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Home » The Famous Blog » The Ultimate Author Box Plugin for WordPress? [Review]

The Ultimate Author Box Plugin for WordPress? [Review]

August 3, 2012 - Last Modified: August 3, 2012 by Tom Ewer 2,859

Fanciest Author Box
  • Editor Rating
  • Rated 4.5 stars
  • Outstanding
$$10.00
  • 80%

  • Fanciest Author Box
  • Reviewed by: Tom Ewer
  • Published on: August 3, 2012
  • Last modified: August 3, 2012

More Details

In the modern age, we are presented with an astonishing amount of content on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter if we’re browsing through channels on television, glancing at a billboard on the freeway, or skimming through our RSS readers – we have to be extremely picky in choosing what content we digest.

This ever-present content saturation leads me directly to one of the golden rules of blogging – if you want to stand out, you must have a personality.

Furthermore, your readers need to have access to that personality. Not only does your own unique character need to permeate throughout your carefully crafted words, it needs to be identified. People need to recognize your content as being yours – otherwise it’s just another blog post.

And that is where the humble author box comes in. Although they are an ever-present on most multi-author blogs, author boxes can play a valuable role on any blog. And that brings me neatly onto my review today.

Introducing Fanciest Author Box

Fanciest Author Box isn’t shy of tooting its own horn, as you can tell from its tagline: “The only author box plugin you’ll ever need”.

Developed by an enthusiastic threesome of WordPress enthusiasts going by the name ThematoSoup, this premium plugin touts itself as the ultimate author box solution for WordPress.

But just how well-featured can an author box be, and does Fanciest Author Box live up to its bold claims?

The Author Bio Box

ultimate author box

The above is a screenshot of how my own personal author bio box looks like. However, Fanciest Author Box demonstrate a fully-featured example of the end-user experience on their website, so you may want to check that out for yourself right now.

Going back to my introduction regarding personality, Fanciest Author Box really has you well-covered. A photograph is extremely important (as people are far more likely to remember a face than a name), and the first tab of the author box also allows room for the vital information: name, position, and bio.

Of course, the bio is essentially for identification purposes. In order to engage with the reader further, the author box must do more than simply show a photograph and brief bio. That is where the additional tabs come in.

Social Media Integration

All three major social networks are integrated within Fanciest Feature Box, and clicking on each tab will load up profile information and a feed of that particular account (when possible):

author box social media integration

The logical leap as to how these social media tabs can benefit your following isn’t too taxing:

  1. A reader hits your blog
  2. A reader likes your post
  3. Reader sees Fanciest Author Box
  4. Reader follows one or more of your social media accounts

Fanciest Author Box does a great job of making it very easy for readers to sign up to your Twitter, Facebook or Google+ accounts right from within your blog. If you do everything else right, it smoothly facilitates the continued growth of your social media outposts, with no additional effort on your part.

Latest Posts

This is where you can really boost engagement on your blog – especially if you have multiple authors.

Author box latest posts

Get Fanciest Feature Box

Readers are bound to have favorite authors on multi-author blogs, and if they are presented with recent posts by the specific author whose content they have just enjoyed reading, they are far more likely to hang around and read some more.

And for single-author blogs, Fanciest Author Box’s Latest Posts tab represents another opportunity for the reader to continue reading, rather than go elsewhere.

Multiple Placement Options

In order to capitalize on the popularity of an author, you must make it easy for your readers to identify him or her. ThematoSoup obviously appreciate this, as there are essentially no limits in terms of where you can place Fanciest Author Box.

You can choose to place a box at the beginning or end of the post (or both), and you can also add it as a widget, template, or shortcode.

You can literally place your author box anywhere on your blog, without exception, and with ease.

Customization Options

One common issue with plugins of this nature is getting them to blend in with your blog’s unique design. Fortunately, Fanciest Author Box gives you the ability to change the default colors with ease:

author box settings page

Although you’re not going to be able to get down to the nuts and bolts of the styling (unless you roll up your sleeves and start adding your own overriding CSS), you do have quick and easy control over color. Furthermore, you can choose which tabs are displayed, and what information is displayed in those tabs (for example, you can exclude your Twitter bio from the Twitter tab).

Does it Work?

It is difficult to determine whether any author box “works”, as such. Its job is to identify the author to the reader, and present a clear opportunity to further engage with the blog and/or reader. That is of course is key to reader retention, and ultimately, your bottom line, but is difficult to measure.

Having said that, in my opinion, the two keys to an effective author box are placement and intuitiveness. Fortunately, Fanciest Author Box has you covered on both fronts. We have already mentioned the multiple placement options above, and the plugin itself is extremely easy to use. Furthermore, you would have to sit an extremely technologically undereducated person in front of this plugin to find someone who can’t actually operate it with ease.

Get Fanciest Feature Box

Support and Updates

Support is often an issue with plugins. Fortunately, Fanciest Author Box has two things going for it:

  1. It’s really not that complicated to use. Your support issues are likely to be limited or non-existent.
  2. Even if you do need support, the developers are eager to help.

Furthermore, this plugin is pretty new, and the developers have shown nothing but enthusiasm in their efforts to improve it. When it comes to support and updates, ThematoSoup really seem to have their finger on the pulse.

Is it Worth it?

That is of course the million dollar question.

I’m not going to beat around the bush here – despite the fact that Fanciest Author Box is a great plugin, few people are going to be willing to shell out big bucks on an author box. Whilst a well-executed author box can have a genuinely positive impact on your blog by increasing engagement (not to mention your social media followers), the benefits are never going to be worth a fortune.

