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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > SFReader Reviews > New Reviews Posted | Forum Quick Jump
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UnclePete
Weasel Overlord
      
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 309
|  Posted 10/11/2007 7:19 PM (GMT -4) |   | So...from my last posts there has come about some confusion and I've heard from a number of people, which inspired confusion in me -- I think part of the problem is that I just assumed everyone knew that SFReader.com and SFWatcher.com are review sites, which is how a lot of the old timers know this place, and that the forums are the added bonus...
And we've had many new people come in, in the last several months (maybe even years now) who have come straight into the forum by word of mouth, invitation, etc. which is great, but without really noticing the reviews, or the other cool things the site has.
If this is you, please click on either one of the labels up top there, and have a look -- there are reviews of course, as well as columns, short fiction (and news about the contests) and much much more! Also, once you've looked over the main site, my last couple posts will probably make more sense. In short, there's a lot more to SFReader than the forums -- and the reviews and purchase links are what keep the site fed, financially -- so as Dave's mentioned before, if you're gonna buy a book from Amazon et al, consider doing it through the site.
Anyway - to draw attention to the main site, I decided I'd go ahead and post here when I've updated the reviews, which is more or less every 2-3 weeks, depending on how many I have, etc. So without further ado, the latest update (which is about a week old now, but oh well):
New reviews as of 10/03:
- Pretty Evil, by Lexi Davis, reviewed by C Dennis Moore
- Falling Angel, by by William Hjortsberg, reviewed by James Michael White
- Crucible: Spock-The Fire and the Rose, by David R. George, reviewed by David Roy
- Tripping to Somewhere, by Kristopher Reisz, reviewed by C Dennis Moore
- The Runestaff, and The Sword of Dawn, by Michael Moorcock, both reviewed by SC Bryce
total reviews: 884. Books waiting to be reviewed: 205+
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
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H.P. Lovesauce
Necronomicondiment
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 584
| Posted 10/16/2007 1:01 PM (GMT -4) | | | A couple of things tripped me up: reviews are the third item down on the front page, and some of the reviewed books (the Moorcock) are not "current". Does that illuminate my confusion? | | Back to Top | | |
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UnclePete
Weasel Overlord
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 309
| Posted 10/16/2007 10:58 PM (GMT -4) | | New reviews as of 10/16:
- Working for the Devil, by Lilith Saintcrow, reviewed by C Dennis Moore
- King's Property, by Morgan Howell, reviewed by David Roy
- The Genesis Code, by Christopher Forrest, reviewed by Ben Boulden
- Conan and the Songs of the Dead, by Joe R. Lansdale and Timothy Truman, reviewed by Jeff Edwards
- Dark Tower IV : Wizard and Glass, by Stephen King, reviewed by Kendall Karch
- Absolution: The Ted Roth Story, by Edmund Hulton, reviewed by Mike Swope
Welcome Mike (2nd review with us) and Kendall (1st review with us) -- thanks for playing!
total reviews: 890. Books waiting to be reviewed: 208+
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
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Dave
Master of the Domain
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 657
| Posted 10/18/2007 11:09 AM (GMT -4) | | Annoying pop-up and other off topic (purchased) links are an attempt to monetize the site to help offset hosting costs. The license for a 5 CAL version of SQL server was not cheap, and neither is the buisness class cable connection I pay for every month.
Good feedback on reviews - maybe I should add a Date Of Review for each one?
Rant:
Pete's original post at the top of this thread reflects some of the frustration I've been having. I've asked for help to get a new site going - CrystalWizard was the only one to respond. I've asked for you guys to help by making Amazon purchases through the site - if I sell 4 books a month, I'm lucky. When I added Google AdSense in a sidebar of the forum in an attempt to bring in more ad revenue, I have long-time users threatening to stop coming to forum.
SFReader is not free.... except for you!
Pete and I spend a lot of time, effort and MONEY to keep this site up, the books going out, and the reviews posted. SFReader costs me ~2,000 a year to run. Last year to the total of my affiliate sales was $280. This forum software was not free. SQL Server 2000 was not free. Windows Server 2003 was not free. The dual processor Xeon server with SATA RAID was not free. The business class cable connection is not free. The hundreds of hours I spent developing and maintaining the site come right out of my time budget, and when it comes to time, all you can make is withdrawls.
If SFReader introduces you to a book you're interested in, you should buy it through one of our affiliate links. If you're not ready to buy just yet, bookmark the review. Leave a comment under the review thanking the reviewer and telling people that you bought it. It might encourage others to do the same. If you're buying ANYTHING from Amazon, either for yourself or as a gfit, you should buy it through the SFReader link. The Amazon link is at teh bottom of EVERY PAGE in the site.
You get the same price whether you go through the affiliate link or directly to the store.
Pete had to talk me down a couple of weeks back when I threatened to shut down the site. I'm that close.
If you like SFReader, there are two things you should do to support it:
Make ANY Amazon purchase through the Amazon link at the bottom of every forum page and on the main site
Volunteer to read and review a book every now and then (you get the book mailed to you for FREE and you get to keep it). Don't worry if you've never written a review - we will help you.
