People of Book Country,  

Brandi wrote a blog post this morning about the new site and the changes we've made, so please read and come back here to tell us what you're thinking. 

Please also keep in mind that we're in public beta--the features that you see today are not set in stone, and more exciting features are coming.

Cheers,

Nevena

--edited by Nevena Georgieva on 6/25/2013, 2:15 PM--

Hi - Just carrying over a post on Facebook about what I mean by "follow", as in following discussions or books: By "follow" - for the discussions, we used to select "follow this discussion" and it would show up on my page as a discussion I was following. I would know by the numbers if anyone had posted to it (as opposed to sifting through the enormous list of discussion threads and seeing who posted what where and when). Same thing with books. I was following some 40 books, keeping track of new drafts and reviews. Some, I had started to read with the intention of writing reviews. Now, I have no idea what books I was following/tracking now.

 I also cannot see a list of books that I had reviewed already. I was able to see the list on someone else's profile by clicking on the person's name via a discussion thread (not by clicking on the person's name on my list of connections).

 When I can carve out an hour or two to really poke around the site, I will provide more feedback. I want to be able to replicate issues and give you a step-by-step description of what I clicked on and where and what results I got. Will this also be the place to log what could be true bugs?

 In general, though, I like the way the opening page looks. It will take a great deal of time to get used to, however. The old site had its navigation problems and was notoriously slow, but it had a comfortable feel to it. I would be interested in hearing what newer members think of the changes.

Hi! Like Angela, I'm still trying to find some things that I had in the old version, like having all the books and posts I was following be in one, easy to find place. However, I'd like to say how much I LOVE having the ability to add my covers to books.  

I'm sure I'll have more to say once I've explored a little more. It'll take some getting used to.

x♥x

Noelle

Well, one thing I can tell you I don't like - this dark gray background on the add reply screen. I didn't see it earlier when using my computer at work to reply to a thread. (Just clicked something up in the toolbar [heading menu] and the background shifted from dark gray to white. Don't know how that happened!)

Another thing - and this is related to having the ability to "follow" a discussion and see a list of the discussions you are following, I just had to search through the discussion thread directory to find this thread again. I don't have as much time as I would like to spend on this site on my off hours, so I need to have quick and easy access to discussions I've chosen to follow/participate in, books I'm reading/reviewing/following, and, of course the people I'm connected to. Other than my list of connections, I don't see how I can easily access two-thirds of the material I used to access on the former site.

Under the Read & Review menu, my dashboard only seems to list the books I've loaded. Well, they're not necessarily what I'm reading or reviewing. Isn't this where I should see a list of the books I'm following/reading/reviewing? Shouldn't my dashboard be my control panel? The place on the site I would go to in order to see everything I'm participating in?

Anyway, I'll keep poking around and sharing my thoughts (that is, until you get sick of hearing from me). 

Thank you all for chiming in--this is a great discussion and it will help us tremendously as we decide the next steps for BC 2.0. 

Angela & Mimi, hope you don't mind that I lock the other discussion you two started about the new site. It will be more productive if we can all talk about it in one place, so if any of your friends here want to share their thoughts about the new site, please direct them to this discussion.

*I also wanted to add a comment about your reviews: we haven’t discarded them. We’re bringing them back very soon – this was a bit of a transitional hiccup.

Cheers!

--edited by Nevena Georgieva on 6/24/2013, 9:27 PM--

I've been poking around all afternoon, so here's a few thoughts:

Bugs:

- When on a genre page, the furthest right sub-genre button and book both vanish. Scrolling them left or right just eats the replacement. Using Safari.

Cons:

-Searching for stuff is now more difficult. I'm used to checking out the recent uploads by just going to the search books function. It's now harder to find and seems to automatically sort itself with some inscrutable starting algorithm that I haven't been able to sort out.

-Automatically getting logged out. This is version two of this post as the first one got eaten by the log-out gremlin. Is there a setting to stay permanently logged in? If so, where is it?

