Pikko’s House 3.0 is Here!

Happy New Year 2019!

Whew. Approximately 67 hours and 26 minutes later (translation: blood, sweat, tears, backache, etc.), Pikko’s House 3.0 is finally here.

Website Design

A few months ago I had hired a web designer to help elevate my business website to a new level, and long story short, that did not work out. I was frustrated and confused and really anxious, because it was a week before the time I had allotted for my implementation of the design to start, and we were still at the concept stage.

In the end, I decided to do my site on my own. The biggest positive from that whole mess was that I found a new theme and builder. Divi has been my go-to theme and builder for years, but Pikko’s House 3.0 is made with GeneratePress and Elementor, and I’m a lot happier with this combination, though learning it from the ground up ate up a lot of hours.

My thanks go out to my proofreading team, who gave me constant feedback and support along the way, along with all the edibuddies and clients who took an early peek at the design and let me know their thoughts. The most common comment among all of these helpful people was that this new design is still very me while also being new and modern, and that’s exactly what I’d wanted all along.

Project Updates

I’d been warning (i.e. scaring) my clients for my last two newsletters that I was thinking about ditching my ever-popular Project Queue (seriously, I’ve actually had clients tell me they chose me because of this page!), but it turns out, I was able to keep it, though it’s now been split into two different pages.

I had previously been using it to both show people what I had available and show clients progress on their projects. Now I have the Project Availability page, and the Project Queue page only lists the projects I have on my slate for the current month plus the following month. Having two separate pages will hopefully be more informative for authors and easier for me to update.

Services

My services have been shifted around, and I have changed Draft Critique to Manuscript Critique, added Copy Editing, and moved Ebook and Print formatting to be add-on services only, which means I won’t do these as standalone services for new clients going forward.

My Beta Reading service, which helped launch my freelancing career, now has an upgrade option to Sensitivity Reading.

Still to Come

As much as I’d hoped to have a 100% complete site relaunch, some things had to be put on (very temporary) hold while I rested my back and spent some New Year’s Eve time with the kids.

The portfolio, which ironically was super outdated before, is now even MORE outdated because I’m going to have to redo everything on the back end. In the meantime, I added some covers of my more recent editing projects, though only the first two are clickable. I struggled with keeping my portfolio updated after a certain point, but I still have that new-site smell about me, so hopefully I can use that as motivation and get it up to par. Still, I’m really happy with how the individual pages look!

Next project: the January Book Lovers Box, which comes out tomorrow!

Mahalo

Again, super huge thanks to my edibuddies and clients who helped me with early feedback and my team for their support. Thanks to Marta Tanrikulu, who was able to take on a last-minute job proofreading the new site for me.

I owe so much of this site’s new look to Tracy Wright Corvo, a local photographer I hired to do my headshots. Tracy made me feel at ease, talked businessladyship with me, and was the utmost professional. The mood, lighting, coloring, and tone of the headshots she took were exactly what I was looking for. She really understood me, and she was worth every penny.

Thanks also to April Ichinose for doing a stellar job on my hair!

To my clients, thank you for trusting me with your stories over the last five years. I hope to make our 2019 together a happy, successful, and productive one.