Portfolio Package: Design, Development, Editing, and Coaching

A woman raises her hands joyfully, while gazing at her open laptop. She has brown skin and loose dark curls to her shoulders, and is wearing a navy short-sleeved top. She appears to be working in a kitchen with pans hanging on a brick wall behind her.

Writer, photographer and instructor Amanda Castleman, a middle-age white woman with pale skin. Her hair is brown with silver growing in and is pulled into a fat high bun. She's wearing black pearl earrings and a black v-neck t-shirt. She has blue eyes and is smiling slightly — looks friendly!

Instructor: Amanda Castleman
Availability: 5 remaining
Price: $1,500 (free advice here on DIY builds)
Payment plans: available on request. Email amanda@writelikeahoneybadger.com
Enroll now!

At Write Like a Honey Badger, we encourage writers to control their online portfolios, instead of relying on platforms and developers that could change terms and hike rates. But we also know how daunting it can be to start from scratch. Enter our new web bundle, which walks you through the process from start to finish, and prepares you to manage your site independently and affordably.

Our founder Amanda Castleman will edit and develop a WordPress portfolio for you. She will consult on your domain name, site navigation, and theme selection and design, before developing your site and a template page so you can easily expand content in the future.

Screen shot of the WLHB siteAmanda will also offer guidance on what to include in terms of text, then do three editing passes: a developmental round to polish your prose, followed by copyediting and then proofreading. She will advise on image and video selection, and navigating copyrights if you’re showcasing art that’s not your own. And finally, she’ll hand you the proverbial “keys to the car,” during a 90-minute teleconference session where she’ll teach you how to update, maintain, and expand your site.

She has been a digital media instructor since 2005, teaching students how to blog, source and edit images, and build their sites and authorial brands online. Amanda has also written or developed websites for clients including Andria Mitsakos PR, “Greece, A Love Story,” Island Outpost, the OTTER learning management system, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (about page), “Single State of the Union,” Writers.com, as well as the school’s site and her own portfolio.

This bundle includes:

  • 30-minute orientation call
  • Project calendar
  • Home page
  • About page
  • Contact page
  • Up to five other pages (can be landing pages)
  • Blog landing page (if needed)
  • Page template for expansion
  • One sidebar with a maximum of three widgets
  • Social media icons
  • Advice on choosing a theme
    Advice on color theory and choosing a palette
  • Advice on site navigation and what to include
  • Advice about sharing published work that’s not archived online
  • Advice about keywording and page descriptions
  • Guidance about selecting art, video embeds and not violating copyrights
  • Developmental edit of up to 2,000 words of content (1 round)
  • Copyedit of all materials (1 round)
  • Proofreading (1 round)
  • 90 minutes of instruction on how to update, maintain and expand your site
  • A recording of your coaching session for reference
    Advice about purchasing a URL, if needed
  • Advice on generating a favicon, if needed
  • Advice about hosting and DNS configurations, if needed

This process typically takes a month, but can be sped up on request, depending on availability.

Note: at this time, we only offer this deal for WordPress.com (easy managed hosting) and WordPress.org (allows for more customization but requires a hosting provider). Both platforms are more affordable than site-building services like Wix and Weebly, which can trap your content in a more expensive, proprietary format that often doesn’t export smoothly, should you need to shift gears.

Alumni describe Amanda as a “a dream teacher, just the right balance between a knuckle-rapping tutor and a mom full of hugs.” Her feedback has been celebrated as amazing, funny, insightful, confidence-boosting, and “exceptional in terms of quality, detail and sheer usefulness.” One student commented, “A fine-toothed-comb edit like this is hard to find. I can’t wait to get started revising: it’s like being told the cheat to a Sonic the Hedgehog game at school and rushing home to test it out!”

We only offer five of these bundles annually. Grab one and let Write Like a Honey Badger help perfect your presence online and confidence in controlling it!

Enroll button – pale mustard background, peacock blue lettering with a drop shadow

Alumni’s thoughts on Amanda CASTLEMAN

Read reviews here.

Frequently Asked Questions ABOUT THE PORTFOLIO PACKAGE

I use MuckRack, Contently or a similar free service. Why invest in a bespoke site?
Neither site lets you fully control users’ impressions of your work, add a substantial keyword-rich biography, optimize SEO or organize clips with landing pages for various projects, specialties or journalistic beats. Also, a customized site presents a more polished, professional impression for editors and readers.

Finally, a bespoke build keeps you in control — not a company that can arbitrarily make your portfolio invisible to the public, as happened recently with Contently. And it prevents misattributions and syndicated content choking your feed, which can happen with sites like MuckRack that “scrape” your work off the internet and display it in chronological order.

Is there a video component or live chat?
Yes. A 30-minute set-up call or teleconference gets everyone on the same page about milestones and deliverables. The package concludes with a 90-minute coaching session on how to update, maintain and expand your site.

How much time does it take?
Expect to dedicate five to eight hours determining your site’s look-and-feel,  selecting images, and drafting and editing text, in addition to the 30-minute set-up call and 90-minute exit coaching session. The work usually occurs across a roughly four-week span.

What sort of success can I expect?
You’ll wind up with a polished, fully edited, highly professional WordPress website, and the ability to update it at any time with confidence and panache!

I’m technophobic. Is a bespoke site worth pushing through that?
Absolutely, because you won’t be doing it alone! You’ll have gentle, authoritative guidance from selecting your URL to developing content and clicking “publish” on your site. Best of all, you’ll have 90 minutes of direct, interactive guidance on how to keep the ball rolling!

No one is inherently “bad” at technology. We may be fearful… or inexperienced… or maybe even a little panicky, because of past frustrations. This package is designed to give you — and your site — a great foundation and also the ability to grow with ease.

I live outside the U.S. Is this a problem?
Not at all. Amanda lives in the Pacific time zone, but works with clients around the globe.

What’s with the goofy name?
We’re honoring the animal named most fearless by the Guinness Book Of World Records – and also this hilarious 2011 viral video by Randall (warning: explicit language).

Developing a portfolio can be a source of stress. We hope our tribute to the Honey Badger reminds you to be tenacious – and also to smile a little too!

What if I have another question?
Please ask us! Email amanda@writelikeahoneybadger.com. (Please note: we supply this address so we can assist students and alumni. We do not accept unsolicited business proposals. All off-topic emails will be reported as spam.)