If you need help with shortcodes, please refer to the Shortcode User Manual.
Note: Author Showcase is no longer under active development. Now that we have the Gutenberg Editor, it’s not needed any more. If anyone on an older version of WordPress wants to use it and still needs support, please contact me.
The Author Showcase is a WordPress plugin by an author, for authors. It was created to combat several problems:
- Many authors use things like the Amazon Affiliate widget to display their books, which is stripped out of webpages by adblockers. This results in their books never being seen by a significant chunk of users, as adblockers are the most popular plugins for Chrome and Firefox.
- If authors want to just add their books and a link to Amazon, etc, they’re obliged to know some HTML to make it look nice.
- Dealing with many books, in multiple series, that need to be displayed in several places and formats on a website is a nightmare!
- Trying to keep all book info up to date is difficult.
The Author Showcase allows authors to organize their books into a convenient list within WordPress. You can include the title, subtitle, cover, author name, series name, and blurb, as well as any number of links to various websites where each book may be bought.
You can then display your books on a page or post using a shortcode, or in a widget. All the messy HTML is taken care of, and each book is nicely formatted. And best of all – you only ever need to enter or update the book’s information in one place, in its entry on the Author Showcase Book List.
Author Showcase is based on the original Buy This Book widget plugin. It was developed with feedback from the Kboards Writers’ Cafe community. For more information on functionality and commentary, see this thread on Kboards. Thanks to everyone for their help in making this plugin possible!