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WORDPRESS FOR AUTHORS Betsy Cohen WordCamp Phoenix 2013 twitter: @betsela www: positiveelement.com

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“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” ~ Winston Churchill

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A good author web site establishes your credibility and your personal author brand.

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A bad author web site could be worse than no website at all.

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Alignment, padding, font, and color contribute to an impression on quality and professionalism, or lack thereof.

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“Just as people judge a book by its cover, they will judge your work by your website.” ~ Unknown (but wise) web marketer

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WordPress for Authors: Overview 1. Design • For your goals • For your audience • For yourself 3. Utilize • Update • Interact • Build Author Platform 2. Build • Setup • Content • Customize 4. Q&A

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“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

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1. Design the Right Site

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1.1 Determine and Prioritize Your Site’s Goals. Design your site to drive visitors towards your goal

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Common Goals • Sell Books • Establish credibility as an expert • Develop a loyal readership • Garner media attention

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Prominent “buy buttons” & book covers encourage book sales.

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Highlight awards and testimonials to establish credibility

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To develop a loyal readership, INTERACT with visitors. Prominently feature your email subscribe and SM links, and encourage commenting on your active blog.

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For media attention, my mantra is Press begets more Press.

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1.2 Consider Your Site’s Audiences. Then, structure your site to provide easy access to what your audiences want

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Common Audiences • Fans, readers, potential readers • Reviewers • Media • Other authors

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Fans love connecting with their favorite authors, so give them ways to interact with you.

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Fans and reviewers want to know more about you, so make sure your bio is engaging and easy to ﬁnd.

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For media, offer a Press section press mentions, press releases, with impressive quotes, and high & low res images

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Other authors want to know how you’re doing it!

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Home page design: notable quote, book cover(s) & buy buttons sell; author headshot invites you to learn about and connect with her; And belwo, recent press and blog content allow visitor to dig deeper.

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1.3 Design it to Reﬂect Your Personality. Keep it simple, and focus design elements around the desired brand/image and the author’s creative preferences.

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“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” ~ Oscar Wilde

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Design Tips • Intuitive • Simple, uncluttered • Personalize with subtle accents, color and imagery • Design around the author, not an individual book

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What Not To Do: Make People Think!

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If your website needs a user guide, you might want to simplify.

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Feels fresh and clean, thanks to healthy margins, a simple design, and lack of clutter.

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Understated: A little color goes a long way to set this author’s tone.

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Gillian Flynn uses typography, a limited color palette, and subtle texture to add personality.

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A series author, or one who writes about speciﬁc themes can get away with designing the site around the books.

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Build yourself up: Focus on you, the author, over the individual works.

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2. Build it Right

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2.1 Set Up Your Site. WordPress, hosting, domains... oh my!

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Domains • Buy a domain from your registrar or hosting company. • In most cases, author name should be primary domain name. • Book name domains can forward to the site, or to the book’s page on the site

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Hosting • Security is more important than ever • Best: Virtual Private Server, Cloud hosting or WordPress managed hosting • Inexpensive, shared hosting is risky

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WordPress Site Setup • Install: 5-min install or 1-click from hosting • Create pages and menus • Add content to pages and sidebars * • Extend with plugins & themes * * more detail on upcoming slides

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2.2 Create and Organize Your Content. Keep your site’s goals and audience in mind at all times!

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Lots of content: Good for SE’s, but can be overwhelming for humans. • SHORT... pages, paragraphs, sentences... and don’t forget the short (small) words — unless your audience is particularly erudite • TAGS: Properly tag headings —

— and subheadings —

,

etc. — to break up longer passages and make content accessible via text readers. • FORMAT: Add visual interest and enhance “scan-ability” with bullets, block quotes, links, and data tables whenever appropriate. • IMAGES are also great for visual interest and serve as clues to a section’s topic. Be sure to use high-quality images or your credibility will suffer. • TARGET: Focus individual page content around a single keyword phrase to enhance search engine visibility. Betsy’s Quick Tips for User- and SE-Friendly Content

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Content to Include: Pages • About • Book Info * • Media/Press • Mentions • Audio/Video • Press Kit • Appearances/Events • Blog • Contact • How you prefer to be contacted • Social Media • Other contacts for press etc. • Form to Email * more detail on upcoming slides

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Allie Larkin has the usual pages in her navigation menu

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Book Details • Book Cover • Title • Book Summary • Short Quotes from Reviews • Full Reviews • Excerpt • ISBN • Publisher • Reading Guide • Buy links • Share & Shelve • Other fun stuff • Book Trailer • Character proﬁles • Author’s bookshelf • Extra/related content

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Emily Gifﬁn has a beautiful “bookshelf” page with links to deeper content, including summaries, excerpts, reviews & BUY.

