New Books
I got so many fabulous new books this week! Most of these are from HarperCollins (Edelweiss). They have September/October release dates, but I think I’ll end up digging into them straight away. I’m just so excited!! Also I kind of love being one of the “first” to read a book. Not because it makes me feel special or anything, but because there are often zero reviews and zero ratings and I love going into a book with no expectations. Sometimes if I wait until closer to release date, my friends have already read, reviewed, and rated the books and it can put me off reading them (if they didn’t all give it like 5 stars).
Into the Deep by Samantha Young
Goodreads
Out of the Shallows by Samantha Young
Goodreads
Even in Paradise by Chelsey Philpot
Goodreads
Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch
Goodreads
On the Edge by Allison van Diepen
Goodreads
Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little
Goodreads
Get Even by Gretchen McNeil
Goodreads
The Dare by Hannah Jayne
Goodreads
Coding Projects
New UBB add-on for review requests
After weeks of development and sitting on this project (afraid to release it for some reason… I’m weird), I have finally released a new add-on for the Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin. This add-on allows you to create a front-end form for review requests. Publishers and authors can fill it out with all the book info, a custom message, and specify if they’re interested in giveaways, interviews, or promo posts. You can then view and manage the review requests inside WordPress and even copy the request to a new post draft (with all the UBB info!).
New Blog Designs
Caffeinated Book Reviewer (client work)
I had a lot of fun working on this design for Kimberly. Funnily enough, I was sooo itching to do a “coffee” design before she approached me. Looks like I got my wish!
J.A. Redmerski (client work)
I did J.A. Redmerki’s blog design back in 2013 and she returned to me wanting something new. She wanted a brighter, more feminine look as she started to separate her contemporary romances from her darker books. So below you can see the “before” and “after” shots!
Before
After
Creative Whim (personal project)
After redesigning Nose Graze to have a more feminine, whimsical feel, I felt inspired to redesign Creative Whim as well! Check out the new design below:
I went with a much simpler feel. I liked my last one a lot, but I think it was a bit bulky and complicated. I also spent a lot of time separating the Creative Whim website into design (theme) and functionality (plugin).
The Perfect Pink Wedding Cocktail
On Wednesday night, my mom and I got to work experimenting with pink cocktail drinks for the wedding reception. She found five different fruity drink recipes online and we made all of them! After much deliberation, I proposed a combination of a couple of them to create something totally new, and that’s the winning drink!
The winning recipe:
- Grapefruit juice
- Cranberry juice
- Pineapple juice
- Canada dry (maybe)
I love the new designs! Creative Whim looks awesome. 😀 Oh and the add-on is working very good. I love it!
I picked up Snow Like Ashes, Get Even and Even in Paradise too! 😀 So excited!
Thanks! 😀 I’m so glad the add-on is working okay!
Bieke’s absolutely right. Creative Whim looks stunning! And wow, more new books! I’m already drooling
Thank you! 😀
Mmmmm, that drink sounds yummy! It’s funny because I was just thinking “I am surprised Ash hasn’t changed up her creative Whim website yet.” lol. I love this new feminine side to your websites.
Haha! Yeah I’m totally digging the soft, simple, feminine designs right now.
That’s also why I love reading ARC’s. It’s fun to be one of the first, so you don’t get influenced in any way. I got Snow like ashes & Forbidden too, love the sound of them. I like what you did with creative whim. The colors are very pretty!
Exactly! Sometimes I wonder if just hearing that other people didn’t like a book causes me to not like it as much, just because of that influence.
Loving the new designs! Especially the redesign of Creative Whim, it looks gorgeous. And I’m definitely going to try that pink cocktail, sounds yummy. 😀
As for my week, I released the english edition of my book (which I’m so excited about), got Murder of Crows as a birthday present and I just finished reading Brush Strokes by Janelle Stalder and I loved it! 😀
Thanks! 😀
Congrats on releasing the English edition of your book! That’s so exciting! 😀
I saw all the lovely books on Edelweiss too and picked up a few myself, one was Snow Like Ashes 🙂
All your blog designs are so pretty! I especially love the one you did for the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.
