Welcome to the February edition of the Book Notification Newsletter.
This month, we have fewer new features because our programming team have been focusing on two major areas.
(1) Book Search.
It’s currently our most requested feature, and I’m happy to announce that it will soon be launched on Book Notification.
It isn’t easy to implement, as we want it to provide instantaneous results as you type like the author search. There are currently over 600,000 books listed on Book Notification, and it has to factor in to linking the book on an authors page, as well as providing links to any author(s) who have written the book.
However it is close to reality and our beta testing team have their hands on it at the moment, so hopefully not too much longer. If it’s launched within the next couple of weeks, we’ll send out a special news alert notifying you of that.
(2) Publication Dates and Books Being Canceled
It might surprise you to know this, but:
– Every day, 15 upcoming books on average get removed for pre-order.
– Every day, 54 upcoming books on average have their publication date changed.
And that’s only from the upcoming books from authors that we currently have listed on Book Notification.
Then there are a lot of unique situations to deal with. There are certain authors for example, who will list books 11-16 in a series with the date of August 5th, 2024. However all of those are placeholder dates, and then they simply change the date to current day when the book is finished and publish it that day, making it a lot harder to catch.
So that has been a big factor this month. Our coding team have not just been working on better ways to catch books that are canceled but had their publication date changed, but also set up things in the backend better so that the database crew can manage them a lot easier.
That’s an important job that will make things a lot more accurate for you in terms of upcoming books.
Last month, we ran a contest where every comment you make on an authors page will earn you entry into a draw with 10 $25 Amazon gift cards as a prize, and will run that contest again this month. Note: Each comment counts as an entry, and it’s possible to win multiple times. We received over 200 comments within the last month. Thank you to everyone who contributed – you are really helping us out, and it’s great to see so much discussion going on. Here are the winners this month:
- azangie
- Dennis MCC
- Kmlj
- Jessa
- skmc529
- stalsma
- Teri Chesser
- The Little Man
- The Little Man
- waterburg72
You should have all received an e-mail confirming your e-mail address for the gift card.
Until the next chapter,
Graeme
Book Notification Founder
New Features
Author Insights: We’ve moved the Author Insights section, which is a statistical insight about each author on Book Notification, from the bottom of the page, to within the biography area, and have now added the data listing the most read book by that author on Book Notification.
Pick a Random Book: Have a massive “Want To Read” list, and just aren’t sure what book to read next? We’ve now added a button to the Want To Read page which allows you to click and pick a random book. And if you aren’t happy, just click it again! Example below:
40,000 Authors: This month, we wanted to recognize the exceptional work of our database team. They are the employees that are doing the critical work for Book Notification. Auditing and adding new authors from requests and Goodreads imports, updating lists with new books, researching alternate titles and chronological orders. They are the ones that have helped the site grow from 11,000 authors when we beta launched on January 1st 2023, to almost 40,000 authors just 14 months later.
And hopefully very soon, you’ll receive an e-mail alert letting you know of the ability to search for books by title! Stay tuned for the launch of that, and don’t hesitate to reply and let us know what features you would like added to the site next.
New Content Added
At Book Notification, we do more than just add authors – we post news and write some fun blog content too! Here are posts in that category from the last few weeks:
Contest
Having quality content and discussion is always beneficial for our website. This month, I am again asking you to write a comment on an authors page. It can be whatever you want. You can write about how they are your favourite author, or what their best book or series is. You could write about an adaptation of their book. Any and all comments are welcome.
We will give away ten $25 USD gift cards to random people who have submitted a comment from the day this newsletter was published, up until the beginning of the next newsletter. Each comment earns you an entry (or ‘ticket’) into the draw, and you can enter multiple times
You can find the comment form at the bottom of every authors page, titled “Author Discussion”.
Thanks to everyone for your support. It’s truly appreciated.