Fan button widget

Status: Production
Method: Image
Type: Fan Button Static Display
Link: http://www.raggedangel.net/smashwords-tools/fanbuttons.phpRemoved 21/02/2012. See current site

The fan button simply displays how many Smashwords users have favourited that account. If you look in the sidebar on the page, under the author or publisher image, you can see the pictures of users who have favourited you.

There are two looks, to suit the user's website:

1. 
2. 

The generator on the page creates code that includes a link that goes to the account page, as well as a chance to embed a seperate affiliate link.

It also creates BBCode for forums and forum signatures. The only problem with BBCode is that some forums disable dynamic images. If this is the case, then you can save the image locally and serve it from there. Unfortunately as we do not save data, there is not much we can do to help.

There is one issue that affects publishers. It only shows users who have favourited that specific account, not those who have favourited authors it published.
While Ragged Angel (there, now you know the link between our webspace provider and Smashwords) publishes authors who have been favourited, they themselves have not, so the fan button shows none:

Book Spotlight Widget

Status: Production
Method: Image
Type: Single Book static display
Link: http://www.smashingreads.com/buttons_bookspotlight.php

This creates a flat image with the book cover, rating, description, title and author, linked to the book's page on Smashwords.

The best thing about this widget is that all the user has to embed is basic HTML - and image and a link, it should work on most sites. The image is dynamically updated at our end. As it is an image with link, users can also embed their own referral links in the code - we've even included a generator to make that easier for you.

The only real downside is that, because it is an image, the text won't resize for users. The background is fixed as white, and not transparent.

Originally designed for Squidoo, it works on most sites which only allow basic html e.g. Free Wordpress blogs, Wizzley, Hubpages etc. The generator even creates BBCode for forum posts or, on sites where large signatures are allowed, including in your sig.