-Urban Fantasy: I like the new genre map and the micro-genre flags, but example books? Far too many of them seem to have been infected with the 'badass-babe-in-black' virus for my tastes.

-Hiding reviews: The search engine doesn't show review ratings for books after they've been re-uploaded. I get that authors might want books to get refreshes after bad review, but I'm quite proud of hard earned reviews. Isn't there some way of having both?

Pros:

- Genre map: Both the upper layer and the subgenre buttons are quite cool, as well as being quite pretty. I'm not hugely sold on the YA segregation, but I assume that's more publishing conventions than anything else.

-Book covers: Being able to add another layer of covers and selling points is something very cool and being able to stand out from the crowd is always nice. It does however mean I've got my work cut out to get all my covers done.

-Finally, amusingly the mystery 'nation' looks a lot like the symbol for slaanesh, which is the wrong genre by quite a way. (If you don't know slaanesh, don't do an image search. Your retinas will thank you)

A few more things: I can't find where I would manage my account, set things like e-mail alerts, etc.

For the old site, I had it set so that I never had to login. I'm not actively logging out when I leave the site, but I always have to log back in.

When I click on another member's name in the discussion list, I can see a list of their 10 most recent posts. I can't figure out how to see the same thing for myself - except if I show up on the discussion list as the last person to post something somewhere, but that seems like an awful roundabout way to keep track of what discussions I've been participating in.

While I'm still getting used to the new site and navigating it, I have to echo my displeasure at getting logged out. I often do other things (like my grad school homework) while keeping an eye on Book Country and find it annoying that I have to keep logging in. I don't know what it is going to be like if I start reading a book and try to bookmark but can't because I've been logged out. Is there anyway to fix it?

Otherwise, thanks for the historical fiction flag!

Oh, and I was playing with the cover creator (which is awesome), and when I saved it and hit publish (because when I saved it, the cover wouldn't show up) the cover showed up, but set it as a new draft. I haven't added any new chapters to my books yet, so I hope it doesn't save it as a new draft every time I make a minor revision. 

Ok, thanks!

Toni 

Hi, guys. Congrats on getting the new site up. I haven't had a lot of time to explore, but I've noticed a couple of things.

The covers feature is awesome, as is the private message feature. Glad you guys added them. My only comment about posting a cover is that I noticed it counts as a new draft, which erases the rating of the previous draft and replaces it with "Be the first to rate this draft". I'm wondering if that might result in less reads if someone is only looking at the ratings.

It also took me a while to find the search people option.  I was looking for a "People" option under the "Connect" tab. The intro video goes from "Connect" to "Reach out", without showing the middle step of selecting "Search people" in the search bar drop down menu.

That's it for now.  Look forward to seeing how the site evolves.

Cheers,

Marc

I  have to agree with GD's assessment. I no longer get a sense of community (and the missing photos does take away from the sense of community). And considering how long it takes to relocate this particular discussion (because I can't "follow" it or add to a list of "favorites" or any other action that would make the discussion thread easily accessible each time I visit the site) I don't know how likely I will be to participate in numerous discussions. Yes, the old site was slow to load and navigate through, but it was easy to keep track of things.

One plus - although I haven't tried it yet - I do like the idea of being able to actually edit my work on the site. Though, if every little save equals a new draft, that could be problematic.

And the timing out/logging out issue is a problem. Don't see the reason for it, really. It's not like this is a site with sensitive financial data. .

This new set-up is not a pleasure to use. You can't see at a glance what your friends are up to. You can't see how many posts have been added to your followed discussions. You can't follow, period. Bummer!

.

I realize that Book Country wanted to make the site more corporate looking, to attract publishing clients, but you've discouraged the old mob who loved the former ease of operation. 

.

Unless something more like the old version is cobbled together (with the messaging, that's a big plus) I predict that I will be spending a lot less time here and a lot more time getting back to working on my book. So, you may have done me a favor. 

.

