Showing posts with label single book widget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label single book widget. Show all posts

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Single book widget (iframe)

Status: Beta
Method: Iframe
Type: Single Book Widget
Link: http://www.smashingreads.com/widget_singlebook.php

The Single Book Widget is also available in javascript, but this will focus on the iframe version. It is designed to display a single book with a limited amount of interactivity.

Functionality:
Top Bar:
I shows the cover
II shows the title and author
III shows a short description and "More" link. The link opens the book's Smashwords page in a new window.
The Smashwords logo takes you to the Smashwords homepage.
On Mouse over, the orange cross launches an addthis display for social bookmarking - the bookmarks created lead to the book's Smashwords page, rather than the widget.

Bottom
The blue arrow launches the book's HTML sample (in a new window).
The Magnifying glass goes to the book's Smashwords page (in a new window).
The Cart goes to the Smashwords shopping cart (in a new window).

This widget does contain a referral link, to help offset the bandwidth costs.

The iframe version preserves the widget's formatting on pages like blogspot, where the website's own layout may interfere with javascript.

Monday, 16 January 2012

Book Button Widget

Status: Beta
Method: Image
Type: Book Button Static Display
Link: http://www.smashingreads.com/buttons_bookbutton.php

A button generated for your books, showing the cover and, if it has a 4 or 5 star rating, that number of stars. It is available in dark blue or light-blue versions. It is generated on the fly so changes in the book's cover or rank should show up quickly.

View this book on Smashwords
View this book on Smashwords


As a dynamic image, the book button may be blocked on some sites (like invision). It can be saved locally and uploaded if you need to (right click on the image and choose "Save Image" or "Save As"). Obviously, this version of the image won't update. An example of an uploaded static image can be seen on the lensimage here.

There is now also a generator that allows you to add a link and your affiliate code around the image, giving you simple HTML to paste onto your site or webspage.

It is marked as in beta due to the white edging which shows up on some websites, and which we want to make transparent to preserve the curved edges. We are also working on improving its loading speed.

Thursday, 12 January 2012

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.

View this book on Smashwords

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

New Widget - Advanced Single Book Widget

Status: In Alpha
Method: Iframe
Type: Single Book detailed display
Link: http://www.smashingreads.com/widget_advsinglebook.php

A more complex single book widget, meant for premium distribution users, which includes:
  • A short description of the book
  • A sample of the book (If the user offers more than 5 pages as a sample on Smashwords - if not a buy link shows)
  • Buy links to various premium distribution locations
    as well as the standard cover, title, and author.
Price and Rating are not mentioned, as they may vary across retailers.

While there may be undiscovered bugs with this, it works for the books we've tested it on. It is in alpha because it can currently appear odd if the user resizes text in some browsers.