Overview
Dr. Arlene Rotter spent 41 years in education, earned a Ph.D., founded her own school, and now writes full time as The Rebel Writer™. She has written 25 books and counting, from psychological thrillers and political sci-fi to historical fiction, memoir and Southern humor, and she is seeking literary representation for three finished novels. This prototype shows the website that kind of career needs: a shelf for the published books, a pitch for the new manuscripts, and a way to try her voice before committing to a whole book.
How It Started
I had been reading Arlene's posts on LinkedIn since the spring of 2026, and as we talked, her goal became clear: to put her books in front of far more readers, with a literary agent behind them. A website could help, but that is easier to show than to explain, so I offered to build a prototype first, with no upfront payment and no obligation to keep it. Two days later it was online, built from her writing, our conversations and a sample chapter she shared with me.
The Challenge
An author's website is read by people who want very different things. A literary agent wants the pitch, the pages and the credentials, fast. A journalist or podcast host wants a bio and an angle. A reader wants to know which book to start with, and whether the voice is for them. Arlene adds a harder problem: she writes across genres on purpose, so a site built around one series or one look would misrepresent her. A standard author template, a grid of covers and a contact page, serves none of these people well.
Built Around an Agent's Inbox
Arlene is seeking representation, so the visitor who matters most is a busy literary agent. Agents get a page of their own: an At a Glance summary written to be read in ninety seconds, the three manuscripts with loglines, synopses and a sample chapter, what she brings to a partnership, her published backlist, and short and full bios to use in pitches. Every manuscript request button opens the contact form with "literary agent" already chosen and the request already written.
What I Built
A 21-page author site where each kind of visitor has a route of its own.
A Shelf by Genre
Her books grouped the way readers browse: thrillers and speculative fiction, historical and contemporary fiction, memoir, and education, with the three new manuscripts first.
Covers Set in Type
Unpublished manuscripts have no cover art yet, so each one gets a cover set in type, with its own colour and motif, that sits naturally beside the published covers.
A Page for Every Book
Genre, status, year, format and length, themes, and a content note where one is needed, plus Amazon and Goodreads links for the published titles.
A Sample Chapter Reader
Chapter One of The Mind Bender Files in one calm column of large serif type, with a reading time and a content note before the first line.
For Agents & Publishers
The one-page pitch, with a press kit of short and full bios that agents, editors and event organisers can use as they are.
Contact That Asks Who Is Writing
Agents, media and readers each get their own route, so a manuscript request never sits among reader mail. In the prototype the form is a demo and sends nothing.
About: Teacher, Survivor, Writer
Her story in three parts: four decades in classrooms, surviving a coma at sixty, and claiming the name The Rebel Writer™.
Policies & Accessibility
Privacy and cookies, terms, and an accessibility statement aiming at WCAG 2.2 AA, written for her own site and marked as drafts.
Inside the Prototype
Tech Stack & Hosting
Astro
FrameworkStatic pages and Astro's image pipeline, which serves covers and photos as responsive WebP in several sizes, so a long shelf of books stays quick on a phone.
Tailwind CSS
Design SystemA small palette of paper, ink, ember and brass, defined once as design tokens, so all 21 pages share a look made for this author instead of a stock theme.
Self-Hosted Variable Fonts
TypographyFraunces for display, Literata for long reading and Inter for the interface, all served from the site itself, with no third-party font requests.
Cloudflare
Hosting & PrivacyEdge hosting on a skill-wanderer.com subdomain, essential cookies only, no analytics, and a noindex tag on every page so the prototype never competes with Arlene's own presence in search.
My Role
Structure first, then the look, then the build:
Why It Is in Our Portfolio
This is what our free prototype looks like: a working site, made for one person, before any payment or commitment. Compare it with the ones we built for a speaker, a calligrapher and a coach, and you will find no shared template, because each business needs different pages, a different path to the first enquiry, and a different first impression. It is also here, with Arlene's permission, to help a few more readers find The Rebel Writer.
Project Status
This is still a prototype, shown here with Arlene's permission. It is not her official website, so details in it may be out of date, and its contact form is a demo that sends nothing. Whether it ever becomes her real site is up to her, in her own time.
Arlene's Own Work
The books, the sample chapter and the life story in this prototype are Dr. Arlene Rotter's own work. Skill-Wanderer did the structure, the design and the build. To read her, start with her published books, or follow the new writing she shares most days on LinkedIn, which is also the way to reach her.
Want to See Your Own Site First?
Tell us about your work. For accepted projects we build a free working prototype before you commit to anything, made for your business rather than poured into a template, and your project helps fund free education.