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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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It's been a while since we did a suggestion box thread, but it's high time for a new one. We actively use your suggestions to look for ways to make Book Country a more useful community for everyone.
Here's the rules:
Leave your suggestion. Others who read your suggestion and agree with it hit thumbs up. This lets us know how many community members feel the same way about a suggestion.
If you don't agree with it, DON'T HIT THUMBS DOWN! Just leave it neutral, please! Hitting thumbs down penalizes the karma member leaving the suggestion, and we don't want to do that. =)
Before leaving your suggestion, scan briefly through the thread to make sure that someone hasn't already left the same suggestion.
Everyone got it? Okay, GO!
Colleen
Community Manager
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I think I may have mentioned this elsewhere in another thread, but please, please, please make the thumbs up and thumbs down icons a little bigger. Depending on which computer I'm using (especially my netbook), they are indistinguishable. 
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I don't know how the tech folks would be able to pull this off, but it would be great if, while reading a book, we could insert comments and make editorial corrections right into the text (sort of like you can in Word with track changes turned on). It would probably require versioning and a lot more storage of all the copies of each reviewed text. But it would make it easier than trying to note every little thing. Some reviewers are very good at that. If I had more time to spend on each review, I would probably be that detailed, too, but I tend to work on reviews fairly late in the evening - usually after a long day of editing medical monographs and querying doctors.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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I'd like to be able to upload multiple chapters at once. Most of my books are completed and in rewrites. I hate sitting here uploading 20+ chapters every time I finish a round of editing.
The only other suggestion I can think of is to get some board moderators. I noticed Colleen just started a bunch of threads (Yay!) but a moderator could keep conversations flowing and the boards hopping.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Oh, yes, and vice versa, I'd like to be able to delete a whole bunch of chapters at once when I'm getting ready to upload a whole new draft. It takes so long to click on the trash can icon, wait for the dialog box to pop up, click on the appropriate response, then wait for the actual deletion to happen.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
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I would like to see a list of discussions that you have participated in without following. Sometimes, I accidentally forget to follow a discussion. Then, a few days later, if the boards have been busy, it can be hard to find the discussion again. This can be a little frustrating all in all.
It would be nice to have this as a link on the main profile. (Such as, 'See conversations $Person has participated in.") -- this would let me find the posts I participated in, but it would also let me find posts by someone I'm interested in as well.
Just my 10 cents!
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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It would be nice, too, to know which discussion threads are brand new. Maybe a "new" icon can appear next to them for a week after the initial post? Sifting through all the discussions can be a bit daunting!
Also, I've always been curious about who's following my book (not so curious about who may be following me). Maybe that piece of book info could be a link to a list of members following the work?
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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With respect to "new" discussions, I should add that the green sunburst icon that is supposed to indicate new discussions since my "last visit" doesn't make sense to me (but I could just be a little dense). There are discussions that were posted several months ago that have that green sunburst, so they're not exactly new and I visit this site practically every day, so, again, I'm not understanding how a discussion gets flagged with that icon.
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Lynne, I suspect that the genre classifications are used by Penquin to help them find books within specific genres. I am too new at this to really know what I am talking about, but I have heard that agents have to shop for books within the genres specified by the publisher. If so, Penquin decides the genres for business purposes. Not that I mind; there has to be a business reason to justify the cost of this site.
Maybe a staff member can clarify how genres are chosen for Book Country?
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 244
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I don't think Lynne meant classifying books by genre, but rather the browsing section, and suggested an addition to the browsing options of a "surprise" button which when browsing the books will bring you to a random book in any genre. Kind of like StumbleUpon within the Book Country community.
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stephmcgee Thanks. Sorry, Lynne, I misunderstood.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Per Colleen's suggestion, I'm moving this over from a discussion I had started last month:
When you go to comment on a review, your screen goes dark (obscuring the review) and the comment box appears. It would be nice if you could still see the review while commenting on it (without having to rely on copying/pasting the review into another file type and other types of maneuvering).
