Introduction

This author website uses Custom Post types to organise our books.

I’ll go into more detail about what custom post types are and how they help in a later module. To implement custom post types in WordPress WITHOUT code we need to use ACPT Pro, a paid plugin. The GOOD news is that ACPT Pro only costs from $29 a year and will take your author website to the next level.

Using the ACPT Pro plugin we can.

• Register new custom post types. For this course we will create and register a ‘Books’ custom post type.
• Create custom fields and associate them with custom post types. In this course we will create a number of custom fields specific to our Books post type.
• Display custom fields on our web pages built with the Breakdance page builder. 

Compare free to paid

ACPT does have a free version but I’m not using it in this course for 2 reasons.

• Reason number 1 is the free version has a cap of 5 custom fields and we need at least double that for this build.
• The second reason is we use repeater fields which are only available with the Pro version. You may not have any experience with repeater fields but you’ll see how useful they are when we build the Books post type.

Download ACPT Pro

• Click on the link in the description to go to the ACPT website from the Writers Building Websites Toolkit page . 
• The Toolkit page uses affiliate links so we may get a commission from the ACPT team but it does not affect the price you pay. We will always keep the toolkit page updated with available discounts so you get the best deal on what we recommend.
• From the ACPT site click on BUY PRO.
• Prices start from $29 for a single site licence.
• I strongly recommend picking up one of the lifetime deals.
• When you purchase ACPT Pro you will be emailed login details to access your account on the ACPT website. 
• When you login go to downloads and copy your licence key.
• Next, download the latest version of ACPT Pro to your computer. Do not use a Beta version of the plugin on your production website.

Install ACPT Pro

Next we will install ACPT Pro to our demo website.

• Back in your wordpress admin dashboard go to Plugins then Add New Plugin.
• Click on UPLOAD PLUGIN.
• Browse to the downloaded file which is a ZIP file.
• Select the file and click open to install it.
• When the plugin is installed click activate.

Configure ACPT Settings

• Click on the ACPT menu item in the side navigation bar.
• To fully activate ACPT Pro we need to confirm our website URL, our ACPT email account and the ACPT Pro licence key we copied earlier before activating ACPT Pro.
• Once fully activated go to ACPT then Settings.
• We are going to leave these at default after checking ACPT cache is switched on.
• Click SAVE and we’re done.

Summary.

That’s all there is to installing ACPT Pro. 

Ideally we could deploy custom post types without having to purchase a paid plugin. While there are free options out there ACPT Pro is a low cost solution that brings more features than the free alternatives. 

Call to Action.

Don’t rush off and buy the ACPT Pro plugin just yet. Watch the rest of the course to see how easy it is to add a Books custom post and how much value it brings to an author website before making your decision.