Peoples, you can find me any old time on Bookkus, as mimis. It doesn't have the vibrant community discussion that you have here, but I like it for other reasons.

Okay, now I'm really confused. Received this e-mail alert a short time ago in my personal e-mail:

Angela Martello,

Brandi Larsen has replied to a thread you have subscribed to.

This thread is located at:
: Book Country News & Announcements : Site Ideas and Improvements
http://www.bookcountry.com/Community/Discussion/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=8589935375

Here is the message that has been posted:
***************

What do you think?

Will this work?

I followed the link and did not see this post.

Hey Angela, we're testing stuff on the forums, and we deleted that comment since it was a test. 

You can subscribe or unsubscribe to discussions: there is a little envelope icon in the upper right corner of all discussion forum threads where you can manage your subscriptions. To turn off the notifications, unsubscribe from the thread. 

You'll get an email notification when someone replies to you or adds a comment in the thread depending on the settings you select. Hope this helps!

--edited by Nevena Georgieva on 6/25/2013, 2:12 PM--

I really appreciate the feedback and the discussion that's happening here.Thanks to everyone for telling us what you think.

We're still in beta and have developers working right now to fix bugs -- like the logout issue and the ability for you to see all of your reviews. We're looking at everything you say. It's still a work-in-progress and we have many new features that are in the works. Hearing from you is really helpful as we prioritize the features are the most important.

We'll give more updates soon.

Brandi.

Hi, Nevena,

Thanks for the tip about how to manage discussion thread alerts, etc (though, I wouldn't have associated the envelope with subscription management). However, the last thing I want is for my e-mail to be overflowing with alerts about every discussion thread on Book Country I may decide to follow (or have followed in the past, since I can't seem to figure out how to manage those).

It was much better to see, on what I would consider my Book Country home page, a list of all the discussions I was following with the little number (or some other icon would be fine) visually alerting me that there had been activity on a discussion I have chosen to follow.

I'm still poking around on the site, but, in general, I'm finding it sterile and not really visually appealing or community-oriented.

(And those little social media icons that clutter up the bottom of my screen are quite annoying!).

Posting a review:

Just tried to post a review of a book that I was following that I had to search for (good thing I remembered the full title and the author!) because I can't find it any other way. Here are some thoughts/issues/bugs on that feature:

Navigation within the reading pane is missing: It is no longer possible to bookmark where you left off or to search/find a particular word or phrase within the book. Not being able to bookmark where you leave off is going to be problematic when reading a long work. I used to use the search function if, while reading, I thought I found an inconsistency (like differences in the spelling of a character's name) or an issue with continuity.

Review boxes: Are still ridiculously tiny. What's the point in trying to write a detailed, thoughtful review if you can only see 5 or 6 lines at a time? Makes reading over what you wrote a chore. Plus, copying and pasting from Word still has formatting issues.

Finally - and this is a true bug - I could not actually POST the review. I entered info in the three different fields, selected a number of nibs for each, then clicked on Post. I keep getting this message" Missing overall rating: Score the work as a whole with an overall rating." Where do I do that? There is nothing on the screen labeled "overall rating." Or am I missing something? The review is saved (at least I hope it is!), so maybe eventually I'll get to post it.

So, I just did a little test. I searched for the book I was reviewing again (since there is no other way to get back to it). And lo and behold, the number of nibs I had selected for overall feedback were no longer there. So, I selected the number of nibs again and clicked "post". It seemed to work this time. Not sure why the nibs disappeared even after I put them in and saved several times during the process of finishing up the review.

I'm in agreement with everyone that I miss the old dashboard. I liked being able to see the discussions and books I was following. It was much easier if you were on a time crunch. Now I can't find the books I was going to read for people, and it makes me sad.

I do like the new genre map. It is much easier to read than before. And adding covers is awesome. Guess I have to make some covers now.

