Hi everyone,
Graeme here, and welcome to the November edition of the Book Notification newsletter.
It’s been a great month for Book Notification as we have made some solid quality-of-life updates. We have also mapped out the rest of the year, and have two features we are excited about that will be launching soon. One will be launched in time for the December newsletter, and the other will hopefully be launched on January 1st which is the one year anniversary of our beta launch.
I’ve said this before and I mean it; if you have any suggestions for the site, big or small, don’t hesitate to write in. We have a big list of “to-do-list” items, and your feedback helps prioritize that. Sometimes, just the way you word something can make things clearer for us, or spark an idea that we didn’t have.
As an example – we have had some people request a “select all” feature so they could mark all books in a series read. We’re still working on that as there is a lot to it. But a few weeks ago, someone emailed us with that same request, but mentioned in the e-mail that all they wanted was the book manage pop-up to stop appearing when all they want to do is mark a book read. That sparked some ideas, we dropped everything to work on it, and within a few hours we had a solution coded, tested, and live on the site. More about that in the new features section.
I can’t stress this enough – I want to make this the best site for YOU. I want this to be the ultimate readers paradise, and I appreciate any feedback you have. So don’t hesitate to e-mail with any ideas that can make the site better for YOU.
Last month, I 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
Winners of the contest:
- azangie (twice)
- cpottsy71
- Denis M
- Helka
- Jessica U
- mngirlco (twice)
- stalsma
- waterburg72
I’ve sent you all an e-mail.
Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment. It’s truly appreciated and helps the site so much.
Cheers,
Graeme
Book Notification Founder
New Features
Mark Books Read – No Book Manage Popup: We love it when you rate a book after marking it read. It will help us a lot when we start doing personal book recommendations down the road. However we do understand that some of you don’t want to rate a book, write a review or make any notes, and just want to mark books as read. Especially if you are new to the site and wanting to mark many books read at once.
Now in your settings page, you can toggle the option on to “Stop the book manage popup when marking a book as read”. This means that when you click on the checkbox, it will by default mark it as read but will NOT open the book manage popup. So you can mark books read a lot faster. You can still access the Book Manage popup simply by clicking the checkmarked checkbox to add a review, rating or change the status.
Disable Auto Follow: By default when you mark a book read by an author, it auto follows that author. We’ve now added the option to disable that. That means that if you mark a book read by an author, it won’t by default follow them and you will have to click the “Follow” button on their page if you wish to follow them. This is also available on the settings page.
Additions to the ‘What’s Next’ Section: It was great hearing the positive feedback from so many of you for the What’s Next section of the site, as it’s a section I am particularly proud of. We have updated that with a new tab called All Caught Up. This indicates that you have read all the books in a series and there are currently no upcoming books in that series. If a new book is announced in that series, then it will move back to the “What’s Next” tab. As per request, we’ve also added the publication date of books within that section. You can see these changes in the What’s Next section.
Book Search: In the past year, we have had people ask if we could offer the option to search for a book within an authors list. From this, I have learned that many people didn’t realize that you can search any webpage via your browser. CTRL+F on Windows for example, would allow you to search the webpage you have open. Due to this feedback, we have now created a book search in the header area of every authors page. Type a book title in and it will appear, and when you select it, the page will take you directly to that book on the authors list.
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 October:
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.
Thanks to everyone for your support.