Hidden Gems Books

About the project

Hidden Gems Books is an author-services and publishing-education platform built to help self-published authors find their readers. Founded by Craig Tuch, the site has grown over the years into a full hub for indie writers. It offers an Advanced Reader Copy review program, one-on-one consulting, marketing tools, a weekly podcast, and a deep library of articles on the craft and business of publishing.

I have been working with Craig since the early days of the site. My role has been to take his ideas and turn them into something polished, functional, and easy to use, whether that means shaping the visual design, building out new features, or troubleshooting and refining based on user feedback.

What I worked on

• Initial design and build. Established the WordPress foundation and visual language of the site so new sections could be added consistently as the business grew. This included WooCommerce customizations that let authors book scheduled dates across a range of services, from ARC campaigns to a romance newsletter, alongside the onboarding and management of thousands of readers.
• Ongoing feature development. Translated new service ideas into working pages, forms, and flows. That meant building out offerings like beta reading, editing, consulting, marketing, and cover design as the business expanded.
• UX refinement. Steady attention to navigation, readability, and the small moments where users hesitate. That work included customized checkout options for different products and a reader dashboard that helps readers manage their ARC opportunities and discover new books that might interest them.
• Problem solving. Breaking complex requirements down into manageable, maintainable code, keeping the site secure, and handling the day-to-day user troubleshooting that comes with a site this active.

The collaboration

The most rewarding part of this engagement has been the working relationship itself. Craig brings the publishing expertise and the vision for where the site should go; my job is to make sure the execution lives up to it. Years in, we still trade ideas back and forth, and the site keeps growing because of that.

The outcome

Hidden Gems Books has become a destination in the indie author community, a place writers return to for the ARC program, the podcast, and the long shelf of articles. Being able to look at a project that has compounded for this many years and know I helped lay the groundwork for it is exactly the kind of work I want more of.