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 26
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You keep taking all my good ideas Angela! But I think that means we are on the same page
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Well, you know what they say, A J, great minds think alike
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Joined: 1/10/2012
Posts: 192
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Lots of great ideas here already, but I've been struggling with this: when a writer comments on my review and asks for specific examples (I try to be detailed in my comments but sometimes more is needed after the fact), it would be great to be able to have the story in question open while replying to the comments. I'm not sure if that's possible, but it would be helpful, I think.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
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I would like to see an editor's pick of the week/every two weeks or once a month, one for each genre. While we do have bookcountry favorites, I think it would be nice to see what the editor and publisher types think are promising stories rather than what we think are promising stories.
As a part of this, I think it would be useful to hear a little about what makes the story promising, and maybe a blurb on the things holding the story back. Not a full review, but more of an overview of the elements that intrigued the Ladies of Book Country.
I think this sort of insight would be very useful to those who are serious about getting their books published.
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Joined: 4/29/2011
Posts: 26
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I think it'd be nice to have a "New Posts" feature that'd allow you to see all new posts made in a thread for the day. It's a little tedious at the moment to click into each subforum to read the threads that have had posts made in them for the day. It'd also make it easier to find discussions to actually follow.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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I would welcome the ability to edit a posted review. I understand that the reason no edit button appears after you post a public review is to prevent the critiquer from endlessly revising and reworking and otherwise second-guessing their own thoughts. (Do I have that right?) Nevertheless, I would welcome a 10-minute window, say, within which time frame I could fix distracting typos perpetrated during the writing of the review and caught during a re-reading of the review.
For that matter, it would be helpful if the review could be written in a full-screen, full-page format, instead of having to be typed into these scrunched-down BC system windows. Yes, you can write off-line and then cut-and-paste your doc into the BC system but I've encountered numerous weird formatting errors that occur (intermittently) when you try this.
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Joined: 1/10/2012
Posts: 192
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Ooh, I just thought of two more things. When I'm reading a manuscript, it would be nice if I could go back to my home page and see who's saying what, if I have any new reviews, etc. without having to save my review for later. Sometimes I like to take a break from reading, but don't want to have to close out the book. Also, it's frustrating that when I do opt to save a review in progress for later, finding the book is tough, unless I'm following it. It would be great to have a place on my home page for Books You're Reviewing or something like that!
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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A couple more suggestions...
1. Get rid of the thumbs down button.
Maybe it's just me, but I always take it as someone giving you/your opinion/review the middle finger. The concept of indicating if a response is helpful or not is nice, but how many people aren't reviewing/posting on the boards because of the thumbs down? If someone takes the time/effort to read and post a review, how inclined are they to keep reviewing if their efforts are met with one thumbs up and two thumbs down? The bigger this site gets there will be more clashing of personalities. If you check the site stats I'm sure you'll see people who have argued in the past are thumbs downing every post/review the other person posts.
In my opinion the usefulness of the thumbs down is outweighed by the negative impact it can leave.
2. Older titles.
I've been with Book Country since the beginning and my original title, Bon Voyage has been shopped here for a year. People interested in the title/genre who would review it have done so. Without actively pushing for reviews I feel like I've hit a plateau with traffic. I don't have any suggestions, but maybe some other members might have some ideas for long term workshopping titles.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
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I agree with getting rid of the thumbs down button. Thumbs up is enough to show you appreciate or agree with a statement. Thumbs down is too easy to misclick and is often interpreted as not agreeing with the user rather than the user posted non-relevant or less-useful content.
Positives always, always work better than negatives, imho.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I agree with Danielle and RJ (especially since I've accidentally clicked the thumbs down button and regretted it). Get rid of the thumb' down button; two thumbs down on the thumbs down button. If we disagree with a post or think it's not relevant or not very useful, we more or less show that by not clicking the thumbs up button or by posting an opposing comment.
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Joined: 12/1/2011
Posts: 35
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With the thumbs down issue - I know this might slow things down a little, but an "are you sure" dialog box might help to alleviate some of the confusion. There are not too many thumbs-down that I have seen, and the ones I have seen have seemed to be deserving of negative karma, so it might be better to have it remain. Making the buttons a little bigger is another good idea.
I would not mind some sort of private messaging system. It might be useful for communicating specific recommendations or detailed suggestions without filling up the review screens with a conversation.
I would really like the reading window to be bigger also, just because on smaller screens I find it prohibitive to try and review things, plus my eyes are bad as it is!
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LOL Danielle! Now I gotta vote for a middle finger button But, you can ignore me -it's probably just a guy thing.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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LOL GD!
