novel and, as I write this, it is currently with my agent for her verdict (cue much email-refreshing and chewing of nails on my part).

Most of my author friends are, like me, traditionally published, and one theme that comes up again and again in conversation is frustration. And a sense that we don’t have control over our careers.

I was tidying up my Google Drive recently and I found this post! I originally wrote it as a guest post for someone else’s blog but I had a great Q&A session with my Debut Author group last week and a lot of these topics came up… so I thought it was worth a repost here!

I want to start this article off by saying that if you have been offered a traditional publishing deal for your book, then this is a MASSIVE DEAL.

Happy new year to you and welcome to 2026! I have just turned 45, which feels like a weird milestone. I turned 40 during covid so it was a bit of a non-event, but 45 really does feel… well, grown-up.

My new suspense novel, Connie, is coming out in January - in just under two months’ time! 

I haven’t done an ‘honest thoughts’ post in a while, but this topic has been niggling at me lately, so today’s the day! Let’s talk about publicity.

Hello! We are already more than half way through the year, so I thought I’d do a little behind-the-scenes update this week (also, it’s the summer holidays, and nobody really wants to read another post about SEO - right?!)

I came across the following post on Instagram this week and it brought out a very wry smile in me.

For the past few days I’ve been feeling pretty good about my writing. I’ve just finished my eleventh novel, and for once, I’m really, really pleased with it.

I recently finished the second draft of my latest novel - my eleventh novel that I’ve written (I read somewhere that to become a ‘master’ at writing you need to have written a million words and I reckon I’ve surpassed that now - can someone send me a certificate please needy for validation?!)

Linkedin inspired me to write this blog post! That’s definitely not something I ever thought I’d say.

Allow me to share this Instagram post with you that freaked me out recently…

My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. Like many (most?) writers, I was academic. I did well at school, I was pretty quick at most subjects and I was very good at English and assimilating a lot of information and then, well… writing about it in an accurate and relatively concise way.

Another post that might get me into hot water but here we go anyway. The somewhat controversial topic of author blurbs. What do we think of them?

Like many authors, when I first got my book deal, I was completely overwhelmed. It’s such a huge goal - to get a book published - and for many writers, it takes so long to achieve that we often don’t look much past it. 

My seventh novel, After The Fire, was recently published in both the UK and the US, by a division of Bloomsbury (of Harry Potter fame). Even when I type that now, it amazes me that it’s true.

I think writing this post might be even more nervewracking than launching a book. Maybe. Maybe not. Even so, I am super nervous to share something very exciting today, that I’ve secretly been working on for months!

I’m back from Harrogate - my fifth trip to the annual Crime Writing Festival (not ‘Crime Festival’ as I have a habit of calling it and thus confusing/alarming my non-writing friends).

If you’re having a novel traditionally published then there’s one thing that’s certain to happen: you are going to get a bad review.

I’m probably a minority here, I know. I know because I’ve asked a lot of my friends who are authors and they’ve pretty much all said they prefer the security of a two- or maybe even three-book deal.

I know, I know, it’s a bit of a click-baity title but please bear with me! I feel like this is the thing that NO-ONE talks about EVER. And for the life of me I can’t really understand why. Because if we did talk about it more it would take the pressure off all the debut authors out there who are having meltdowns.

Apologies for the slightly tongue-in-cheek title for this post, but it was one of those ideas that just popped into my head randomly when I was walking home the other day and I thought – yes! I have a LOT to say on that subject!

It occurred to me recently that I’d never really shared much about my own journey to publication on here. But I think one of the reasons my lovely clients choose to work with me on their websites is because I know EXACTLY what it’s like to be a published author.