A website you own as an author: a page for each book, signed copies sold directly, events and a newsletter, all in one place you control. We also build portfolios and booking for photographers, videographers and creative studios.
Readers arrive from a book cover, a talk, a review or a search for your name. Good website design for authors gets them from “who is this?” to “I want this book” quickly, then gives them a reason to stay in touch. It starts with our website design and development process, shaped around your books.
Donna Rodrigues is the author of the novel Finding Everleigh and the children's book The Mysterious Mysteries of Mr. Ri. Her site gives each book its own page and lets readers order signed paperbacks, with room for a personalized inscription at checkout. Book clubs, classrooms, libraries and bookstores can request a date for a signing or a reading from the site, and readers can sign up for her newsletter.
Behind it is an admin for orders, invoices, customers, coupons and gift cards, plus reviews, an inbox, a photo and video showcase, and a site editor for page copy and images. It's built on our reusable XOLBY admin template, with modules switched on per client. See the Donna Rodrigues case study or visit donnarodrigues.com.
Most readers already have a favorite place to buy books, so your site should link to those retailers clearly. Some sales work better direct, though: signed and personalized copies, bundles, special editions, or books for an event. On your own site you set the price, you know who bought, and you can write to them when the next book comes out.
We build that with the same e-commerce development we use for online stores: cart, checkout by card and PayPal, order emails, coupons and gift cards, with orders managed from an admin. If you're also selling handmade goods or merch, our page for small online shops and makers goes deeper.
Photographers, videographers and creative studios need two things from a site: show the work, and make booking easy. We build portfolios that keep large photo and video files from slowing the page, and booking with payment built in.
Book With NAV is an example. It's the booking and production platform we built for NAV Productions, a real estate photo and video studio in San Diego. Clients book and pay online, the studio schedules its crew, and finished media goes from the editors' Dropbox to a client portal. See the Book With NAV case study. If your studio works with agents, our real estate page goes further.
Search engines and AI assistants answer questions like “books by this author” or “who wrote this title” from structured data. We add Book markup to each book page (title, author, ISBN, format, publisher and where it's sold) and Person markup for you (name, bio, photo, and links to your retailer author pages and social profiles). It's a small addition that helps your own site become a source those answers can point to. Our AI search optimization work builds on it.
An author's website and signed-book store, built on our reusable XOLBY admin template.
What we built
The booking and production platform we built on XOLBY for a real estate media studio: agents book and pay online.
What we built
Yes. Readers can order signed copies, add a personalized inscription at checkout, and pay by card or PayPal. You see and fulfill orders from an admin, and you keep the customer list.
Yes. Most readers have a favorite store, so each book page links to the retailers that carry it. Direct sales are for signed copies, bundles and events, not a replacement for retail.
Yes. We add signup forms and connect them to the email tool you use, or help you set one up if you don't have one yet.
Yes. You edit page copy, images, events and book details from an admin, without touching code.
Yes. We build booking with payment at the time of booking, crew or calendar scheduling, and delivery to a client portal, like the platform we built for NAV Productions.
Small business website design: fast, coded sites in English, Spanish or both, with SEO basics, working forms and hosting handled. See real projects.
Learn more →Ecommerce website development: your own online store with catalog, checkout, customer accounts, order emails and an admin to run it. See real stores.
Learn more →An online booking system on our own platform or built custom: services, staff, availability, payment at booking and an admin to run it all.
Learn more →AI search optimization and GEO services: we test how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews see your business, then fix what you can control.
Learn more →An online store of your own for small businesses and makers: made-to-order and seasonal products, checkout, order emails and SEO, next to any marketplace.
Learn more →Real estate website design and custom CRMs for brokerages and agents: bilingual listing sites, lead follow-up, agent dashboards and media booking.
Learn more →Tell us what you need and we'll get back to you by email.
