Adding Schema to Home/Landing Page

I tag up my business hours etc in the footer–in a text widget in the footer widget areas.

What exactly do you want to tag up?

The site is 100% about a book, so the title, author, etc. It’s going to look messy in the footer, but that may be the best place to put it.

Any other suggestions/ways?

I’m still not clear what you are trying to achieve. Could you explain more?

Making the content of the page more visible during a google search.

You might want to read this thread.

I would recommend using the Schema Creator by Raven plugin so it will add the info to the site for you. Then use Google’s structured data testing tool to verify it’s in place