Yay for wedding drinks! The winning recipe sounds good, I kind of really want to try it now.
My week was awesome, got my nails done for a trial for my wedding, got my new place more organized, and getting cats soon! I’m really excited 🙂
Doesn’t Snow Like Ashes sound awesome?? I hope you love it! 😀
Wow it sounds like you had a great week! I adore cats—lucky you. 🙂
Looks like you’ve got some great books lined up. Also – great designs this week, they all look perfect!
Thanks so much! 😀
Creative whim’s new look – looks awesome! Very simplistic; so cool. Oh, and your books as well. 😀
Thank you!! 😀
You received so many amazing books this week! Snow Like Ashes sounds so good, it has been added to my never-ending wishlist! 🙂
I purchased one of your amazing blog themes this week as I restarted my blog, and I completely love it! Thank you 🙂
Hope that you’re having a lovely weekend 🙂 xx
I’m so glad you love the theme! It looks fabulous on your blog. 🙂
Love the new designs! I can’t wait to take the new plugin for a test drive. I think it will make review requests so much more organized.
I hope you like it! 😀
Is there a way, through css coding even, to make the message boxes smaller? The ones for the synopsis and request message, I mean. They feel so big on my page, so I would to be able to make it shorter and let it auto scroll sooner.
Also, is there a way to remove book formats? For example, I don’t read/accept audiobooks, so removing that as an option would be snazzy. If not, I can always just remove that field in general, but just thought I would ask if it were possible, even if it’s just set up for book formats I’ve reviewed before.
You can adjust the height of those boxes by adding this custom CSS:
.ubb-visual-editor iframe { height: 300px !important; }Change 300 to whatever you want.
There’s not a way to remove individual format options. You’d just have to remove the “Book Format” box from the configuration.
Thanks a bunch!
Yeah, I ended up removing it anyway. I thought to leave it there and remove the message box, but keeping the message box instead made more sense. I’m trying to add enough in there to keep things nicely organized, without scaring authors away entirely by having too much to fill out. I think it’s easier than them having to find a way to start a conversation, but sometimes they like to be more personal. It’s an amazing plugin, but it changes so much that it’s taking time getting used to. 😀
I just love when the new HarperTeen galleys go on Edelweiss! I’m really looking forward to reading Even in Paradise. Looks like a very ‘me’ read! Love the designs and your blog is super cute! 🙂
Me too!! It feels like Christmas when they all go up.
All those books look really interesting, but I’m most excited for Snow Like Ashes. Hope you enjoy it! Those new designs are beautiful too; I love the coffee one 🙂
I got Forbidden and Snow LIke Ashes this week too. I’m so excited about the add-on to UBB!
I love the new design for Creative Whim, I love delicate, pretty designs 🙂
You’re such a talented web designer/graphic designer, Ashley. 🙂 And I’m sooo excited to read the new HC titles too! I get mines from Edelweiss also so I’m def. gonna dive into them once I finish reading my May-August ARCs.
I’m loving all the designs and Creative Whim looks awesome! I loved your old design too (it reminded me of iOS 7 for some reason…maybe because it was super sleek I don’t know lol) but I love how the pastel colors look now! Your new books look awesome as well, especially Even in Paradise; I really love that cover for some reason 🙂
I just love what you’ve done with Kimba’s blog design, it looks amazing! Your wedding drink looks delicious too, I might try it out sometime.
I love looking at your designs 🙂 Do you design the graphics entirely on Photoshop or do you also use Illustrator?
I use a combination of Photoshop and sometimes stock imagery. 🙂 For example, the coffee cup is about half stock image and half custom drawing in Photoshop.
I have Illustrator but we do not get along! Even when I want to do vectors I use Photoshop.
Love the new Creative Whim design! 🙂 And it looks like you got a lot of new books. Happy reading!
I like them all. Great designs!
I love that coffee design you did for Caffeinated Book Reviewer and the Redmerski place looks much more inviting. You’re wicked good!