Hey, I can actually see the "add reply" button now! (Now that I'm browsing the site using Chrome, that is. IE users need not apply--or rather, re-ply, on this new site, eh? If you're using IE you will not see the "add reply" button on any of the discussions.)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Likes: The spell-checker, the larger viewing window, the in-window options for formatting text, the book creator--that was a  joy to use! (It took me all of 20 minutes to format a book for publication: text editing, grammar checking, designing a cover, setting a price, submitting the book for publication and then supplying my personal banking and tax info. I always swore I would never self-publish but Book Country has simply made it too darn tempting and--dare I say it?--fun--to resist. Curse you, Dark Penguin! I am powerless before your lures . . .)

Dislikes:  Bluntly, I'm lost. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to track new comments on watched books, follow new comments on the discussions (other than to "subscribe" to each--and that will only succeed in filling my e-mail in-box each day), keep up with old friends and new faces. Some of this floundering is to be expected, of course--change is always hard (and I can see improvements everywhere I look) but I think the central issue right now is one of navigation: This new interface has buried and disrupted on-going relationships, bringing a screeching halt to all of the criticism, commentary, good-natured badinage and sharp exchanges that drove interaction on the old site.

Suggestion: give us an easy and attractive way to build personal lists, in-site, of the discussions and books we want to follow (other than subscribing to them). 

--edited by Carl E Reed on 7/1/2013, 5:01 PM--

Another thing I realized as I was trying to navigate through the new site, I no longer have access to the list of people I was following (not people I was formally connected to; just folks I was keeping tabs on). I have no way of recreating that list and if there were people on that list that I would want to connect to, I'm at a loss simply because I don't have all the names committed to memory. 

I feel your pain, GD! Heh!

Where site navigation is concerned--that is to say the tracking of friends, projects and new comments on posted discussions--I'm as bemused and befuddled as a bunched-up bunch of bemused befuddle-sticks. 

Thanks again to everyone for your continued feedback.We have a lot of items in the works that will give you quick access/ make it easier for you to stay informed about your connections and projects. The things you followed aren't lost. (In tech speak, we migrated the data to help us build what's coming.) The display will be different --and, I hope you find, better-- but much of the core functionality is coming. I promise we'll get there.

There's a release going in this morning that will fix the logout issue and will let you see the reviews you've posted on your own profile. We'll let you know once it's live.

Carl, I love your alliteration. I'll try my own: County's cooking caused confusion, changes coming. I'm really happy you had a good experience publishing your eBook. I can't wait to buy myself a copy!

Angela, Could you shoot me a note? brandi at bookcountry dot com. I have a couple of things that may help you.

D J, We're glad you like! New releases soon.

LeeAnna, We don't mean to make you feel sad! It will get easier soon. I'm looking forward to seeing your covers. Nevena and I made some fun ones that will be added into the cover library soon

GD, Stay tuned for navigation changes. It's our intention to amplify the community feel. It's the very heart of what we do.

Mimi, I hope you stay with us as we continue to change. I'd miss you.

Marc, I'm glad you like the cover designer. Changing the cover does change the draft. Our thought on including the "Be the first to review" on a new draft was that each draft will improve and that the latest rating is the fairest to display. We'll study the metrics and see if "Be the first to review" helps people get more reviews or not, and if it doesn't, we'll change it.

Toni, Changing the cover will change the draft. I see your books on your profile. Are you still not seeing them? If so, could you send a note to support at bookcountry dot com and I'll have the dev team look at it?

Alexandria, Logout problem will be fixed this morning. Sorry about that! I'm glad you like the historical flag!

TP, I'm glad the site is faster for you. Could you please email me at brandi at bookcountry dot com?

Timothy, Thanks for noting the bugs. We're working on them. I'm happy to hear you like the design on the map and genre pages. We think they're cool, too. We're about to add discussions about the landmark books in each genre -- like Nevena said, we'd love to hear your opinions. I couldn't help myself: I googled slaanesh. Eek!

Noelle, I'm happy to hear you love the cover designer. We hoped BC members would enjoy it.

