S.A. Mireles
The Challenge
Sam Mireles is a San Francisco physician and novelist who spent six years writing his debut novel, Zebrafish, a speculative story about a trans woman scientist and the hermaphrodite fish in her lab. Literary agents were responding, and one gave him clear advice: put a website link in your query letters so agents aren't stuck searching Google to find you. Sam had no website, no brand, and wasn't sure he had enough to fill a site.
He needed to look like a real, promotable author the moment an agent looked him up, with a site built for a writing career, not just one book.
Sectors: Author / Fiction · Arts & Publishing
Location: San Francisco, CA
Services: Brand Strategy & Visual Identity, Text-Based Logo, Copywriting & Wireframe, One-Page Squarespace Website, Basic SEO, Squarespace Training
Website: samireles.com
What We Did
This was a branding and one-page website project, built in stages so Sam could weigh in at every step.
Brand strategy first. We adapted our branding questionnaire for an author, reading "clients" as readers and literary agents, and used it to define his voice, audience and goals.
Three visual directions. Sam chose Tidal Circuit: deep ocean blues, greens and sand tones with subtle "signal" textures, so the look sits where his writing does, at the meeting of nature and technology.
Copy written with Sam. We wrote the wireframe and copy together. His edits set the pen name, S.A. Mireles, and the line that anchors the site: "I seek the universal in the specific."
An author site, not a book site. One page holds Zebrafish, his essays and short fiction, his story, his medical work, his writing inspiration and a contact form, plus a "Join the List" signup and a credibility bar from Stanford to The Advocate.
Training and handoff. A recorded Squarespace training session showed Sam how to edit and maintain the site himself.
Direction
Scroll the homepage 👇
Final Site
The Outcome
Sam now has a polished author site to put in every query letter. It reads like the work of an author who's already published, with room for future books and a mailing list ready for when Zebrafish comes out.
See it live → samireles.com
Testimonial:
“When I first reached out to Salaams, I didn't know anything about building a website, or think I had enough accomplishments to fill one up. Salaams was kind, patient and knowledgeable. In a short time, they helped me figure out the design that would best represent my work and built the site in a staged process with opportunities for input along the way. At the end, they showed me how to manage the site going forward. Thanks to Salaams, I now have a website that I'm proud to share!”
-Sam Mireles (S.A. Mireles), Author
In Short
A physician-novelist with no website and no brand now has an author identity and a one-page site built to grow with his writing career.
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