The original version of this page can be found at : http://forum.sfreader.com/default.aspx?f=66&m=55020
| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/11/2007 6:19 PM | 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+
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : H.P. Lovesauce - 10/16/2007 12:01 PM | | 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? |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/16/2007 5:39 PM | Hey HP. I'm not sure what you mean by "third item down." In what sense?
As for old books -- any book review is welcome, as long as the book isn't already reviewed and would conceivably be of interest to the SF reader. We've reviewed plenty of books ABOUT SF as well as books OF SF.
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/16/2007 9:58 PM | 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+
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : Dave Panchyk - 10/17/2007 1:25 PM |
UnclePete said...Hey HP. I'm not sure what you mean by "third item down." In what sense? As for old books -- any book review is welcome, as long as the book isn't already reviewed and would conceivably be of interest to the SF reader. We've reviewed plenty of books ABOUT SF as well as books OF SF.
I'm just one user, and my mind is admittedly a trifle imbalanced, but I wanted to share my stream of consciousness as far as site usability goes.
Okay--up top, navigation frou-frou...ignore. SFReader.com header tells me that I'm here. Click off annoying pop-up ad. Under header: ad for Enbrel. Setting aside the dual/duelling sidebars, I see first of all: SFReader Fifth Annual (2006) Short Story Contest Results. 2006 ended 9 months ago. Last five topics on forum? Okay, cool--there's active discussion there. If I look at the "Newest Content!" section, we have items that go from two months to one year in age. Beneath *that* is an undated review section. Older titles haven't been separated out under a "classics" or "OOP treasures" or similar designation.
Does that help at all? Hopefully it shows how a visitor might question the currency of the reviews.
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| Posted By : Dave - 10/18/2007 10:09 AM | 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
Tizags - Social Bookmarking Done Right
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Yet Another Web Directory Site |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/18/2007 12:47 PM | | 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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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/18/2007 5:34 PM |
Dave said...
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
I do some reviews under a pseudonym for another site but I would love to focus more on the SF side of things. Do you ship books to Canada or would I be limited to ebooks?
Also I looked at Library Thing. Are all the books under the Received tag available for review? There are some really great books there (including mine - LOL). I'm surprised that no one has snapped them up yet.
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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/18/2007 5:44 PM |
Dave said...
Good feedback on reviews - maybe I should add a Date Of Review for each one?
Yes, I think that would be good. It will help show how 'fresh' the site is.
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| Posted By : Dave - 10/18/2007 8:43 PM | 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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| Posted By : Dave - 10/18/2007 9:24 PM | Web 2.0 is a marketing buzz word that doesn't mean anything other than big fonts and buttons.
And as I mentioned above "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."
And when I mean support, I'm not even talking about revenue. We used to post 6 new reviews every week. Now we post 6 every 2-3 weeks. Old reviewers have fallen off and no one else has picked up the slack. You want to support the site and not spend money? Do a review every now and then.
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 10/19/2007 12:25 AM | I appreciate this place and all you do for it - I am rather surprised you absorb such costly measures though. What about charging a 3 buck annual membership? Even a one-time joining fee at registration of 3 or 5 bucks would make a difference. I would hope you'd try going that route before just shutting the place down some day. I probably owe better than 50% of what I am currently involved in within the SF world to this forum and the contacts I've made here, not to mention the many fabulous authors I've found. It would be a sad day indeed, to lose this site.
Keep up the good work, Dave and Pete - and thank you.
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| Posted By : Firlefanz - 10/19/2007 5:30 AM | First of all: I'd be very sorry to see this forum go.
I believed I was contributing to the site by posting and linking back to it from my own forum, I added my forum to the SFReader Webring, I enticed people to join here - guess that's not enough.
I have to admit that so far I've never looked at the reviews, and only recently understood that they are supposed to be the main feature of this site. Maybe you could post about them more often on the forums? It would certainly help newcomers to appreciate the review part of the site.
I also don't use the amazon link, because for me, amazon.de is the place to go in order to avoid postage. I'd offer to do reviews, but then you'd have to send the book all the way to Germany - again that's a postage problem. If that's okay, I'll try to do reviews, even though I'll need help to do the first few.
So ... what else can I do? Click on google ads at random?
- Call me Firle.
Hannah Steenbock
Mystical Adventures
Sphaira |
| Posted By : Dave - 10/19/2007 8:35 AM | 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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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/19/2007 10:33 AM |
Firlefanz said...
