Theme Request – Blogging a book
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The other day, I came up with an idea for redesigning my current blog, Inspiration Point. When I wrote my first book, I simply used some existing stories from my current blog site. The old blog posts were either greatly expanded on with same chapters or the post were totally revamped. Only hints remains.
Here is what I want to do. I’d like to put the chapters from my current book on to my blog site. Each chapter would be it’s own blog post. The main menu would point to the book and submenu would go to each chapter title.
I’d like to do the same thing for my second and future books. Of coursse, I still have about 200+ blog articles. A bunch would be in the miscellaneous category.
Because so many people view my blog with a smartphone; they may prefer to buy the book and read at their own pace. Of course, I’d create the finished book through CreateSpace.
What is a good theme for this type of endeavor? I typically view the Internet on my 9.7″ tablet or 17″ laptop. So, I don’t know what is best on a smartphone. I, also need the font to be readable. If I have to change it, then what font?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Barry,
Wow, this sounds like an awesome endeavour! If you haven’t checked it out already, we have some tips for creating a book and setting up chapters on your WordPress.com site here:
The vast majority of our themes are responsive, which means that their design automatically adapts based on the size of the screen it’s being viewed on. Your visitors will therefore be able to read your site’s content equally well across all devices.
For your purposes, I recommend a minimal theme that leaves the focus on your content. Kelly, Penscratch, and Lyretail are a few that come to my mind. I also encourage you to have a browse through our repository. You can filter based on different criteria at the top:
https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/minimal/
Hope that helps out. Let me know if you have any extra questions.
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Hi Siobhyb,
Thanks for replying. I went to the link that you mentioned. Is there an example that I can look at? I’m talking about a site doing something similar to me.
In the back of my mind, I’m thinking of the menu system. Is it still a viable tool for such a blog? I do understand that I’ll need to ditch “Recent Posts” and Archive widgets.
I’m new to the idea of a Static Front page., hence the question.
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Last night, I watched an insightful blog critique of my current blog and theme. It was done by a seller at Fiverr.com
After I saw the poor guy having a little trouble finding certain elements of my blog, I’m switching back to Collinear. It was my favorite theme, out of the many.
How is the Collinear theme for my purpose, “Booking a Blog”? I did run into one navigational issue with that theme. If you’re on a desktop, the dropdown menu works fine. However, it doesn’t do so well on a smartphone.
My menu consisted of categories and one or two pages. Could this have been the problem?
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Hi Barry,
I don’t have a specific example of a WordPress.com site that’s set up as a book but am happy to walk you through any of the steps in the guidance provided.
Colinear would work with the steps. If you can provide a link to your site, I’ll be happy to look into the navigation issue that you described. I’m not able to replicate with the theme’s demo site.
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That’s great. :) I will come back to this thread, a little later. I’ve a few things that needs doing. 1. Change theme to Collinear 2. Upgrade old blog article to reflect what’s in the corresponding chapter. “A Lesser Human” on my blog is NOT the same as the chapter.
I may have a couple of other things. I do appreciate the help.
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Hi Barry,
We’ll be here if you need us. :) It’s also worth noting that, as a paid user, you have access to private support via our contact form:
https://wordpress.com/help/contact
We’re working hard towards 24/5 live chat and, if an operator isn’t available to chat, your request will go through to email. I’m happy to continue helping here, also.
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Hi there,
I’m back. :-) I did a whole lot of updating to my site, Inspiration Point @ http://inspiration-point.org
- I changed the old theme to Collinear. The site looks a lot better.
- I upgraded the three old blog posts to reflect what’s in the book. 3 posts = 3 Chapters
- I borrowed a cue from a book on a blog site and created a TOC
- Thanks to the above link, I added a static front page
How does it look? Did I get everything right?
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I think it looks cool.
Only, I didn’t understand at first that the page called “Book” not only leads to information on purchasable copies but also to the directory for the chapters which you published on your blog.
I only looked there because I knew from reading this forum thread that they must be there somewhere.
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Hi Barry!
Looks good. :) The Table of Contents is a great idea.
Drawing from @jobcenteraktivistin’s feedback: Perhaps you could add some introductory text to your home page that explains what visitors to your site can expect to find when navigating about?
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