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Share & Shelve for each book

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Peter Carey lists the books he read while writing. Interesting!

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And more fun stuff: Gretchen Rubin has tips and quizzes

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More fun: Stephenie Meyer has Playlists that inspired each book.

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More fun stuff: Tom Clancy has character proﬁles. Get to know Jack Ryan!

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• Email Subscribe Form • Social Media/Connect • Latest Blog Posts or Categories • Twitter Feed • Author Photo & Link to Bio • Buy & Share the Book Secondary Content in Consistent Sidebar & Footer

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Buy & Share the Book, plus Twitter Feed and Email Subscribe on every page and post

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Consistent footer with author bio lead-in and blog categories.

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2.3 Extend Custom post types, plugins & themes make it better, make it yours.

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Manage content with Custom Post Types Custom Post Types — sometimes referred to as content types — simplify the addition and formatting of complex content. Common uses: • Events/appearances • Reviews • Press mentions • Books - best for proliﬁc writers

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This reviews page is cleaner with pull-quotes that automatically link to full reviews, thanks to custom post types and custom templates.

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Custom Post Types are great for a consistent format across multiple book pages.

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Plugins allow you create custom post types and add speciﬁc ﬁelds without coding: Custom Post Types UI and Advanced Custom Fields.

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Books custom post type includes ﬁelds for various attributes, including subtitle, ISBN, excerpt, and retail & social links

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The WordPress Theme Ideally, it’s custom. If not, select a minimal theme. • Look for a plain vanilla, super-clean theme • Look for decent padding, margins and white-space • Look for readable typography, font-styles that feel right to you • Many themes allow you to customize color, header, and sometimes even layout and fonts

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Free theme example: Mainstream by WooThemes

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Premium theme example: Minimum by StudioPress

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Low-cost theme example Low-cost theme example: Booker by ThemesKingdom

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Low-cost theme example Low-cost theme example: BookPage, avail. on Themeforest

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Extend WordPress with Plugins • SEO • WordPress SEO by Yoast, unless you are using a theme framework with built-in SEO features • Caching • W3 Total Cache • SuperCache • Site and Database Backups • BackupBuddy $ • Backup to Dropbox • Simple Backup • Forms • Gravity Forms $ • Gravity Forms MailChimp Add-on • Redirection • If moving from old site • Extend Further • Slider • Editorial Calendar • Jetpack • and more!

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WordPress SEO from Yoast allows you to target your keywords with customized titles and meta tags

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Caching plugins speed up your site’s load time. Every millisecond counts!

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Your most crucial security measure: Backup DB & all ﬁles, and store them somewhere else in case of malware or server failure.

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Gravity Forms — likely the most popular premium WP plugin, with tons of add-ons of its own.

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Redirection: If you’re moving from an old site, redirect old URLs!

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Sliders — lots to choose from; Many themes come with a slider pre- loaded, such as the BackCountry theme from StudioPress

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Editorial Calendar helps you manage your blog’s schedule by dragging & dropping posts on a calendar

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Jetpack is smorgasbord of useful features and widgets: Twitter feed, Subscribe to Blog, Sharing, Contact Form & much more.

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3. Utilize Your Site

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“The author is a start up. Indie and publisher-supported alike, authors are now wearing many hats to bring their books into the mainstream.” ~ Niya Sisk, BookDaily.com

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3.1 Keep it Fresh.

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Old events on Upcoming Events list? #FAIL

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Add and Update • WordPress is a content management system, so manage your content! • Add new book reviews • Keep Events/appearances info up-to-date • Add new press mentions • Blog on a regular basis

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3.2 Interact.

