Creating an Author Website Just Got Easier

Novelist - build your author website with ease

I’ve been wanting to create “UBB for authors” for a long time now. I had actually created custom solutions for some of my author clients, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what would help authors, but I wanted to turn it into a plugin that ANY AUTHOR could use—not just my own clients.

But it took a long effing time.

Well, creating the plugin didn’t take a long time, but deciding it was actually “done” took aaaages. I’ve been sitting on this plugin since like DECEMBER! No, earlier than that I think. But seriously, what have I been doing?!?

It took long enough, but NOVELIST is here!

I finally got my butt into gear in March and finished the Novelist plugin. I think it’s pretty freakin’ awesome, and I can’t wait for you guys to check it out!

Let me format your books for you

The interface for adding a book with the Novelist Plugin

The Novelist plugin creates a new section in the admin panel called “Books”. This section works similar to posts in how you can Add/Edit/Delete entries. But when you add a book, you don’t just have a big post box for you to do all your formatting manually (ew). I’ve added user-friendly boxes where you just fill in the details.

Then, when you hit “Publish”, the Novelist plugin formats all that info for you automatically! How easy is that? No more digging through code or stressing when you can’t get your images to align with your text just right.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m working on a “Fetch info from Goodreads” button? Because if you’re lazy (I am too) it would be even BETTER if you could just auto-load all that info with what’s already on Goodreads. ONE BUTTON CLICK! That’s all it takes. But that features is “coming soon”. 😉

And because options are nice, you can even change the order that the information appears in, UBB-style, my friends!

The labels for editing the text and HTML for each piece of book information
Drag and drop the book info boxes to rearrange them

Do you send out ARCs? Let’s make that easier for you.

The public form for requesting an ARC

I know most traditionally published authors don’t take ARC requests (their publicists handle that), but plenty of indie authors do! So I created this super awesome ARC requests form. You can create the form yourself (rearrange/edit fields) and then your readers can fill it out with their info.

When they submit the form, a new “ARC Request” gets added to your admin panel which you can view/edit. You can change the status of each request from “Queued” to “Accepted”, “Rejected”, or “Reviewed”. But you know what the BEST part is? The admin panel has these super awesome “quick email” buttons:

A screenshot showing how you can view, manage, and edit ARC requests in the admin panel

With one click of a button, you can load a new email draft for approving or declining a request. You can set these templates in the settings panel, so you can edit the content of each one:

A screenshot of the email templates for ARC requests

Oh and there’s this super cute dashboard widget where you can see all the latest ARC requests that have come in:

An admin dashboard widget that shows recent ARC requests

Did I mention the 3D book covers?

A 3D book cover using pure CSS

This is actually a new feature I added in version 1.0.1. It was requested by one of my very first Novelist customers! This is a three-dimensional book cover using PURE CODE! That means you just upload the book cover image and I do the rest!

It’s pretty snazzy, so I might even consider adding it to UBBv3. What do you think?

There are sidebar widgets too!

 screenshot of the three widgets that come with Novelist

Novelist comes with three widgets:

  1. Book Showcase: Allows you to display the book cover and/or synopsis of a chosen book. You can also add text before and after the book.
  2. Word Count: Create a progress bar that shows your word count on your next W.I.P.
  3. Books by Series: Lists all the books in one of your series.

Shut up and take my money!

I’m adding more and more to Novelist every day. My goal is to make it super easy for authors to star, grow, or maintain their websites. It’s EXTREMELY important for authors to have a website, but it shouldn’t be a pain in the ass to create one. Novelist makes it easier to add pages for each of your books and easily change/edit the information later.

Try it for yourself!

I’ve set up an awesome new demo site. You can check it out and create your very own “sandbox demo site”. That means a new site will be created JUST FOR YOU! It’s your personal Novelist playground so you can do whatever you want with it. Care to take it for a spin?

Try a FREE Demo!

I WANT IT, I WANT IT!

Maybe you’ve already decided that Novelist is the bee’s knees. You can learn more on the sales page or just proceed straight through the checkout. 😉

Buy Now! ($35)

What do you think of Novelist so far?

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I'm a 30-something California girl living in England (I fell in love with a Brit!). My three great passions are: books, coding, and fitness. more »

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19 comments

  1. This is fantastic! I’ll have to grab it for my website for sure. And the 3D book covers using code is genius! I had no idea that was even possible – I manually do all of mine for my blog. So i would love to see it in UBBv3 🙂 You keep out doing yourself!

    1. There are definitely limitations with 3D book covers with code, but it is possible to a certain extent. 🙂 One of the first customers asked for and gave me an example. I couldn’t replicate the example exactly (because it was an image) but I was able to do something, which is pretty cool!

  2. I’m pretty sure that the Novelist Plugin will make a bunch of authors’ lives a lot easier! And just to throw it out there, the mock up covers that you made—I assume—are awesome! They rock!

    1. That’s what I’m hoping for! 🙂

      I’ll see about adding the 3D book covers into UBBv3. There are a few limitations on sizing and such, but it’s still pretty cool.

  3. Eek, I’m LOVING this new plugin – it’s gorgeous, as usual (especially that snazzy 3D cover feature)! I was actually considering buying UBB for my own books, but now there’s a whole ‘nother version just for authors… I feel so special. 😉 Getting this one ASAP – thank you so much, Ashley! x

    1. Thank you!! 🙂 I think this would be an awesome fit for you. Be sure to give the demo a spin!

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