However, this needn’t be a worry with Fanciest Author Box. Whilst it is a premium plugin, it sells for just $10. In my opinion, that’s right in the range of, “If this does what it says and does it well, I’ll happily pay for it”. Although there are free author box plugins out there, I will always pay a few bucks to get a fully-featured, well supported, and regularly updated plugin.

And fortunately, Fanciest Author Box is all of those things. I know of no alternative that is as well-crafted as this, and $10 is an extremely reasonable price that will practically guarantee a good return on your modest investment.

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Filed Under: Reviews, Wordpress

About Tom Ewer

Follow @tomewer

Tom Ewer is a freelance blogger and the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a blog for anyone interested in quitting their job and building a better life for themselves. Join Tom's mailing list to receive his pearls of wisdom (and occasional rants).

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{ 31 Responses }

  1. Selina Khan says:
    I am already use this author box for my blog. i recommended this widget for the new blogger to use their blog.
  2. Selina Khan says:
    This was a nice author box which can improve the value of site and it must be make an author very popular to the traffic. this is also very easier to use it and i must say that the price of this author box is not much more.
  3. irfan says:
    i have been using fancier author box,which is free version.I must say it's the best author box plugin i have seen.Although paid version -fanciest author box also looks great
  4. Omar Habib says:
    I am looking for a nice author plugin for my blog. Perhaps, this is going to be my plugin. Thank you for sharing
  5. Frithjof says:
    Thanks for this very helpful review Tom! I have tried different "follow me" plugins free and paid and in the end I've been disappointed mostly because they are too heavy and always seem to create problems with responsive themes. I'm going to buy this one $10 for a working tool seems reasonable. Thanks again! Frithjof
  6. Phil Moore says:
    Great plugin. Just been trying to style an author box and it won't allow links! I think I will use this... $10 could save me a lot of pain!
  7. Abhik says:
    Thanks Tom for the review, but not going to buy it. I use Hesham's BlogSkin theme and I am okay with it's builtin author box.
  8. Martin Cooney says:
    I did check this out but found it lacking in a few areas that would make it a stand-out. I do love the look of the plugin and that's a selling point (or buying for me). The two things I find missing is what the AuthorSure plugin gives which is Google+ authorship and the other ability I want (for guest posters) is the ability to have Custom non-user Authors, either by way of custom meta data or Custom Authors as part of the plugin. Getting a combo of those things and I'd buy it, in a snap.
  9. Istiak Rayhan says:
    This author box look pretty good. I will check it later.
  10. akhilendra says:
    I am just going through its features, looks good. Simple author box is good for single author box but if someone is looking to guest bloggers for their blog, it may be a good idea to get this so that authors gets full exposure for their posts. It will be an additional attraction for the guest bloggers.
  11. dan keller says:
    Very cool. I have been expanding my blog to include additional authors and this plugin will come in handy. I will be buying.
  12. Samuel says:
    Selling price just isn\'t also undesirable which enables it to be great in the event you engage and are effective on the web with Google+.
  13. Adam C. says:
    Tom, thank you so much for sharing this. I was just looking how to start hosting guest posts on my Thesis blog. This plugin answers most of my questions.
    • Tom Ewer says:
      My pleasure :-)
    • Tom Ewer says:
      Glad to be of service Adam :-)
  14. Anton Koekemoer says:
    Hi Tom, Thanks for mentioning the cool plugin. The price is not too bad and can be great if you engage and are active online in Google+. Having all the social media feeds under one hub is great for the user experience of the website and or blog.
  15. Bharat says:
    Looks Damn cool and I like this author box plugin very much. Will it effect blog loading speed ?
    • Tom Ewer says:
      Whilst I don't know for sure, I would guess that the effect is pretty minimal. You could run a performance report with the Plugin Performance Profiler (P3) available as a plugin on WordPress.org to see for yourself :-)
      • Bharat says:
        Yes, P3 is a perfect plugin to test the performance of any other plugin. Will try my hands on that.
  16. Thomas says:
    Seems like a very effective Plugin. I am surely gonna try it on my new blog.
  17. Slobodan says:
    Tom, Thanks a bunch for this review, it's an honor to have our plugin reviewed by you, and an even greater one to know that you liked it. It feels great knowing that other people find what we're doing good work. I'd also like to thank all our customers who made suggestions that eventually became plugin features, without them, the plugin wouldn't be what it is.
  18. Rick says:
    Seems like a really good plugin! But why dont you use it here..now i have to comment using commentluv:-)
    • Hesham Zebida says:
      Hi Rick, We don't use the plugin here because we have a custom author box that grabs its data from a special coded system that is made especially for our blog. However, the plugin is really cool and we may use it on other projects.
  19. Brankica says:
    Didn't even read through half of the post and had to buy it :) So now, instead of going to bed at 1.30 AM I am going to be setting this up. But can't wait cause I love how it looks. Hope it will be easy to integrate with Genesis theme.
  20. karan chauhan says:
    I just wanna buy this plugin! Great plugin for multi authors.
  21. Mairaj Pirzada says:
    Well, the plugin is really good for a wordpress user. But, not for a Genesis user! OK? That can be used by them too, as it'll has more features than that of Genesis Author Box. Thanks for a kind review, BTW, I've already tried the plugin (maybe for free) earlier. And now decided to stick with Genesis's! Really Wonderful Work.. :)
    • Hesham Zebida says:
      Hi Mairaj, Genesis provides a simple author box based on the default profile fields that comes with the core of WordPress. The Fanciest Author Box plugin adds a lot of fancy features that no other theme or plugin have! It's OK though to be happy with the simply author box.
  22. Ahmed Safwan says:
    Thanks for this. I think I should buy it. However, I can tell you about my experience with it soon. Regards, Ahmed Safwan ToStartBlogging.Com
    • Tom Ewer says:
      Look forward to reading about what you think Ahmed!

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