I'd offer to do reviews, but then you'd have to send the book all the way to Germany - again that's a postage problem. If that's okay, I'll try to do reviews, even though I'll need help to do the first few. Firlefanz
I don't know how many of the 200+ books waiting for review are eBooks but that could be another option. There is an eBook tag but the eBook I submitted isn't listed so I don't know how accurate it is. You could start with mine, if you choose. :)
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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/19/2007 10:46 AM |
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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| Posted By : Dave - 10/19/2007 11:03 AM | Questions and concerns answered:
Yes, I went through and cleaned up the thread by deleting/editing non-relevant and snide content.
Please don't click on any ad you're not truly interested in
We will ship foreign, but prefer tosend multiple books in one shipping to as to save on costs; min 3books.
If you volunteer to review a book (or books) and we send them, please review them in a timely manner. If you can't, please wait until you can before volunteering
I'm not going to charge for membership and never will.
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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| Posted By : Firlefanz - 10/19/2007 12:42 PM | I'm awfully short with time, so I could only volunteer for an ebook at the moment.
*goes off to search for the list of books to review*
edit: And I can't find it. 
- Call me Firle.
Hannah Steenbock
Mystical Adventures
Sphaira |
| Posted By : Dave - 10/19/2007 1:51 PM | http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=ebook&view=sfreader.com
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/19/2007 2:01 PM | Dave said...
http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=ebook&view=sfreader.com
As mentioned earlier I don't know how accurate this list is. I do know that at least 1 ebook is missing from that list - mine!
link |
| Posted By : Firlefanz - 10/19/2007 3:19 PM | Dave, as you want reviews from the people visiting and posting here, maybe you could make it easier for me and others.
This is just a suggestion, but I can imagine it would help to have a subforum right here, for information about how to write a review, with easy, clickable links to follow for the available books, with tips and tricks about writing the reviews just the way you want them, with addresses where to send them - the kind of information collection that might even entice people to try their hand at a different kind of text.
That's just my two cents, really. 
- Call me Firle.
Hannah Steenbock
Mystical Adventures
Sphaira |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/19/2007 3:26 PM | I don't usually like to do explicit "reviews" because I spend the majority of my reading time writing, which means that I read books really slowly. I could maybe look through the list for books that I've already read and do reviews of those. Would that be okay? How would I swing that?
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/19/2007 3:31 PM | So I checked out the list. How can I tell which books have already been reviewed? I noticed 3000 years is on that list, but it's already on SFReader.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : Dave - 10/19/2007 3:46 PM | for both of you
http://forum.sfreader.com/default~f~38~m~46872.html
http://www.sfreader.com/review_guide.asp
Any question anyone might have has probably been answered. If you can't find it after poking around the site for a for a bit, please ask
Dave
SFReader Webmaster
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/19/2007 4:18 PM | Followed your links, but in the main SFReader list I can not, for the life of me, spot the "received" and "reviewed" tags.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/19/2007 4:22 PM | Somebody said...
Dave, as you want reviews from the people visiting and posting here, maybe you could make it easier for me and others. Somebody said...
So I checked out the list. How can I tell which books have already been reviewed? I noticed 3000 years is on that list, but it's already on SFReader.
Hey all,
First off -- those links again -- can never have them in too many places:
The Library thing catalog -- overall: www.librarything.com/catalog/sfreader.com
Books available -- click on the "received" tag, or: www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=received&view=sfreader.com
Instructions and FAQ: forum.sfreader.com/default~f~38~m~46872.html (A sticky topic post at the top of this forum)
Review guidelines: www.sfreader.com/review_guide.asp
A word about ebooks -- the books that are tagged as ebooks are books that are ebooks ONLY. If an author offers to send me a pdf copy in lieu of a print copy -- i.e. not an ebook per se, I accept that, but let them know that reviewers often pass on e-versions. 9 times out of 10, the author will then say that they will send a print copy, later. Often, they get the pdf before a print proof, etc. In this case, and I imagine a few of you can vouch for this, I offer to list the book, and if I get a request for the book, I can then get them to send a print copy if available yet, or ask if the reviewer is ok with just a pdf. In my world, this is not an ebook -- and so not tagged.
If there are people who are interested in reviewing pdf versions, I will happily add a new tag of some sort ('pdf' or something) to differentiate. But so far I have very few takers on this - speak now if you're interested.
