Build Your Author Website – Step 9: Your WordPress Theme
Changing the WordPress theme once you’ve invested valuable time and energy into building and customizing your author website is not advisable. I know because, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I learn things the hard way.
When I set up my original author website, I used the Twenty-Eleven WordPress default theme, only to discover later that there were themes available built especially for authors.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of author themes to choose from, and, for the technologically disadvantaged like me, a lot of choice is not always a good thing. I threw up my arms and called it a day after viewing only a fraction of them.
Also, not all themes are created equal. Some, if uploaded from outside the official WordPress Theme Directory, are actually unsafe.
Add to that, the fact that website themes involve customizations that aren’t easily transferable if you decide to switch to another theme later.
Book Snapper WordPress Theme
Let me save you some theme-searching headache by introducing you to Book-Snapper, a WordPress theme made especially for authors.
Book-Snapper gives you:
- Social Media Integration
- A way to showcase your books
- A section where you can put up a book trailer
- A way to highlight the latest blog posts
- An easy way to get people to sign up to your mailing list
- And more
When users visit your website you have to impress them quickly because they don’t stay long.
According to Jakob Nielsen of the Nielson Norman Group:
…the first 10 seconds of the page visit are critical for users’ decision to stay or leave.
If the Web page survives this first — extremely harsh — 10-second judgment, users will look around a bit. However, they’re still highly likely to leave during the subsequent 20 seconds of their visit. Only after people have stayed on a page for about 30 seconds does the curve become relatively flat. People continue to leave every second, but at a much slower rate than during the first 30 seconds.
A Website Theme that encourages visitors to stay.
The Book-Snapper website theme arranges the information on your site in a way that increases the likelihood that your visitors will outlast those initial 10 seconds and maybe even buy your books.
Now, that would be a true sign of success.
The price was right, so I purchased the Single-User version, and I’m glad I did. In fact, now I wish I’d ordered the Multi-User version, since I plan to convert the Twenty-Eleven theme I used on my main author website to Book-Snapper.
In my next post, I’ll share step-by-step documentation on the latest version of Book-Snapper.
In the meantime, click here if you’d like to research a short list of additional WordPress author themes, which may work equally well for your needs as Book-Snapper.
