What's New in The Bookshelf
Every update is a new chapter in The Bookshelf story. Below you'll find the newest features, improvements, and fixes we've released to help you reach more readers and sell more books.
You can now add your books to The Bookshelf, with a dedicated page built for each one automatically.
Improvements & New Additions
Add Your Books
You can now add your books via the Books on your Author Dashboard. For each book, you can also add format information—paperback, audio, eBook, and hardcover—including publication details and links to retailers carrying that format.
Product Pages
Once your book and format details are in, The Bookshelf automatically builds a professional product page. Each page gives readers a clear, focused place to learn about the book and find where to buy it, with retailer links labeled clearly so readers always know exactly where a link will take them. All you need to do is adjust the styling to fit your brand.
This is the first piece of a bigger direct-sales experience we're building on The Bookshelf, with more to come.
We've been busy in the design studio. This release brings eight brand-new website templates plus refreshed versions of seven existing templates, so your site has even more room to match your genre, your voice, and your vibe.
Improvements & New Additions
New templates:
- Cosmic Drifting — A sci-fi-leaning, multi-page design with dark tones and bold fonts for space and futuristic themes.
- Warmth & Whimsy — A bright, botanical multi-page template with calming tones, ideal for warm or emotionally personable fiction.
- Mysterious Moments — A moody, multi-page design suited to eerie or suspenseful genres.
- Raspberry Jam — A cheerful, multi-page template with bold color and a touch of elegance that works across many genres.
- Laugh Out Loud — A bold, colorful multi-page template that puts your books and author persona front and center — great for comedic or high-energy branding.
- Wanderlust — A multi-page template with deep hues and adventurous imagery for emotional or fantastical stories.
- Hello There — A single-page template with subtle romantic undertones, built to spotlight you as the author.
- Eye of the Storm — A bold, multi-page template with a strong sense of history and experience, suited to emotional or adventurous work.
Refreshed templates:
- Between the Shelves — A redesigned, neutral single-page template for pre-published authors, suitable for any genre.
- Book Beaver — A nonfiction-focused, multi-page template with modern patterns and bold colors.
- Ink & Imagination — A single-page template with bright, calm tones for a wide range of fiction and nonfiction.
- Under Wraps — A neutral, personable single-page template for pre-published authors not ready to lock into a specific genre.
- Evermore — A romantic, elegant multi-page template for romance, historical, or narrative nonfiction.
- Let's Fall in Love — A bright and playful multi-page template built for contemporary romance.
- Smoke and Shadow — A dark-toned, multi-page template with fantasy touches for stories with a sense of intrigue.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where previewing a page you were editing would sometimes take you to your homepage instead.
- Fixed an issue where footer column header styling could unintentionally override navigation item font size.
- Fixed an issue where accordion title text color wasn't reflecting the correct colors when expanded.
- Fixed an issue in domain purchasing where searching for a new domain could return an error instead of results.
This release brings a refreshed author dashboard, new page builder tools, centralized social media profile management—plus stability and performance improvements across the editor.
Improvements & New Additions
A Refreshed Author Dashboard
The author dashboard has a new look and feel. A redesigned sidebar makes it easier to navigate, and all your account settings—profile, billing, and domain & email—are now gathered in one place. The new Overview page also gives you quick access to resources, help, and the latest platform updates.
Social Media Links
You can now manage all of your social media profiles in one place under the new Discoverability tab on your dashboard. Add your links once and they'll automatically appear wherever you're using the Social Media element across your site, removing the need to update URLs every time you want to add a social media button to a page.
Page Builder Updates
This release brings several improvements to the page builder:
- Author-Ready Page Elements — Our most-used page elements have been rebuilt specifically for author websites—ready to drop in, style to your brand, and go.
- Consistent Typography — We've rebuilt typography styles to be easier to apply across your entire site. Text and links now look and behave more consistently in both the editor and your live site, and everything adjusts automatically for different screen sizes so your site looks great whether your readers are visiting from their mobile device or PC.
- Refreshed Settings Panel — Our settings panels have been revamped with a new cleaner layout that's easier to navigate.
Fixes
- Resolved several editor performance issues, including drag-and-drop lag, font flicker during editing, and unnecessary repeated saves
- Fixed rich text formatting bugs affecting text behavior in the editor
- Fixed several display and performance issues with the MailerLite integration
Security
- Routine security updates to keep things safe behind the scenes.
This release reworks the onboarding experience from the ground up, and brings major upgrades to checkout, including new tax support and a more reliable payment system.
Improvements & New Additions
A Better Onboarding Experience
We've redesigned the sign-up and onboarding flow with a cleaner layout, a password strength indicator, and a clearer billing summary—giving new authors a smoother path from sign-up to launching their first site.
Checkout Upgrades
Checkout just got a lot smarter, especially for business customers:
- Tax ID & Improved Tax Handling — Authors can now enter and validate a tax ID during checkout, and the platform applies the correct tax treatment based on location and business status.
