Adding Authors

MBM Multi-Author adds a new Authors menu to your WordPress Dashboard.

Authors Menu added with 2 sub items: All Authors and Add New — Authors Menu

Managing Authors

You add authors to your website the same way you add books.

Manage Authors just like pages, posts, and books.

Author Name

The first thing to enter is the Author Name. After the name is entered into the top field, Mooberry Book Manager will populate the First Name, Middle Name, and Last Name drop downs with different options based on the name entered.

Mooberry Book Manager will also do its best to guess at what the first and last names are and the middle name, if any. If it gets it wrong, you can choose the appropriate names yourself.

A Text Field for entering the name, and then three drop down fields to choose the first, middle, and last names. — Entering the name

The reason Mooberry Book Manager wants to know the first, middle, and last names is for sorting purposes. In the Settings, you can choose how authors are sorted: by first name or by last name.

Anytime multiple authors are listed together, this is how they will be sorted. This includes any time there’s a list of authors to choose from and if you are grouping or sorting by authors in a Book Grid.

Author Info

The Email Address and Author Bio are displayed on the Author's Profile Page.

Text field for Email Address, WYSIWYG field for Author Bio, and drop down for — Author Info

Short Bio

The Short Bio field is displayed in a widget and at the bottom of the book page, so it’s best to keep it short. There is no word or character count limit assigned to the field, but use your best judgment to what looks good on your site.

If you don’t plan to use the Author Bio Widget, you may be able to use a longer bio without an issue.

You can choose to have the Short Bio use the first 150 characters of the Author Bio, or you can choose to enter a custom Short Bio.

Book Grid Settings

The Author Profile Page displays a grid of books by that author, and you can choose the grouping, sorting, and cover height for that grid.

Choose how the grid on the Author Profile page should look.

The Group By and Sort By options are the same as when you add a Book Grid to a page, with one additional option: You can also choose to use the default that is set up on the Multi-Author Settings page.

The book cover height can either use the default from the Multi-Author Settings page or you can set a number to override the default.

Active/Inactive

In most cases, you will want your author to be Active. An Inactive author is not included in the author list when using the [mbm_author_list] shortcode. Setting an author to Inactive does not have any other effect.

A switch control toggles between Active and Inactive — Authors can be Active or Inactive

Author Photo

The Author Photo is displayed on the Author Profile page, in the "About the Author" section of book pages, and Author Widgets.

You can upload a new image or choose an existing one from the media library.

Add Media button opens the media library for uploading or choosing an image. — Upload a new image or choose one from the media library

Social Media Links

Listing Social Media links is optional. Additional Social Media sites can be added on the settings page, much the same way as adding new retailers and formats.

Social Media Links are displayed on the Author Profile page.

Multiple Social Media Links can be added. Each link has a drop down field for the Site and a text box for the URL — Add multiple social media links

Affiliate Links

In the Settings, you can choose to allow individual authors to add their own affiliate links. If authors can use their own affiliate links, this section will be displayed on the author screen.

An affiliate code can be entered for as many retailers as the author has codes for.

These affiliate codes will only be used on books assigned to this author. If a book has multiple authors with affiliate codes, one is randomly chosen between them.

If an author does not have an affiliate code for a retailer, the site's affiliate code, if there is one, will be used instead.

The affiliate code works the same way as the affiliate codes on the Retailers settings page: you can choose whether the code goes before or after the URL.

Multiple affiliate codes can be entered. For each one, there is a drop down to choose the retailer, a text box to enter the code, and an option to choose if the code goes before or after the URL. — Add multiple affiliate link codes