 The initial summary page, the page that came up after we logged in where we could see the writers, books and discussions that we were following was for each member the heart of the Book Country community. And from there, we could go anywhere we wanted.

 This new approach makes sense to programmers, but not to real people   I know this. I started Florida Websites back in 1998 and we still have customers from that first year because we never let programming get between us and our customers. I have no use for this new site. But I'm hoping the powers that be at Penquin will catch on soon to the fact that the writers here are more valuable to them than the new website. Give us back an initial summary page and our frustrations with this new site will vanish Really

The kicked-out-of-logged-on problem is not solved, for me at least. I was on here two hours ago, and I just had to log in again. Annoying! 

And, my home page says '404 Error' instead of 'Read and Review'. What does that mean?

Yah, I quit out and came back on, and had to log in again. What happened to the choice, save my password? It generally kept you logged in for a while, two, three weeks. 

Let me vent a bit (more). Bookkus is small, and cozy, but without the anything-goes discussion. It's an interesting experiment, and I'm eager to see if it works out. 

Scribophile is larger than Book Country, and full of staggering amounts of great information, but you have to stumble on it and dig for it, and there's no way to save your favorites and zap back onto them directly, no muss, no fuss. Like we used to be able to do here. And those endless e-mails announcing activity in threads you've participated in, they are driving me mad!

Authonomy? Huge! Discussions? I believe so, but I haven't had the patience to find out for sure. 

It's that weeding out process that was Book Country's strength. Getting to know the community through the discussions and deciding who to spend your time on. And being able to keep tabs on their antics. Having a peek at their latest activity is the method I used, the let those clowns do the spade work way to discover new discussions. 

This is what had set you apart from all the others. Bring it back, with the exact same capability, I don't care about the format, and all is forgiven. Right, guys?

--edited by Mimi Speike on 6/26/2013, 2:33 PM--

The developers extended the log-in to 120 minutes, which is the best they could do in a day. A perpetual log-in solution is in the works, but that will take a little longer to implement. If you continue getting the 404 error, please send me a quick note with a screenshot (if possible) to support at bookcountry dot com. Also, I understand how you feel about the discussions and being able to keep up with other members' antics (I like that too )--yet we have not taken them away; this feature is still work in progress. For now, you can subscribe to discussions by clicking on the little envelope icon at the top left corner of the screen. 

Marc, 

About the "read and review" button of your book: You can't "read and review" your own book. If you want to look at what it looks like to other members, just go to your dashboard and open it from there. How it looks in the book editor is exactly the way it looks to your readers. Hope this helps! 

Danielle, 

Really intrigued to read how you feel about the reputation system. How do you (and everybody else) feel about bringing it back but with a "thumbs up" only option, like it is on Facebook?

Nevena

--edited by Nevena Georgieva on 6/26/2013, 6:03 PM--

A couple of quick questions: 

Is there a way to see a list of books people have self-published through the Publish toolkit?

With the book cover featured, I've noticed a lot of books have line drawings, but when I went to search the BC gallery, all I saw were some 150 photos. Am I missing something? Not looking in the right place? I've been all over that book cover feature and can't figure it out. 

Thanks.

In addition to using the sample images, members can also upload their own covers, which many people have created in Photoshop or Pixlr.com, etc.

Maybe you've seen a few covers with the genre flags on them? We'll actually make these available in the media gallery soon. Does than answer your question?

Nevena

Thanks! Yep, I'm seeing the genre flags on some of the books.

Hi Mimi! Angela! Nevena! Brandi! (And Colleen! You're out there somewhere, right? Salute! Probably on threads I'm not looking at right now . . .)

@Mimi: That error 404 (page not found) mssg that you're getting? I get that, too, when I log-in using IE from work.

@Angela: Nice to see you so active on the new site! 

@Nevena: Thanks for your unflagging help and enthusiasm! And your patience with us during this transition. We're all trying to help, I think, without sounding too negative. 

