WordPress For Authors?

1069 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by ilamont, Mar 11, 2015

-alex-

Discussion Starter · Mar 6, 2015

Hey all.

I’m in the process of setting up my self-hosted WordPress website/blog. Totally new to WordPress!

I was wondering if those of you who use WP (.org) would mind sharing some of the plugins you use, and any that are geared toward us authors?

Would you mind telling me which contact form plugin you use?
And also which mailing list signup form plugin you use? I’ll be using mailchimp for my mailing list.

Thanks for any help and wisdom you can provide.

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Indigo W

· #2 · Mar 6, 2015

MyBookTable is a nice way to display your books with links to sales pages. Redirection by John Godley is handy for redirecting back matter links. And Author Wordcount by Scot Grant is fun if you want people to be able to keep track of your WIP progress. Another word count tool is Dave's Whizmatronic Widgulating Calibrational Scribometer. And I use WP SlimStat by Camu to track site traffic.

If you're looking for a good theme, a bunch of authors on another recent thread suggested Parabola. It's pretty neat, I'll probably be switching over to it in the near future. Best of luck with your website!!

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Elizabeth Ann West

· #3 · Mar 6, 2015

I use parallelus a premium theme. The reason I use it is because it integrates into Buddy Press, allowing me to later set up forums and social media for my readers down the road that are members of my site. I also can restrict content on a post to [public_only] and [members_only]. When you buy it on themeforest, unzip the folder, there's read me instructions and videos on how to use everything. I LOVE static content, it's like making a blog post and having it show up on every other blog post and if you need to make a change, like say add a book, you can automatically change it in ONE place, and all of your old posts are updated. It's like a sidebar you can put ANYWHERE in a post.

It also has really cool columning and price tables etc.

If you get comfortable using shortcodes, you can do all kinds of cool stuff with it.

I alos love the plugin FunCaptcha, and editorial calendar (see when you did and did not post), Revolution Slider (a cool photo slider that lets you add buttons and layered animations to your slide shows), and Organize Series (so my sample chapters are all interlinked).

Here is my site : http://elizabethannwest.com

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Indigo W

· #4 · Mar 6, 2015

Haha, "Jane-of-all-trades," nice. Love the website Elizabeth!

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Aducknamedjoe

· #5 · Mar 6, 2015

I use popupally, great way to increase newsletter subscriptions, and a free theme called Dazzling (https://wordpress.org/themes/dazzling/).

I have a slider, but I heard they're bad for conversion rates so I'll probably get rid of it:

http://www.jpmedved.com

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ilamont

· #6 · Mar 6, 2015

One plugin I use every day is StatCounter -- it quickly lets me see who is visiting the site, daily traffic, exit links, etc. Register on statcounter.com first, enter the project details (URL of your site, etc.) and then install the official Statcounter plugin.

I also like the Yoast SEO plugin -- it really helps Wordpress users optimize their headlines, links, and other information.

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dkgould

· #7 · Mar 6, 2015

I love the Totally Booked plugin. It lets you make nicely formatted pages for each book along with ALL the buy links or you can use it instead of a widget to save space or you can create an interactive gallery with it too. (it's been super helpful for setting up cross promos with other people too!)

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-alex-

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 8, 2015

Thanks for the replies, I’ll look into those. :0)

Elizabeth, would you mind sharing which widget you use for displaying your twitter feed?

Also, as I mentioned in the OP, would anyone mind sharing which “contact form” and “mailing listing sign up” plug ins you use?

Also, just thought of something else. “What security plugins do you guys use to stop spam and getting hacked?

Thanks again!

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Shei Darksbane

· #9 · Mar 8, 2015

Mailing list signup: Mailchimp plugin:
Contact form: Contact Bank

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ilamont

· #10 · Mar 11, 2015

-alex- said:
Also, just thought of something else. "What security plugins do you guys use to stop spam and getting hacked?

I use Wordfence Security. It's free. Very thorough, although the alerts can drive you crazy (fortunately, they can be turned off). I also have a Captcha that forces a math question which seems to take care of most spam. I think it's called Really Simple CAPTCHA

I use a contact form called Contact Form 7.

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