Please look at those links The info is all here -- I have tried to make it all available and set up the FAQ for exactly these reasons. The tags and the library thing list are pretty clearly explained, but if there's anything there that needs any clarification, I'll gladly do so.
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/19/2007 4:24 PM | Jordan Lapp said...
Followed your links, but in the main SFReader list I can not, for the life of me, spot the "received" and "reviewed" tags.
Jordan -- LT has a number of different customisable views -- it might be that your page isn't displaying tags in one of the columns? at any rate, follow this link instead, and it will take you straight to the books tagged "received":
www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=received&view=sfreader.com
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/19/2007 4:38 PM | Thanks, that worked. I read the guidelines though, and it looks like we have to buy these books until we've hit "Established Reviewer" status?
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 10/19/2007 4:46 PM | Jordan Lapp said...
Thanks, that worked. I read the guidelines though, and it looks like we have to buy these books until we've hit "Established Reviewer" status?
Nope. If you're referring to this part:
guidelines said...
If you don't fall into the above category, we'll need some reviews on spec. This means you read a book, write a review, and send it to us. If we think it fits, we'll post it. Once you've done a few of these, you get on the Established Reviewer list and will qualify for free books.
All "on spec" means is that you send me a couple reviews so that I know how you write, and if you fit -- this was originally intended for people who would come across the site, think, "Yay free books" and vanish into the night. I'm not worried about forum regulars doing that so much...so feel free to send me a spec review of a book you've read already, or a review you've previously written, whatever.
I'm not sure how many of you realize how much this forum has grown in the last couple years...  When those guidelines were originally written, most of the action was on the review site, with comments and whatnot, and the forum was more-or-less an afterthought.
If you're interested, just send me a review or two so I can see your style, and point out what's important in the reviews we provide.
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 10/19/2007 4:49 PM | cool. I'll try to send you a little something soon.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : David Boultbee - 10/19/2007 7:43 PM |
UnclePete said...
A word about ebooks -- the books that are tagged as ebooks are books that are ebooks ONLY. If an author offers to send me a pdf copy in lieu of a print copy -- i.e. not an ebook per se, I accept that, but let them know that reviewers often pass on e-versions. 9 times out of 10, the author will then say that they will send a print copy, later. Often, they get the pdf before a print proof, etc. In this case, and I imagine a few of you can vouch for this, I offer to list the book, and if I get a request for the book, I can then get them to send a print copy if available yet, or ask if the reviewer is ok with just a pdf. In my world, this is not an ebook -- and so not tagged.
If there are people who are interested in reviewing pdf versions, I will happily add a new tag of some sort ('pdf' or something) to differentiate. But so far I have very few takers on this - speak now if you're interested.
Please look at those links The info is all here -- I have tried to make it all available and set up the FAQ for exactly these reasons. The tags and the library thing list are pretty clearly explained, but if there's anything there that needs any clarification, I'll gladly do so.
Well that would certainly explain why mine isn't listed under eBooks. LOL.
I think that it might not be a bad idea to add that PDF tag or perhaps a multiformat tag. That way people who want an eBook can select eBooks as well as books available in PDF, but people who prefer paperbacks can still see them.
Just a thought. Personally I think Library Thing is a great way to keep track of them, as well as a great thing in its own right and I really admire the great job that both you and Dave are doing here.
Thanks
David Boultbee
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 11/12/2007 10:11 PM | New reviews added this week! Go enjoy!
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 11/27/2007 6:44 PM | crystalwizard said...
I've been trying to find reviewers for you, Uncle. Did you see Diedre's post in the other thread?
I did not -- will go look now.
New reviews posted! Happy post-thanksgiving, folks!
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 12/7/2007 12:46 AM | And yet more new reviews this week! Go have a look!
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : Charles Gramlich - 12/23/2007 1:16 PM | OK. I'm pretty new here so I'm still learning about the site. I checked out the guidelines for reviews, and since I do reviews for other reasons at times I'll look at some I've alredy done and see if they match the guidelines. Then I'll send them along for you guys to see if they fit.
Charles Gramlich
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/4/2008 7:09 PM | Oops -- forgot to let everyone know. Updated the site a couple days back with some new reviews. Go see!
Also, thanks Charles, you can email me any reviews you'd like me to, um, review.