- Upgraded Payment Processing — We've completed our migration to a new, more robust payment provider. If a payment doesn't go through, you'll now see a clearer message explaining why.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where authors were sometimes redirected to the wrong page after completing onboarding
- Fixed a display issue where the MailerLite logo wasn't rendering at the correct size
- Improved error messages so authors see the specific reason something went wrong, rather than a generic message
This release reworks how authors create and manage pages, with a clearer page creation flow, a new way to view your site's structure, and more flexibility for managing your projects.
Improvements & New Additions
A Clearer Way to Create Pages
Creating a new page now walks you through a clearer flow, and automatically applies your site's fonts, colors, and styles from the start—so new pages match your site right away.
See Your Site's Structure at a Glance
The pages list now shows parent and child pages in a tree structure, making it much easier to manage and navigate sites with a deeper page hierarchy.
Rename and Duplicate Your Projects
You can now rename and duplicate your site projects directly from the projects page.
"Site Template" is Now "Site Project"
We've renamed "Site Template" to "Site Project" across the platform to better reflect what you're actually building—your own, customized site.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where custom fonts could fail to load correctly in the editor or on the live site
- Cleaned up the projects page, including improved loading states and more consistent styling
- Fixed a bug where saving page settings could sometimes corrupt the page's URL path
- Fixed an issue where email configuration records for custom domains weren't always saved correctly
This release fixes a couple of minor issues and introduces four brand-new templates to give your site a fresh start (or a fresh look).
New Website Templates
Whether you're just getting started or ready for a refresh, these four new templates give you more ways to build a site that feels like you.
- Under Wraps — A warm, story-forward template for authors who want to start building an audience before sharing all the details. It's simple, welcoming, and easy to customize with your own fonts, colors, and text — no layout changes required.
- Between the Shelves — A refined, bookstore-inspired template that helps you establish a polished, reader-ready presence from day one, even while your bigger plans are still taking shape.
- Evermore — A timeless, history-inspired multi-page site built for historical fiction and historical romance authors. Evermore gives readers an elegant, complete space to explore your books, get to know you, and join your mailing list.
- Ink & Imagination — A complete single-page site that brings your author intro, book or series highlights, a featured reader freebie, and a mailing list signup together in one cohesive flow — perfect for a full online presence without the upkeep of multiple pages.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that could cause an error when navigating to Settings → Pages
- Resolved a styling issue where navbar logo text color didn't update correctly
This release makes it easier to get back into your account and adds new safeguards to the domain registration process, along with several checkout fixes and an important security update.
Improvements & New Additions
Easier Password Resets
Forgot your password? You can now reset it yourself using the "Forgot Password" link on the login page. We'll send a reset link straight to your registered email so you can get back in quickly.
Smarter Domain Setup
We've added a few safeguards to help your domain setup go smoothly from the start:
- Subdomain Validation — The platform now checks your subdomain choice as you set it up, helping you avoid conflicts and get your site working smoothly from day one.
- Clearer Domain Extension Support — If a domain extension isn't supported, you'll know right away during your domain search.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a checkout issue where discounted prices were sometimes displayed or applied incorrectly
- Checkout no longer shows subscription plans or items that have been deactivated
- Fixed a domain setup issue that could prevent domains from resolving correctly after purchase
Security
- Updated the platform's underlying systems to patch security vulnerabilities, keeping your site secure behind the scenes
This release smooths out the path from browsing to buying for new authors, plus a handful of fixes and small refinements across the platform.
Improvements & New Additions
Pick Up Where You Left Off at Checkout
If you start checking out before creating an account, you'll now be automatically returned to complete your purchase right after signing up—no more losing your place.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed several issues where completed payments weren't recorded correctly, which could cause missing or incorrect transactions in your billing history
- Refreshed the domain search page with clearer headings and descriptions
- Fixed a typography rendering issue affecting some live site templates
This release gives you more control over your domain, adds essential legal pages, and introduces new settings to customize your site and pages—plus a new way to grow your newsletter list.
Improvements & New Additions
More Ways to Set Up Your Domain
You can now choose how your site is addressed online—use a free Bookshelf subdomain, purchase a new domain directly, or connect a domain you already own.
Legal Page Starters
We've added starter pages for Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, and Cookie Policy, giving you a structured starting point to add your own content with an easy way to show or hide links to them in your site's footer.
New Site and Page Settings
You now have more control over how your site looks and shows up online. Manage site-wide details like your site name, tagline, logo, favicon, and description, and customize individual pages with their own titles, URLs, descriptions, and keywords.
MailerLite Integration
Connect your MailerLite account to start collecting newsletter sign-ups directly from your site.
We're excited to give you an early look at what we're building. This release introduces a public demo where you can explore The Bookshelf's website builder for yourself.
Improvements & New Additions
Try the Website Builder Demo
You can now visit our demo to explore The Bookshelf's website builder firsthand. Play around with a sample author website, try out the editing tools, and get a feel for how easy it is to build and customize your own site.
No account or sign-up is needed to try it out. Keep in mind this is an early preview: changes you make won't be saved, and everything resets once your session ends.
