We have a lot of cool stuff planned for January 2013, fist among those is the release of eBook v2. For those unfamiliar with the original theme…eBook is a theme for book authors that featured a simple design and feature set which basically revolved around showcasing a single book. The theme itself had no e-commerce capabilities but you could provide a link to your book on Amazon.
Although the new version looks the same as the last one, that is where the similarities end. With the new version we wanted to provide the tools which will allow you to see the book(s) on the actual site (and Amazon if you wish). How will this be possible? WooCommerce!
Let’s take a look at some of the changes that will make your book-selling experience a whole lot easier
Cater to any audience
With eBook v2 you won’t have to worry about your mobile visitors, the theme will render great on both desktop and mobile devices. eBook v2 features a responsive design which will adapt to the visitors screen size.
Showcase and sell books
As hinted earlier, eBook v2 is completely WooCommerce compatible. For those unfamiliar with WooCommerce, it is a free WordPress plugin which you can use to sell pretty much anything. You’ll find more information about the plugin inside the eBook theme guide.
With WooCommerce you can link both the main Purchase button and the image to a product on your own site. PayPal is supported out of the box, while other gateways can be added as paid extras. Selling on Amazon is now just a perk, not the only option.
A flexible homepage
Even though they look the same, homepages in eBook and eBook v2 function in completely different ways. In eBook v2 the homepage is controlled entirely from the Appearance -> Widgets section meaning you can easily swap widgets between one another. With widgets you’ll even be able to display WooCommerce content like products or the cart.
eBook theme options have been moved from the wp-admin -> Appearance section to the WordPress customizer. The quickest way to access the customizer is to click on the big blue “Customize this site” button on the WordPress dashboard homepage
WordPress SEO and bbPress support
To help boost your site ranking eBook v2 has been made completely compatible with WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. The theme doesn’t come with any built-in SEO settings, it is completely dependent on this (awesome) plugin.
To help you start a community, the theme has also been made compatible with bbPress forum plugin. bbPress works within your WordPress install making it super-easy to manage and get started. If you’re looking to start a community around your book/website – this is the way to do it.
Shortcodes
eBook v2 comes with an extensive selection of shortcodes created using Twitter Bootstrap. Along with standard shortcodes such as alert boxes or icon lists you can also add tabs, galleries, tooltips, popovers and more. A full list of shortcodes is available on the eBook v2 demo site
Automatic Updates
This feature has been at the top of our list for quite some time, but, it’s finally here! With eBook v2 you won’t have to worry about updating the theme, notifications about new updates will come directly to your WordPress dashboard. What’s more, you’ll be able to perform the update right there inside the dashboard. Be careful though…updating will undo all your customizations so be sure to back everything up first.
View Live Demo or Test Drive and Purchase this theme
Mobile, auto theme updates and Functionality, that works in the ‘real world’.
Now, Templatic are launching top class themes
Auto updates were a long time coming, sorry about that. It took a while to find a system that will enable us to provide updates to members only. You will see auto-updates coming to other (existing) themes as well.
A very pleasant surprise. For a long time I was spinning around this theme. Every time I gave up because it was not responsive. Publishing is the area in which Templatic take a big slice of the pie.
Only, it should fix the design. This is how old-fashioned and not very attractive.
Now Templatic has a horse in the race! Thanks, Templatic!
A number of book authors are kinda old-fashioned, we figured they would appreciate the design :)
Joking aside… major design changes were impossible since after all, this was just an upgrade. I’m guessing existing eBook owners wouldn’t be happy to see their whole site changing after a “simple” update.
Looks promising! …and don’t worry about the design – book authors indeed are a bit old-fashioned and the design in this case is supposed to serve one single purpose: selling a book.
soooo – I have to check my wallet, it took you guys so long to get this updated that my one year of updates just expired, *lol*
keep it up!
Martin
Hi Martin
Send me an email, I’ll sort out that license. We owe you for all those Publisher reports :)
Martin, I do not really know what you’re talking about?! You can not speak in the plural.
Maybe you’re afraid of new things? Book publishers need to realize that the book sales book cover. Think about it, what sells chocolate? Packs. True. Your Books sales page design.
So it is not trivial design from Templatic Themes. This is an old design that belongs more to the beginning of the century. This is a design that will repel buyers from purchasing books. Because, psychologically, the buyer’s first impression is repulsive sites, repulsive book. Think about it.
Templatic urgently needs to refresh the design of the older themes.
Much like you, I also prefer modern-looking sites; but modern != more sales. We saw this first hand with our e-commerce themes. Since all of them share the same features, the design is what sells each. These older themes (like E-commerce) sell much better than new ones like DigitalBox or StoreBox. Design is most important with magazine style themes, on e-commerce sites the actual product is much more important than how the site looks.
I should mention that design of old themes will never change drastically, instead, we’ll rather release a theme with the exact same features and different design (like Realtr / Real Estate). Major design changes aren’t fair to existing customers, they purchased the theme because they liked that particular design – they might not like new one.