@Brandi: Thanks for the encouraging words! You know, without the halcyon BC team I'd still be mumbling and muttering my days away in utter obscurity, writing unseen stories for my battered story box. Now I'm muttering and mumbling in public, in semi-obscurity, and that . . . umm . . . seems like an improvement to me . . .   

Not sure if this is a bug or functionality that hasn't been incorporated yet (or not going to be incorporated).

Anyway, I posted a review on the 25th. And the author posted a new draft on the same day. Without seeing a list of books that I'm following, the only way I would know if an author posts anything new with respect to a book I'm following, is to keep going to the book's home page. In this case, because I had written a review, I was able to link to the book directly from my profile page (thanks for putting the list of books reviewed back on the profile page!). For a book I haven't reviewed yet, however, I would have to keep searching for the book again, then clicking on it. Not a very efficient system.

Here she goes again, lodging another complaint (or observation, depending on how you look at it).With the old Book Country site, if I went to one of my connection's home page/profile page, I was able to see what books and discussions that person was following/participating in, in addition to the books he/she posted and the books he/she reviewed. Nor can I see a nice list of that person's recent activities/updates/new drafts, and so on. (You can see a list of someone's last 10 posts IF their name happens to appear as the last poster on a discussion thread on the list of discussions and IF you click on the person's name. Other than that, I see no other way to find out what my connections have been up to.)

Now, all we see are the books written and reviewed. I no longer can tell what discussions my connections are actively participating in (unless I want to sit here and scroll and click through the hundreds of discussion threads on this site - which I simply will not do). This is part of the sense of community that GD and others have pointed out is sorely missing from this version of the site. 

Yes, there are some technological and design improvements, but the Book Country's tag line is "A Penguin Community." The "community" seems to have been replaced by technology, new layouts and colors, and quick and easy access to publishing tools.

And with respect to the list of my connections that I can access, is there anyway to sort them, sift through them? They seem to be arranged in reverse chronological order by date the person joined Book Country. Even an alphabetical sort would be nice, or sort by date of recent activity, etc. I had started clicking through them one by one to see if I can recreate (in a notebook or separate Word doc) the list of books I was following so that I can do some reviewing now that the summer is here, but I lost interest after clicking back and forth through about 8 or 9 profiles.

The bottom line is (and as someone who produces an e-only, web-based publication for a major medical publisher), the more I have to click through and search and record information remotely, the less likely I am to keep using a resource. 

Yep, I'm back.

So, I decided to play around with the genre map (which is so much better and easier to use than the old map - really nice!) and selected science fiction, then space opera. From there, I browsed BC books in space opera. Problem: the subtle title changes I made to my two books the other day aren't there.

I clicked on one of the books. Still no sign of the title change. Clicked on my name and the title changes are there. Clicked on one of the books from within my profile page - no title change!

Selected My Dashboard from under Read & Review. I see the updated titles. Hmmm, maybe I needed to click "Post". So, I click "Post." That action created a new draft - even though I've changed nothing in the text of the book itself. 

Went back to the genre map - still no title change displayed. 

Searched for books - still no title change displayed.

So, the only places I can see the new titles are my dashboard and my profile. No title change in the search results or genre map browse results. 

(Oh, and each time I insert an emoticon, I get extra circle characters and line spaces after each paragraph break. I deleted some before posting just to see what happens.)

I've been playing a little more with the new site, and I have to add my support to the group that is missing the information from the original dashboard. I just noticed that Kerry Schafer's new book is on here, but I don't have time to read and review...but there's no way for me to save it for later when I come back. I've also lost track of the books I had saved to review, thanks to the authors reviewing mine. Any chance the "follow this book" aspect will be coming back?

x♥x

Noelle

HELL YES!

This is truly awful....... Has some hacker sabotaged this formerly wonderful site? If so they've done a great job and should be working for the KGB.

They could have brought down capitalism, so effective are their skills.

P.S. I'm not a communist.

Mike (I say Mike because so many comments seem to have no originatot with this new system.)