No, this isn’t about that kind of editing. This is about how to edit a self-hosted WordPress website to display your books on the sidebar, with easy links for interested viewers to purchase them. This is a very simple way to display your work and convert blog readers to book buyers. Marketing doesn’t have to be flashy, sometimes it just needs to be there.
Here’s how to update the books on the sidebar of a wordpress blog. I’m using Lawdog’s blog and website to illustrate the tutorial, and you can see what it looks like here.
First, login to your website as an admin.
Click on the “Appearance” in the dashboard sidebar to the left.
Then click on Widgets
You may see this, or the widgets may be expanded to show what’s in each section.
In this case, click to open the Content Sidebar
In the upper left corner next to the word Widgets, click the blue plus icon. Select the image block you want your new block to follow.
Down there in Media, click on the Image icon
A new, empty block will appear in your desired location. Upload, or choose an already uploaded image from the media library.
The image may (almost certainly will) be larger than desired. You will see the image size settings in the rightmost sidebar
You can manually set the image size, being cautious to maintain the height-width scale so as not to distort the image.
Now, you can align the image, and add an outgoing link if needed.
In this case, the images are center aligned.
Click on the link icon and a text box will appear to enter the link. An affiliate link is ideal if going out to Amazon.
Don’t forget to hit the arrow to apply the link to the image.
Links can be removed or edited with the pen icon.
Finally, to save and publish the work to the website, hit the Update button in the upper right corner.
I like to check my work by reloading the site.
Mad Genius Club 
10 responses to “Widget Editing”
Neat! Thank you for the tutorial.
Way cool! I use a portfolio theme which puts a bunch of individual pages for my books upfront with the blog off to the side, but maybe I should try this instead.
This looks like fun. I just stuck my book on a different page
… but while we are at it…
Can you explain how to change the font that Word press has assigned to my blog? When I started the blog it had some reasonable font. Three months ago it changed to this new font, possibly after some upgrade they forced on me. The title comes up nicely but the actual body of the text comes up in some weird San Serif font. I googled how to fix this and the lessons showed menus and what not that were not on my blog pages. I realize this is a very tiny problem but it is driving me nuts. I suppose I should contact one of those happiness engineers… but just in case I’m missing something simple (highly likely I would say). Help???
First question – is your blog hosted on WordPress, or are you self-hosted?
Either way, you’ll be able to change your theme, which controls which fonts are available to you. Self-hosted has more options than the free hosting version does.
Alternatively, you can install a plugin that will allow you to upload and use a font of your choice. This isn’t really an option for wordpress-hosted blogs, but if you’re self-hosted there are things you can do about it!
thanks!
Thank you, Cedar. Anyone know how to do the same thing for a Blogsnot blog?
I suspect you can’t. This is specifically for a self-hosted blog, which uses a WordPress framework but it’s not limited to the wordpress hosting capacity. Blogspot is a free blog platform, so it won’t have as many options to customize.
This is extremely helpful, and reminds me to get off my butt and update the Soapbox. It resides on Blogspot, but there’s no reason I can’t have a banner or a right-side clickbox.
Good! Can’t market something no one knows is there.
Yes! wordpress tutorials.