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“Whatever your goal, whether to sell a series to a major publisher or to become a successful self-published author raking in the bucks, building an author platform is indispensable in today’s writing marketplace.” ~ Toby Neal, self-published author of the Lei Crime Series and a short ebook called Building an Author Platform that can Launch Anything

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Readers Want to Interact With You. • Who me? If you’re the author, then Yes, You! • Collect email addresses for a newsletter or for occasional announcements. • Stay in touch with these people! It doesn’t have to be weekly or monthly, but at least every few months when there is book news, contests or other announcements. • Encourage comments on your blog posts. • Respond to each comment personally to develop relationships. • When appropriate, follow up with these commenters via email to ask permission to add them to your email list.

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Toby Neal responds to almost every comment personally.

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3.3 Extend your Author Platform.

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“If you want to be found, stand where the seeker seeks.” ~ Sydney Lanier, American musician and poet

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Your Website is a Hub. • Cross-promote your content on your branded SM channels • Give back: fans love sneak previews, live chats, contests, and giveaways. • Cross promote these events to your email list and throughout your author platform • Drive trafﬁc back to your site or increase your FB fan base • Promote your followers, fans, & colleagues when they have news worth sharing, by re-tweeting, blogging, etc. They’ll repay these favors!

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Sylvia Day’s Twitter and FB match her site’s branding, her Amazon page has a feed of latest blog posts, and — BONUS! Pinterest boards inspired by her books!

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Diana Gabaldon’s“Daily Lines,” short excerpts from UPCOMING books, are cross-promoted on FB, Twitter and website.

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Phillipa Gregory has an active YouTube channel, and she interacts with fans does during live video chats on goodreads

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Toby Neal re-tweets tons of her followers posts, and promotes others with #WW (Writer Wednesday) and #FF (Follow Friday)

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“My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter.” ~ Thomas Helm

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Summary: Design • Prioritize goals for the site, and design accordingly • Consider your audiences and provide easy access to material for each • Keep it clean, subtly adding your personality

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Summary: Build • Setup self-hosted WordPress site with author’s name as the domain • DIY-ers: Choose a well-designed minimal theme • Customize with plugins to optimize, speed up, back up and extend your site. • Create and structure your content with your site’s goals in mind

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Summary: Utilize • Keep content fresh, up-to-date • Interact with your visitors to build relationships that you can leverage • Cross-promote your content and others’ throughout your entire author platform

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Resources • Self-Publishing Sees Triple-Digit Growth in Just Five Years... http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/self-publishing-sees-triple-digit-growth-in-just-ﬁve-years- says-bowker-175634901.html • Essential WordPress Plugins for Book Authors http://wpmu.org/wordpress-plugins-for-writers/ • The Complete Guide to Custom Post Types http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2012/11/08/complete-guide-custom-post-types/ • ePublishUnum.com http://www.epublishunum.com/ • Building an Author Platform that can Launch Anything http://amzn.com/B007MJYJRM • The Ultimate Author Website Info-Pack (for the non-techie) http://www.30daybooks.com/free-pdfs • Amazon Author Central https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/landing?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

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Theme Resources WordPress.org Theme Repository — http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ WooThemes — http://www.woothemes.com/ ThemeForest — http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress StudioPress — http://my.studiopress.com/themes/ Booker Theme from ThemesKingdom — http://www.themeskingdom.com/wordpress-themes/ booker-wordpress-theme/ Bookpage Theme on Themeforest — http://themeforest.net/item/bookpage-sell-your-books- with-style-/158139?sso?WT.ac=search_item&WT.seg_1=search_item&WT.z_author=Hein

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Plugin Resources WordPress SEO — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/ W3 Total Cache — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/ BackupBuddy (Premium) — http://ithemes.com/purchase/backupbuddy/ Backup to Dropbox — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-backup-to-dropbox/ Simple Backup — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-backup/ Gravity Forms (Premium)— http://www.gravityforms.com Redirection — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/ Custom Post Types UI — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-post-type-ui/ Advanced Custom Fields — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-custom-ﬁelds/ Editorial Calendar — http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/

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“Just because you can create your own website, it doesn’t mean you should.” ~ Betsy Cohen (me!)

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betsy cohen positive element twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @betsela PositiveElement.com [email protected]