Mary K. Elkins has a great gift for translating a book's essence onto the Web. She can creatively and intuitively capture the emotions in a book, and the sites she designs are living, growing extensions of the words on the printed page. Countless readers have told me they've been very moved and entertained by the presentation of www.girlsfromames.com Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor The Last Lecture, author The Girls
from Ames “Mary K did a brilliant job creating the website for our book, The Faith Club (www.thefaithclub.com). She held our hand during the entire process, since my co-authors and I were new to web design. At the same time, she was very open to our ideas and respectful of the message we were trying to send. She is readily available, prompt, flexible, reasonably priced, professional and a pleasure to work with.” Priscilla Warner, co-author of The Faith Club “Mary K. has a gift for creating fresh, intuitive, individualized, attention-grabbing websites. But she's also a pleasure to work with. Every request is answered. Every deadline is met. Every foolish idea I threw out there was confronted with thoughtful, friendly and honest answers. What I ended up with was an exceptionally useful site and a professional I can recommend to anyone with confidence.” David Harsanyi, author of Nanny State "Mary K. is an alchemist supreme. She can not only turn ordinary words and pictures into online poetry, she can turn technical jargon into English even a dummy can understand. Plus, she's original, reliable, responsive, resourceful, good natured, and funny. What's not to like?" Lee Eisenberg, author of The Number "Miss Mary K. Elkins is a most rare creature: wildly talented and almost unnaturally sane. She makes sense out of nonsense and she makes websites that are beautiful and that work beautifully. The only problem you will have if Mary does your website is that you will soon have people badgering you to know the name of the person who designed it, so that they can get her to design theirs too." Stephen J. Dubner, author of Freakonomics and Choosing My Religion "Shall we list a few of the reasons to hire Mary K.? That accent, of course. That attitude. And that invaluable ability to take page after page of editorial chaos and transform it into a rational and beautiful site. She’s an artist who thinks like an editor, which is a rare thing indeed." John Tayman, author of The Colony “Miss Mary K is a star—just take a look at her portfolio. The range of her visual imagination is amazing. The site she designed for me is stunning, with impeccable functionality—and so is everything she does. And yet they’re all so different. What you won’t see, however, is how she works: collaboratively, cheerfully, swiftly, and attentively to all the endless details that make her site designs so brilliant. There is a downside to working with Mary K—the creeping anxiety that, by the time my next book is done, she’ll have been whisked away to be the personal web guru to the Sultan of Brunei, or the Dalai Lama, or Bono, and no longer available to mere mortals. My advice: act fast.” Kelly Tyler-Lewis, author of The Lost Men "Mary K is great to work with and delivered an excellent website on time for me. I highly recommend her." Craig Unger, Author of The House of Bush, The House of Saud and The Fall of the House of Bush "Miss Mary K designed a new website for my book. What I found to be unique about her was was a rare combination -- she not only had a terrific eye for design and color but had a vast knowledge of the technical aspects of designing for the web. If you are looking for a web designer who is easy to work with, delivers a great product at a fair price, you can't do better than Miss Mary.” Barbara Burke, Author of The Napkin, the Melon and the Monkey
"The website for my book is so professional, so vivid, so engaging — I don't so much feel like I as an author have a website, because I couldn't have created what exists. I feel like the book itself has a website, with a kind of independent life all its own, introducing my work to potential readers. "In the world of getting technical help, Miss Mary K. was gracious, quick, and had ideas for content and functions that would never have occurred to me. "And every time I look at the site, it makes me smile in wonder." Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect "Miss Mary K is a wonder! She created my gorgeous web site with apparent ease and lightning speed, exuding good cheer all the way. I could not be more pleased." Elizabeth Jacoway, author of Turn Away Thy Son "I've worked with dozens of designers, however it's rare to find one with the talent and dedication Miss Mary K. brought to my project. Not only did she design a killer website for my book, but she also was a pleasure to deal with and her attention to detail made this project an overwhelming success. I couldn't recommend a better designer!" Cameron Johnson, author of You Call The Shots
"Mary K. offers up daily examples of the extent to which authors can use their websites to draw in new readers. More than a month before my book came out, the site Mary K. designed was attracting visitors, and more importantly, book buyers. She combined a number of my hectically disparate requests -- a simple, handsome homepage that offered easy navigation and also served as an entrance to my blog; simultaneous internal portals to two very different books; a combination of personal elements and professional necessities -- into a gorgeous package. Regardless of what I've thrown at her, from wanting to change how blog entries were archived to adding new pages on the fly, Mary has responded quickly and elegantly." Seth Mnookin, author of Feeding The Monster and Hard News "Mary K.'s sleek and elegant web designs are the cyber equivalent of an Armani tuxedo." Chip Brown "I can't recommend Mary K. Elkins enough. Beautiful, elegant design work that makes your work look way better than you thought it was; efficient and quick off the mark, reducing emergencies to mere nothings; patient and charming to deal with, even for a complete web novice; extremely reasonable rates . . . What more could you ask?" Kit Whitfield, author Bareback/Benighted "If you are reading this testimonial then consider yourself lucky. You have discovered a valuable resource in a cluttered world of web designers. And if Mary K. agrees to take you on as a client, expect to be very, very pleased." Dan Nissanoff, author FutureShop
"Mary K. Elkins is an absolute pleasure to work with: a talented designer who's also thoughtful, thorough, responsive, and kind." Maile Meloy, author of A Family Daughter, Liars and Saints and Half in Love "Mary K. designed a sleek, elegant, easy-to-use site for my book in no time flat—and for the same price as designers who build those no-frills, homemade-looking websites. It's no stretch to say that working with her was the easiest—and perhaps the most essential—part of publicizing my book." Dan Gilgoff, author of The Jesus Machine "It seems like construction on I-40 Greensboro has been in progress for a decade. It's too bad that Mary K. only works on the information superhighway. Otherwise, that stretch of road would be finished in a week. She does not lean on any virtual shovels." Clark Whittington
"Miss Mary K is a sorceress. A good witch if you will. After supplying her with very raw materials (photos, cryptic text, locks of hair, and Loch Ness water) she was off and running. She took 15 years of music biz shenanigans and artfully arranged it all into a beautiful web destination. Mary K's art direction is equaled only by her no nonsense, cut to the quick, work ethic. I would not venture into the abyss of the modern age without the guidance of Miss Mary K." Jeffrey Dean Foster
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