Ok, more about the thumbs down button. A lot of the new members of Book Country are new writers, right? How are they going to learn how to write a good review from a thumbs down? Instead of just hitting that thumbs down button, talk to people. If you don't like the review you get, if it was a one line 'I Loved It!' then talk to the reviewer. Thank them for reading, because sucky review or not this person took the time to read your work, then maybe send them a link to the post on how to write a good review.
You don't like what someone is saying? Write a post and say so.
When I first started on Book Country I didn't have a clue how to write a review. I was brand new to writing and reviewing was over my head. Nobody told me what I was doing wrong, I got a series of thumbs down so I stopped bothering.
Once RJ posted her tutorial and I started reviewing again I ran into similar issues with the thumbs down. Writer didn't like what I said? Auto-thumbs down and an angry twitter conversation later, I washed my hands of reviewing here. That person later was banned for similar altercations, but honestly I think the thumbs down was more of my problem. It's too easy and doesn't help whoever you are thumbs downing to improve themselves. On the contrary, if you get a new writer who is overwhelmed with things to learn and give them negative karma for being new? That's just going to drive them off.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 412
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Ability to copy and paste, ability to, say, if you are connected to a person, and they allow it on their end, download an ebook version of their wip.
As for the choosing books, have an ability to highlight passages you REALLY LIKE in a book. Then, have those passages randomly appear in a bar at the top of the page. Clicking the bar brings you to that book.
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
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@Alex - I particularly like the idea of the passage highlighting, although I could see a problem with implementation of it, since people can edit at a whim so those specific passages might no longer exist after a bit.
I'd definitely be curious to see a feature where we can see random quotes from books that people have highlighted as liking.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I've noticed that when I click on "Follow this book" in the little pop-up that opens when you click on a book, the button "Find similar books" then appears. It would be nice if this same button appeared somewhere when you view/manage your own books to make it easier to find books that are similar to your own.
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Joined: 3/16/2011
Posts: 279
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This is a suggestion that probably should qualify as a bug but...
Add a report abuse button to the original post of a thread. Right now only responses have the report abuse button.
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Joined: 12/17/2011
Posts: 11
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There should be a thread or 'advert' for new books 'published' in Book Country so that if you wanted, you can see the new books or authors when they first post to the site.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I would really like pagination links at the top of each page in discussions, not just at the bottom. I would also like it if, when I'm following a discussion and see that it's flagged as having new posts, clicking on the icon would take me to the first new post, not to the first page of the discussion.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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It would also be nice if, next to each poster's avatar, we could see small icons representing each book the poster has uploaded. These could be simple genre-color-coded rectangles, which on mouse-over would expand to show a larger icon with the title. The user could then click on the expanded icon to go directly to the book, giving us a simple mouse-over/click mechanism to explore our fellow conversationalists' work, rather than the current click-to-profile/click-to-book method, which requires multiple page refreshes.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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Okay, this is one of those "prob'ly never gonna happen" spit-balling ideas (I had after talking with Tom W.) but here goes:
@Tom: I've been thinking about what you said the other night about freaked-out writers immediately pulling their writing from the site because of a low-starred review. You know what? I can truly say that I wouldn't mind eliminating the star rating system entirely from the review that the writer and others see.
By which I mean to say: Let only the reviewer see and set the star ratings in three different categories (BC could still use these for tracking and ratings systems running in the background) but hide this info from the reviewed writer and others. This way emphasis is placed squarely where it belongs: on the criticisms proffered, not the bloody stars! This would also, I believe, tend to have a salutory "wave-flattening" effect on fragile, hyper-sensitive authorial egos, cutting off troughs and crests: It would be very difficult, for instance, to discern the difference between a one, one-and-a-half, and two-star low-scoring review on the one hand; or a high-scoring three-and-a-half, four or five star review on the other.
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Joined: 12/1/2011
Posts: 35
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Carl - what would you think about taking that one step further?
I was recalling my college days, many of which were spent on the school's literary magazine. Everything we critiqued was anonymous so as not to form favorites, but our comments were all visible to the other staff members viewing the piece. The result was that the first 1-3 reviewers set the tone for the entire piece, and works which were better or worse than the reviews were unfairly reviewed.