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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Jordan Lapp
ppaL nadroJ
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2574
| Posted 10/18/2007 1:47 PM (GMT -4) | | | Dave,
I sympathize with your revenue issues. At EDF, we're also hoping to eventually break even. The first steps we've taken to do that is to minimize our costs.
We use Simple Machine Forum software for our Forums (which is free and is as feature rich or more than the forum software this forum uses), and we use MySQL to run them (also free). The site could be quicker, but for a savings of $2000, I think the very, very slight delay is worthwhile (some of the delay is also due to caching, so navigation once you're in the site is faster).
Our hosting service is very cheap (we bought tens year's worth of hosting a while back for some ridiculously small fee).
Why not think about scaling back some of your expenses and grow them only as revenue for the site grows?
Jordan Lapp Managing Editor
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Dave
Master of the Domain
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 657
| Posted 10/18/2007 9:43 PM (GMT -4) | | ALCON
Sure, we ship to Canada - for free.
Had to go with the Windows platform as that is where my development expertise lies.... hence the Windows Server 2003 and SQL server. Besides, I've already paid for the software and hardware, so moving to a different platform wouldn't cut costs. Even if I moved hosting off my personal server to a commercial host, the monthly fee for a 300 meg SQL server db runs around $250
Hundreds of people patronize my site every day, because, I assume, they like it. If they like it, they should support it. To not so so is rude.
A few weeks back I posted about my new social bookmarking site Tizags.com and asked the community to check it out and help me get it going by registering ad occasionally adding links. I don't know how many checked it out, but CW was the only one to register and add anything.....
I don't need to make a profit; it's not about that. I just want to feel as though people are making SOME effort to support SFReader, and I don't.
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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Dave
Master of the Domain
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 657
| Posted 10/19/2007 9:35 AM (GMT -4) | | I have been unclear and allowed myself to get off track. The finances aren't the issue. I'm not sure even why I brought it up, except perhaps a justification as to why you should support SFReader, and then I let 'support' define itself as helping the site generate revenue.
Perhaps I ended up at that destination because I felt as though if people could assign a dollar figure to SFReader, it would be easier for them to 'value' it and feel better about supporting it. Then we got all into traffic and revenue and monetizing and costs and clicking and I let myself get distracted. But none of that was what was really bothering me.
The main bone in my craw lodged there a few weeks ago when Pete mentioned he had 200+ books available for review and very few people volunteering to review them. And I thought: WTF? I run this free site, I spend a couple grand a year on it and hours and hours of my time, it has hundreds of visitors a day, almost a thousand members in the forum (10% of which are very active) and we can't get any volunteers to read and review FREE f***ing books? That sort of pissed me off.
SFReader is a REVIEW site. The more reviews we post, the more visitors we will get. The more timely the reviews are for new releases, the more relevant we will be to the SF community of both writers and fans. We have pre-release books available. If we got in fast reviews on those (and supposing they were favorable), we could even end up getting blurbs inside the cover or the back. It's happened a couple of times.
So the real issue is that I felt my commitment to running and maintaining the site wasn't being matched by a similar commitment on the part of the community when it came to supporting the main mission of SFReader: to post honest reviews of speculative fiction books.
To avoid the confusion I fostered before by allowing costs and income to enter into the discussion, here is specifically what I consider 'supporting' SFReader:
Primary:
1. Volunteer to read and review books SFReader has available
2. Specifically volunteer to read and review pre-release copies as quickly as possible
3. Foster SFReader's position in the SF landscape as a supporter of the little guy/neophyte by reading and reviewing small press, self-published, and eBooks
Secondary (many are doing this already):
1. Talk nice about SFReader and encourage people to check it out, not just the forum but the whole site
2. Link to reviews you like and to SFReader in general to help promote it
(very) Tertiary:
1. Occassionally use the SFReader Book Store (http://www.sfreader.com/sfr-shop.asp) if you're going to buy a book
2. Occassionally use the SFReader DVD Store if you're going to buy a DVD
SF & Fantasy: http://www.sfreader.com/dvd-shop-science-fiction-fantasy-movie.asp
Horror: http://www.sfreader.com/dvd-shop-anime-movie.asp
Anime: http://www.sfreader.com/dvd-shop-anime-movie.asp
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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David Boultbee
Neophyte
Date Joined Aug 2007
Total Posts : 107
| Posted 10/19/2007 11:46 AM (GMT -4) | |
Dave said...
Primary:
1. Volunteer to read and review books SFReader has available
2. Specifically volunteer to read and review pre-release copies as quickly as possible
3. Foster SFReader's position in the SF landscape as a supporter of the little guy/neophyte by reading and reviewing small press, self-published, and eBooks
Dave
I just sent an email to Pete about becoming an ER. I'm generally pretty good about turnaround so if accepted as an ER I can do #2 as well.
About #3, as mentioned eBooks might be a good option for members like Firlefanz. If you can work on #2 you can build #3 up at the same time.
I also have another idea that I'll PM you about.
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Firlefanz
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1193
| Posted 10/19/2007 1:42 PM (GMT -4) | | | | |
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