If you’re running a website or blog that, among other things, publishes book reviews you can find it difficult to optimize your page layout to best optimize all the information you’re trying to get out. Customizing the post or page to that degree that it encompasses everything a review needs to have can be a tedious job that requires coding knowledge and time, but with the Recencio Book Reviews plugin it’s all premade, you just need to write.

What is Recencio Book Reviews?

The Recencio Book Reviews is a free WordPress plugin that adds an extra option to the menu which lets you publish reviews in the same way you would publish new post or pages. The complete input interface and page layout are automatically set (but you can tweak them) and it mostly resembles a form you have to fill out which really simplifies the whole process. Doing it this way really simplifies things so that it lends itself to a large number of users, even those who aren’t versed in coding. You can use all of this through 4 default display templates.

Using templates you can adjust the display of your review

What does it offer

While using the plugin you have the option to build up your database that contains general information that concerns all books you will review and includes:

• Categories – can have a hierarchy with parent and subcategories
• Tags – works in the similar way tags work in regular posts in WordPress
• Authors – add the authors’ name along with his URL
• Genres – like categories it can have a hierarchy
• Series – option to add the series that span several books
• Publishers – simply adds the publisher’s info to the review

Build your database to use in reviews

What’s really great is that you have the option to fill up your databases beforehand and just pull up the info you need to the review, or you can fill it during writing and it’s automatically added to the database for future use.

You can use various forms to insert premade boxes into pages

Other than that, you’ll get to use a plethora of other staples characteristic to reviews such as adding the book cover, star rating, and book synopsis. There is even a handy option to insert the ISBN number which then automatically draws the books general information (which you can insert manually).

If you’re so inclined, you can use the rating box that emphasizes the books main characteristics (you can choose what is rated) and purchase links which are useful if you’re partners with a distributor, or just want to inform readers where they can get the book. Additional extensions are also available if you want to use them to add more content to the review.

Use extensions to additionally customize your review

Costs, Caveats, Etc.

Recencio Book Reviews provides a simple and functional way for anybody to publish book reviews. It has over 200 active installations and a very helpful and responsive staff. The overall rating reflects this very well and we have to agree with the common consensus and recommend this plugin to anyone who plans to publish book reviews.