What if the star system was only visible to the author? Each individual reviewer could use it, if no others can see it than you avoid the "follow the leader" effect. If not, then I am all for eliminating the stars as well, but I think they use them to help determine "buzz books" and the like.
Also, in that same vein, I think making the complete reviews visible to everyone tends to create issues as well. I notice a lot of "he/she already said this" comments, and while that may be true I think individual reveiwer's thoughts then get skipped because someone already pointed something out. Does that make sense? I can't tell yet, I'm still on my first cup of coffee.
What I am saying is - let only the complete reviews be visible only to the author and to anyone who has actually read and reviewed the work. Sure you may get repetitive comments, but they will be authentic and not subject to the peer-pressure of other reviews. If that is not viable, how about making the author have the option to make the reviews public or private.
Ok, Juan Valdez is calling to say my coffee is ready (how many of us are old enough to get that reference?). Curious to see what others think.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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Well, the problem with the star system being visible to the writer is just that--it's visible to the writer. Even if it's only visible to the writer, many of them--as Tom W. pointed out--take that initial low-star review as a slap to the face and never quite recover enough to hear the criticisms proffered. (Or immediately pull their writing off the site.)
I don't think there are any perfect answers here. And I don't really expect anything to change; I threw this out there to see what others think. (Academy Awards, anyone? Hugo? Nebula? Oftentimes "there can be only one", so perhaps there's a good counter-argument to be made re: Toughen up now; that's the Real World calling . . .)
Perhaps I should sign off as a sophist, or William Jefferson Clinton this morning, taking both sides of the argument at the same time . . . 
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I like the idea of hiding stars from the writer for this reason: I am pretty stingy with my stars when I review, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and I also don't want to make anyone angry in a way that might provoke them to vindictively review and rate my own work based on their pique over the number of stars I gave them. (Conversely, I don't particularly want someone to review my work and give me tons of undeserved stars just because they were pleased that I rated them well.)
So I like the idea of hiding stars from authors for individual reviews. But I hate the idea of hiding stars from everybody just to achieve that end. I would propose the following instead.
1) Hide all individual star ratings from all users (except perhaps to allow each reviewer to see his or her own ratings for editing purposes).
2) Allow everyone to see the averaged star ratings of each book after at least two people have reviewed it.
3) Use the up-down voting to "weight" the stars given by reviewers, but only for voters who have submitted a review for the book. Let's say five people review a book, and four give it 4-star reviews while the fifth gives it a 1-star review. On a straight average, that would be 3.4 stars. but if the four 4-star reviewers all rate each other as constructive peer reviews and then down-vote the 1-star review, there would be an algorithm to lessen the impact of that 1-star review in the overall average. So the weighted average might end up being 3.6 instead of 3.4.
This system preserves the utility of using stars to help guide our reading and reviewing choices, while minimizing hurt feelings from any given review and also reducing the impact of unfair reviews.
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I think Carl is exactly right: Eliminate the stars.
Stars inhibit discussion. The author may hesitate to disagree with a 2 star review because they don't want to seem defensive. Without the stars, I can see some very useful debates erupting in the Comment sections. I love arguing with knowledgeable people and I have never learned anything by winning an argument. Losing though that can be illuminating. We might all benefit from reading both sides honestly expressed.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I'm finding it horribly aggravating that the reading interface thinks it has to give me a full page of text at the end of every chapter. I page along click by click reading smoothly, and then the last page of the chapter doesn't flow directly from the page I just read. Instead, the text jumps by anywhere from just a single line to half a page or more, forcing me to search for the spot that was at the bottom of the previous page.
I hope this has already been noted and is being addressed with your developers; it really throws me out of the reading process.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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Disappearing Reviews: Bad! Badbadbad bad!
It's annoying in the extreme when the work I've put into writing a long, detailed review disappears into the ether, so to speak, when the writer pulls their story from the site. Here's a suggestion I'm making in all earnestness: Keep the freakin' review available to readers on BC, even though the story itself has disappeared! That may sound ridiculous but I stand by this statement/heartfelt-request/bitter lament: When I'm looking at other writer's reviews I'm not comparing the accuracy of their comments and criticisms to the stories reviewed, rather I'm reading their review to judge them on their ability (or appalling lack thereof) to write clear, cogent, communicative sentences that adequately source and reference back to the critiqued writer's own text. I would argue, therefore, that keeping the review accessible isn't as absurd and pointless as it first sounds.
