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Using WP to write a book (5 posts)

  1. allotherplaces
    Member
    Posted 6 years ago #

    Since this is the Miscellaneous category, I figured this is where this strange question belongs.

    I am setting up a WP page for a friend that wants to write a book - very ambitious!

    I was wondering if people could post some links and thoughts about how best to write a book using WP.

    This can mean marketing, or themes, or plugins to use, and so on.

    I *think* he will be publishing his book on his blog chapter by chapter as he goes along - opensource style.

    Any pointers and thoughts, I will be send his way.

    Thanks.

  2. TechGnome
    Moderator
    Posted 6 years ago #

    Don't really have any suggestions or ideas, but it's similar to what I've done. - http://tannagh.com - The problem is that new stuff gets listed before old stuff, which if the reader is keeping up, isn't a problem, but if some one is trying to start from the begining, it becomes a little harder. I ended up creating a Page that had an intro, then the chapters were sub pages from there, so I could list them in any order I wanted, and make it easier to find for others.

    -tg

    ps - when you get your friends site, drop me a line, I might be interested in a link swap.

  3. moshu
    Member
    Posted 6 years ago #

    Will the blog have exclusively the chapters of the book and no other content?
    If yes, a workaround for the problem TG mentioned could be to have on the main page only the last chapter and have the archives in reverse chronological order. That's one option.

    The other could be - again, as TG mentioned - to use the Pages feature for the book and the "real" blog for a kind of 'work journal'. OK, I know this is so postmodern kind of stuff... and we are told that it's already the post-postmodern era <lol>... but as it happens with many movies that while they are made another small team is making a "werkfilm" about the process of making... Well, you got the idea; it could be an interesting experience.
    [just thinking aloud here]

  4. Dgold
    Member
    Posted 6 years ago #

    I recommend making 1 category for the chapters of the book. Another category for Site News, or Author's thoughts.

    Have the home-page display only the Category of Site News. You can make a post each time you've put a new chapter, "Check out the new chapter in the Book category." This home-page category can function like a normal WP blog, with the newest entry showing first at the top.

    Now make a special Category-2.php Template for the Book category. Here you can set it to display in chronological (not reverse chron) order. So when you click this category you will always see the Chapter 1 first, and it will read down the page in normal order. If the book is short you can make all posts, entire posts, display on this page. Or you can have click to the next page. Or you can delete the_content and the_excerpt and only display the_title and postmeta like date/author so your page will look like:
    Chapter 1 -- posted on XX date, posted by XX author
    Chapter 2 --
    Chapter 3 --
    etc. (all clickable to go to that individual chapter)

    Also I recommend the wp-print hack/plugin by GaMerZ. This gives you a second "CSS" that is more printer-friendly.

    On top of this I now recommend a very new plugin posted yesterday on this forum by Kafkaesq, called Next Previous Post URL Plugin. You can use this in combination with wp-print and proper .htaccess rules (explained by GaMerZ) so that the reader can go on Chapter 1 /print/ page, and from there you can have the Next Post link going automatically to the /print/ version of the next chapter. In this way you can read and navigate from chapter to chapter while staying in the Printer friendly view (black and white, liquid layout fills the screen width). Example on the "print this article" links from my page http://honesttune.com

    If you get this final idea right (takes a little work -- not finished making mine do what I want; getting closer), for the user it is very much like turning the pages of a book, since you can seamless navigate from the bottom of the current post to the top of the next post in proper order.

  5. lllkkk
    Member
    Posted 6 years ago #

    I also want to know how to write a book like drupal.
    http://drupal.org/node/21951
    look links
    "previous up next"
    they were generated automatically.

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