I would have posted this under the "site ideas and improvements" thread - but that has been closed to new replies apparently?  So my first suggestion would be to keep a thread open for site improvement suggestions, or have a separate forum category as it doesn't really fit under "bugs" or "how to" or "news and announcements".

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First, I am more of a reviewer at the moment - I may have work to post in the future but not yet. I came here because it seemed like an  interesting opportunity to help out other authors by reviewing their work as well as network.

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I think that the way the default filtering of books to review is a little odd.  I've reviewed 3 books so far, and just now realized that two of them were last updated in 2011! Wow - I don't even know if the author frequents here anymore.

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Since the point of this (portion of the) site seems to be getting feedback on your story to make it publication ready - the default sorting, which I can't even understand the logic behind (it's not highest rating, it's not most reviewed, it isn't most recent...) doesn't seem very conducive to new books getting reviewed - and may hinder them by never seeing the light of day.  Take a look at the traditional fantasy book list:

http://www.bookcountry.com/search/default.aspx?q=&st=Book&f_toplevelgenre_exact=fantasy&p=1&f_genre_exact=fantasy*traditional+fantasy  Most of these at the top half of the page are from 2011. 

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It seems like this should default to most recently uploaded so new books stand a chance of getting reviewed.

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2.

The "high fantasy" book list formatting is all messed up.  You can't see reviews, dates, sorting filters or anything.  I am on chrome.

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The forums should have a quick feature to insert a link to your book.  Maybe an icon you click it, it loads your books, you click the title and it inserts it into the post.  This would make finding the books people are requesting reviews on much easier.

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4.  

The forum profile and the author profile should share the same information.  I should be able to click on someones profile from the forums and see their reviews/books.

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5.

The review boxes are pretty terrible.  The insert a quote thing is really awkward and easier for me to just type it out.  The published review is for some reason leaving no paragraph spacing.  I even tried another individual's suggestion of placing a period between paragraph breaks, but that doesn't work.  The box is small and the weird (smaller) blue box you type in, within the larger box seems odd.  

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Since reviews are a major feature of this site - it seems like one of your biggest goals should be a focus on improving this feature - and maybe this should be made public so others know the status.  At the moment I don't really want to leave detailed reviews more than a few sentences long because it looks terrible - and this defeats the main purpose of the site.

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6.  Rating scale

6a - Leave a reminder of what each nib means (according to Bookcountry) at the top of the review page - or a popup when you hover over each nib.  Currently that information is hidden here: http://www.bookcountry.com/Help/ReadReview/WritingReview.aspx#NibRating  

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6b  Since each nib means the same thing, regardless of whether or not you are rating the "overall" story or "plot" etc - it gets confusing how to rate various sections.  For example, if the plot is 2 nibs and needs reconceptualization - but I really liked the voice and setting - the book *still* isn't ready for publication and I am torn between saying that it's ready to be published or voting it lower than it should be for that section...

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It seems like the "Overall" rating should be Bookcountry's nib system, and then have a different system - stars, books, pens? for the reader's personal opinion about the piece.

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7.

I'd like to see more covers.  All the gray book covers blend together and get tiresome. I haven't tried uploading a manuscript, but maybe something that says "are you sure you don't wish to add a cover?"  Including an extra rating set for book covers would be nice.

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8.

There wasn't going to be an 8, but as I tried to post this it just kept telling me "please enter text" - I had to copy the post, log in to a different browser and navigate back to post it - so that should probably be fixed.

--edited by May on 7/7/2013, 2:34 AM--

http://www.bookcountry.com/Community/Discussion/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=8589935656

you probably want to put this post there. it's been sitting here for a week now and this is the first time i've seen it.

--edited by MariAdkins on 7/16/2013, 12:38 AM--