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Joined: 1/10/2012
Posts: 192
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I agree with Carl on that one. But, Carl... I didn't know there'd be a test on that! Sheesh! And here I thought the only ones judging the merit of my reviews was the authors themselves! *gasp*
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I like Carl's suggestion, but at the very least I suspect it would require modifying the terms of use, and there may be copyright implications as well. I certainly wouldn't want to scare off writers who might be legitimately gun-shy of knowing that any review of their work would become a permanent fixture of cyberspace whether they decided they were done with bookcountry.com or not.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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@Laura: Heh!
@Herb: Excellent points, but perhaps not as problematic or insurmountable as they seem. If only the text of the review itself is saved sans author's name then perhaps no harm, no foul; secondly if the author changes the title of their story than you'd have to Google search by exact wordage in order to pull a match, methinks. I'm sure you're right that this would merit a change in the Terms of Use, however. Probably an unworkable suggestion, then . . .
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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When someone sends you a recommendation about a discussion, it would be nice to be able to thank them, or to make a direct comment after you've read it.
Well, well! What a co-inky-dink! Thanks, Carl. I've been following that recent exchange casually, with the intention of going back and really studying it when I have more get-a-grip-on-my-mess energy.
and also
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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Okay, I'm probably the only freak who's going to ask for this but here goes: How about adding genre poetry to the map somehow? Not sure if this would require a separate "Poetry" listing under each genre or simply the inclusion of a new, "catch-all" category. And it would have to be strictly genre-focused in terms of subject matter. (I'm thinking especially of those multi-page, fantasy and weird fiction narrative poems we all write from time-to-time that have admittedly limited market potential but nevertheless might be of interest to a genre audience that still reads and appreciates the poetry of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft, et. al.)
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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I'd really, really, really like font size controls on the text entry boxes, as well as the ability to quote prior comments. Right now, if there's something I want to cut-and-paste into a post, it invariably comes out at a different size from the typed text, and I can't figure out a way to fix it.
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Joined: 11/17/2011
Posts: 1016
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A poetry section? I'm all for it. Most of my stuff is verse. Sly! is the exception.
My favorite piece is a convoluted saga, composed in an ornate style, structured as prose, but with a hidden rhyme which emerges in the course of a plain reading. (Christ! Can't I write anything simple?)
Now, don't anyone think that I'm telling the story of Cloe-kla, elf-daughter of Ald-rogaga, hand-maiden of the goddess Mradklx.* My thing is nowhere near that commercial.
Celestine and Her Sisters is my screwball take on Cinderella. It's a trying read, I suppose, if you don't appreciate word games. It's not for the faint of heart. Nor for those who despise exuberant verbosity.
Maybe Carl would get a kick out of it. He fiddles with language himself.
______________________________________________________
* See Tom Wolosz' parody of too-much-too-soon fantasy on page six of Ten Things Writers Do That Cause Me To Sigh Heavily, by Carl Reed. Great, Tom!
Let's have our own It Was A Dark and Stormy Night contest: worst opening paragraph, genre of your choice. What about it?
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I'd like to see a way to sort the books I'm following into at least two subsets: those I've reviewed; those I have yet to review. I must be following close to 50 books and, quite frankly, I can't keep track of which ones I reviewed (unless I view the list in my profile). It would be great if when you clicked on "Manage" for your bookshelf, the books could be sorted in various ways.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Wanted to keep the suggestions separate: It would be a tremendous help to me if I could set up alerts with respect to the discussion lists. Yes, I can see at a glance if any of the 55 discussions I'm following have new posts, but I'd like to be able to set up keyword-based alerts that would let me know when a new discussion that fits my criteria has been started. Clicking through the many subsets of the discussion topics is time consuming and something I very rarely do. Most of the discussions I follow or participate in are those that the people I'm connected to or following have either started, participated in, or recommended to me.
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Can this site be made compatible with Safari? I'd love to be able to post here with my iPad.
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Joined: 6/28/2011
Posts: 188
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GD, I think it's an iPad issue, not a Safari issue. I post here using Safari on my Mac with no problem.
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