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Novelist

By Ashley

Content Management / Document Management & Downloads

Novelist Review - In-Depth Analysis

Organize and display your book portfolio with ease. Novelist allows authors to manage book details effectively.

Performance Overview

WPS Score

6.89/10

User Rating

5/5 (based on 9+ reviews)

Active Installations

1,000+

Update Frequency

Below Average It is calculated using the weighted average of same category plugins.

Security Score

5 / 10 (Medium Risk) It is calculated using the weighted average of all versions.

What It Does

Novelist helps authors easily organize and display their portfolio of books.

It features a dedicated area for all books, an easy form for filling out book information, and automatic formatting for all book details. Customizable templates allow for a personalized look, and you can create an archive of all your books effortlessly. It is also developer-friendly.

Available book information fields include title, book cover, series details, contributors, publisher, release date, genres, pages, synopsis, Goodreads link, purchase links, ISBN13, ASIN, excerpt, and extra text.

Extensive documentation is available to assist users in maximizing the plugin's capabilities.

Comparing to Alternatives

Novelist stands alone in its category with no close direct alternatives available, making it a unique choice for authors and book-centered websites.

Top alternatives

Strengths

Highly praised for excellent and responsive support.
Simple and easy to use for adding books to websites.
Specifically designed for authors and book-related content.
Consistently receives perfect ratings from users.
Helps create professional author websites efficiently.

Weaknesses

No direct alternatives to compare feature sets.
Limited to the features provided without a pro version.
Past security vulnerabilities have been identified and fixed.

User Sentiment Analysis

With a perfect 5-star rating from all reviewers, user sentiment is overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the plugin's ease of use and excellent support.

Positive highlights

"Fantastic plugin & great support" — listronosz
"The support for this theme is fantastic" — bunnylumpkins
"Great plugin!" — Nate Hoffelder
"Amazing plugin! Support is super fast too!" — Tahiel
"Simple to use and easy to keep updated" — chriscoxwrites

Common complaints

Weaknesses

Previous versions had medium severity security vulnerabilities.
No pro version limits advanced feature availability.
No direct alternatives to benchmark against.

Who Should Use This?

Best for

Authors and book enthusiasts looking for a straightforward, reliable plugin to showcase their books and author websites will find Novelist ideal.

Not ideal for

Users seeking advanced features or those concerned about past security issues might want to consider other options or wait for further updates.

Pricing & Value

Free version includes

The free version offers a comprehensive set of features sufficient for most authors to display their books and manage author-related content effectively.

Final Verdict

Novelist is a standout plugin with perfect user ratings and excellent support, making it a top choice for authors wanting to create professional book-centered websites. Its simplicity and reliability are major strengths.

However, users should be aware of its past security vulnerabilities, which have been addressed in updates, and the lack of a pro version limits advanced functionality. Overall, it offers great value for those seeking a focused, easy-to-use solution.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Novelist plugin.

Authors

Books

GoodReads

Publishing

Writing

Screenshots

FAQ

To change the text and order of book information, read this article on customizing the book layout.

Create a new folder in your theme folder called novelist_templates. Inside that folder, create a new file called book-content.php. This file is responsible for displaying all the book information. You can now create more complex layouts with book information. You’ll need to use the Novelist_Book class to assist you in displaying each piece of book info. For example:

$book = new Novelist_Book( get_the_ID() );  if ( $book->title ) {     echo '<h1>' . esc_html( $book->title ) . '</h1>'; }  if ( $book->synopsis ) {     echo '<blockquote class="novelist-synopsis">' . wpautop( $book->synopsis ) . '</blockquote>'; }

The Novelist plugin creates two custom taxonomies:

novelist-genre for genres
novelist-series for series

By default, when showing book information, each taxonomy term (genre name or series name) will link to an automatically generated archive page. To disable these links, add this code snippet to a custom plugin:

add_filter('novelist/taxonomy/series-args', 'agNovelistDisableArchives'); add_filter('novelist/taxonomy/genre-args', 'agNovelistDisableArchives');  function agNovelistDisableArchives($args) {     $args['public'] = false;      return $args; }