Help:Author Template

While the content for every author page will be as diverse as those authors themselves, we've created a basic template to help you get started. The easiest way to use these templates is to copy and paste them into your new page or to use the template page as instructed below-- then you can start adding information. Please modify this template as needed to include the information you want to include. There are no rules!

Clicking on the buttons above the editing box creates most of the code you'll see in the template. Commonly used buttons in the "Ab" button -- this links to another page in the wiki (or creates a new page if it doesn't already exist) -- and the "globe" link, which creates an external link. The large "A" creates a new section header. Adding additional "=" to the section header creates subsections (see example of fiction and non-fiction books in the template below).

New Author Entry on Authors page

• Go to the main Authors page, select the first letter of the author's last name.
• Open that list by clicking the "edit" tab at the top of the page.
• Insert your author's name into the list alphabetically by the first letter of the last name.
  • Since there is a author listed for almost every letter of the alphabet, you can easily follow the syntax for author names. It should look like this.

[[First Last|Last, First]]

Note: The "pipe" (or "|") is used so that you create a link to a page (in this case "First Last") but it shows up in the list as "Last, First." Use this anytime you want the text on your page to be different from the actual name of the page you are linking to.

• Save the Author list page and your new author should show up in red type. Click on your author's name in the list (which is in red type) which will take you to your newly created author page.

New Author Page

When your newly created page opens to the edit box, you can:

• Paste the template (below) into the edit box, and start editing! See The Template below for how to paste the template into the page.
  • Fill in the information for the author -- information to fill in usually appears in ALL CAPS. Feel free to delete any sections that don't apply to your author.
• Add Categories: An author can have one or more categories. Categories help people find similar authors. For example, if you add the following:

[[Category:Alabama Authors]]

your author will appear on a page with other authors in Alabama. Add as many categories as you feel are appropriate.

Note: We are working on a way to help you quickly find the categories that have already been created. It is a good idea to check this list before you create a new category. The list can been found by clicking Special Pages in the navigation menu on the left and choosing Categories.

The Template

To Copy and Paste

Below is the basic author template that you can highlight, copy and paste into the blank author page. Modify it to meet your needs.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Name, First Name}}<!--fill in last and first name of author-->
[[Category:Authors - X]]<!--fill in first letter of last name-->

[[AUTHOR NAME]] is ... General discussion about the author - honors, influences, special characteristics.

== See Also ==
* [[PSEUDONYM]] - If an author writes under multiple names, list them here.

== On the Web ==
* [http://www.authorswebsite.com AUTHOR NAME] - this is an author's main website
* [http://www.otherwebsite.com OTHER SITE] -- such as a blog or special publisher pages

== Books ==
=== Fiction ===
* [[Title Of Book]] - Year published ([[Publisher]])
=== Non-Fiction ===

== Novellas ==

== Series/Related Titles ==

This is a great place to aggregate the various series and related titles.

To Link to the Template

We have also created an "author" template page that will paste in the template even if you have forgotten to copy it first.

• Type in

{{subst:Author}}

on the blank author page to insert the same author template as above. The template does not show up until you then save the page (with the {{subst:author}} in the edit box).

• Save the page. The saved page will show up with all of the fields blank or samples as in the template above (ugly).
• Choose edit at the top of the page. The edit box will open with the blank template, and you can fill in the fields just as if you had pasted the template in the edit box of the page.