And finally -- those of you who use livejournal, I just made a new community for SFReader, to post news, events, review snippets, books received, etc. Again, go see!
community.livejournal.com/sfreader/
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/4/2008 7:26 PM | why livejournal?? huh? I find that service often so difficult to navigate and too cumbersome to visit
but I receive all your LibraryThing additions via the RSS reader, so I'm up on all your tricks now . . .
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/5/2008 1:11 AM | Ha! I wish I could claim that trick.
re: the various blog sites: honestly, I think it's just what you get used to first -- I happened to try LJ first and while I wouldn't pay for the extras, it works for me. I looked at blogger afterward, and didn't really like it, because it didn't do what I was used to -- but I'm willing to bet that if I'd tried blogger first, I'd probably feel that way about LJ. Plus, I already have a ready made list of people on LJ who aren't regulars to this site, and I'm hoping to make them so. ;)
____________
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/5/2008 12:46 PM | cool,Pete! I'm aware there's some uber-SF-fellowship on LJ and I made a presence there, but darnation if it ain't nothing at all like blogger or wordpress! I agree though, it is pretty much what we cut our teeth on that sets the par.
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/10/2008 1:59 AM | Just added a SFReader account on goodreads. Haven't yet managed to update all the tags and link to the reviews - that'll be an ongoing exercise. :P
www.goodreads.com/user/show/765022
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/16/2008 10:21 PM | New reviews posted! Go tell the reviewers how much you love them!
Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin
Birthstones by Phyllis Gotlieb
Storms of Vengeance by John Beachem
The Blood Confession by Alisa M. Libby
Boarding the Enterprise edited by David Gerrold and Robert Sawyer
Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/26/2008 1:06 AM | New reviews for 1/25
New reviews posted!
Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, by Lucy A. Snyder
The Steam Magnate, by Dana Copithorne
Wizard's Bane, by Crystalwizard
Seeker, by William Nicholson
What Lies Between, by Peter David
The Orc King, by R. A. Salvatore
Go read em!
http://www.sfreader.com
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : Daniel Ausema - 1/26/2008 11:03 AM | I replied to this in the Shameless Promotion thread (because it was where I noticed it first) since I really liked Dana Copithorne's book and thought it was a good review. But now I'm curious if there's a specific place within the forum you'd prefer people to react to reviews, discuss the books that were reviewed, etc.? There's a Reviews section...but the description of it doesn't quite fit. And there's always the Currently Reading and sub-genre-specific forums. But I wonder if having a dedicated section to the site's reviews, maybe even a thread for each book you have a review of with a link straight to the review might be a good idea. At the least, it's likely to increase the connections between the forum and the reviews, which I know has been discussed as something SFReader would like.
Well, just a thoughts.
Twigs and Brambles (my writing blog) |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/26/2008 1:14 PM | I think good thoughts, too, Dan - I'd like to see threaded/conjoined reviews/discussions too. Hopefully it doesn't descend into just a list of people saying 'I liked/disliked this book' though.
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| Posted By : UnclePete - 1/26/2008 3:10 PM | I'd be happy to post a new topic for each book as I post a review for discussion -- I think we'd need a new subtopic forum (perhaps called, oh, I don't know, "book discussion"?) to place them under. CW, if you want to set that up, I'll happily open topics for books reviewed here. If people are willing to discuss?
Oh, and I won't post new topics on specific books reviewed in the past, but anyone's welcome to. That would be millions of threads. Ok, almost a thousand.
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"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson
www.creativeguypublishing.com |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 1/27/2008 12:56 AM | Pete, I don't have the ability to create forums, that's something Dave has to do. I'll ask him if you'd like. I like the idea. I think it would be great for the entire site to have a forum specific for the reviews done here. A perfect place to announce them and discuss them.
Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!
Managing Editor of Flashing Swords
Visit my art gallery on art wanted
All my books in print |
| Posted By : Stuart Clark - 2/22/2008 9:33 PM | Coming to this a bit late, I know, but....
Firlefanz,
You don't necessarily have to review something from SFreaders list if you're feeling guilty about them posting it all the way to Germany. Anything you read that you think you might want to send a review in for is fair game. That's all I've been doing - just writing reviews of stuff I read and mailing them to Pete. It was only when he told me about the "free book for review" gig that I actually knew anything about it (Wahey!) - but I still haven't taken him up on it yet.
Thanks Pete and Dave for all your hard work on the site. It is very much appreciated. Even from relative newbies like me.
Cheers
Stuart
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