Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion

Booklikes has a book database!

First I noticed notifications, messages and dashboard buttons have all moved to the top left. Then I noticed that the search box is different. I searched for a book and a BOOK PAGE with reviews, other editions, a link to post, EVERYTHING came up.

Can you tell how excited I am??? YAY. Thank you Dawid, thank you very much.

Where do I find the option to add a book not in their database?

I don't know the source of their database, but it's not complete, at least yet.

In case you didn't see, in the "upcoming" is an actual book editions page too, with more info like the formats and languages. Nice!

Janeiowa wrote: "Where do I find the option to add a book not in their database?

I don't know the source of their database, but it's not complete, at least yet."

You can't expect everything at one time. I am sure it will grow and develop, refine and add features, but you know what they say about Rome? Wasn't built in one day. A database is a huge undertaking.

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "Booklikes has a book database!

First I noticed notifications, messages and dashboard buttons have all moved to the top left. Then I noticed that the search box is different. I searched for a book ..."

Yeah, I thought of you & Debbie as this seemed to be your big ticket items.
8-)

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "Janeiowa wrote: "Where do I find the option to add a book not in their database?

I don't know the source of their database, but it's not complete, at least yet."

You can't expect everything at ..."

I know that; hence the question of where I can add books that are not in their database.

There is a thread in the discussions about the new database. That would be the place to ask the question - great question, a lot of people are going to want to know that. And about other librarian functions.

How did you do it until now? I have done it by doing an export from GR, opening the file in Excel and deleting everything except info about the book, saving it and importing it into BL. Now there is a database though there should be a better way.

I heard something big has been happening. Haven't had time to check it out.

How did you do it until now?

I haven't. I've only added a few books there manually, and those were all recognized.

I'll try to find the discussions area.

Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Yeah, I thought of you & Debbie as this seemed to be your big ticket items. ..."

Why, thank you!

(I am excited. I've just now gotten online today and haven't actually had a chance to check it out.)

The only major problem I see once kinks worked out and they finish implementing, is with actual average ratings from booklikers instead of individual book sites. A problem because that seems to really attract the nastier folk.

Now my big ticket item will be a data export/backup feature, if they want editors/librarians (even if all changes are pending staff approval before going live) ...

Oh, just went in booklikes, and oh hell no. They took away the settings where we decide some privacy issues, sync goodreads on/off, customize blogs, etc. My message inbox is missing. Shelves are missing. Blog and friends tabs are gone. No way to get my draft reviews I wanted to post today.

And I thought the "oh so very important it must be huge on book page and plaster your feed wall " Q&A feature on goodreads slowing down book pages and no doubt implemented to drown out the book discussions from pre-kindle integration members and cause people to not update trivia sections was annoying today.

Deb, some if those things are still there, click in the 'box' that says Dashboard on the upper left of the screen, see the drop down box!

Just had GR give me a 'comment not found' error right after posting this, WTF?!

As far as i can tell all of that is there in the dropdown. They did say they had turned off affiliate codes, but that all other settings were untouched. My drafts are still there.

Everything looks great to me. I find the new look much more streamlined.

Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Deb, some if those things are still there, click in the 'box' that says Dashboard on the upper left of the screen, see the drop down box!"

No, I cannot get the drop down box everyone keeps telling me about. Could be an iPad related issue but that's all I'll predictably have with me (plus I need to one-handed type on touchscreen for the next few weeks due to personal injuries).

I'll check back to booklikes in a few weeks.

Good news is that Leafmarks is now faster than gr thanks to goodreads odd implementation of the amazon product page style Q&A feature ( huge, intrusive, and slow-down-page-load and overwhelm your data feed ) that's duplication of book trivia and book discussions.

D.A. - bully victims suffer more than a star rating on their commercial product - wrote: "Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Deb, some if those things are still there, click in the 'box' that says Dashboard on the upper left of the screen, see the drop down box!"

No, I cannot get t..."

Well darn, an iPad is all I have, or use. I wish there was a way to see your screen & talk to you, (this is the tech support person coming out). So, tell me:
1) do you have the 'box' or 'button' on the upper left of your screen?

2) if so, what happens when you tap it.

3) if not, get new window & type in booklikes.com on url line to get a new/fresh version rather than using a bookmark.

Did any of this help/make a difference?

No, there just literally is no drop box. And no amount of clicking or hovering over "dashboard," notifications number or any other menu choices brings up.

I can wait; not into blogging which is where booklikes still seems to be concentrating so am mostly on Leafmarks and The Reading Room nowadays. I enjoy the conversations on booklikes and I was starting to prefer writing my reviews first on booklikes then echoing over to other sites, but don't have to.

Probably better I deal with the new site after initial bugs worked out and I'm cleared to really type versus a few taps from uninjured fingers and dictating via Siri.

D.A. - bully victims suffer more than a star rating on their commercial product - wrote: "No, there just literally is no drop box. And no amount of clicking or hovering over "dashboard," notifications number or any other menu choices brings up.

I can wait; not into blogging which is..."

OK, one more try, please? So, next to the notifications number should be a box, (mine says dashboard), tap on it. It should be to the left of the notifications number. Thanks

I am using an Ipad Mini and I have a dropbox and a notification # just like with the PC. At the top of the booklikes.com screen to the left there is a green box with a little home icon and dashboard, when I click on the home icon it brings down the dropbox.

IPad Air here, and I see it.

Janeiowa wrote: "Where do I find the option to add a book not in their database?

I don't know the source of their database, but it's not complete, at least yet."

This is my reply from BookLikes:

Hi,
We'll add "Add new book" option online really soon. For the time being you can use "Shelve IT!" button, it should be helpful: http://blog.booklikes.com/post/754675...

I've tried the Shelve It! But I can't get it to work on the IPAD; I'll have to try on the laptop.

I got the Shelve It to work on the laptop, but an Add a Book button will be a big help.

I'm still not able to use or see all of booklikes; but from friends comments sounds like they also mentioned would be adding what they call "moderators" -- which I assume mean their version of goodreads librarians or fictiondb editors. I have no idea if they mean hire staff or ask for volunteers from among us.

They mean volunteers. Like librarians.

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "They mean volunteers. Like librarians."

Oh, good. I look forward to using my organizational skills again. Too grumpy to do it here much. :-)

Charming wrote: "...Too grumpy to do it here much. :-)"

Well, wouldn't matter if you did still make human-eye corrections to goodreads book database. The next run of amazon and amazon-approved data feeds would just overwrite your edits.

Yup.

There are going to be problems on BookLikes. Did you read the comment on book covers on yesterday's Candy blog?

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "There are going to be problems on BookLikes. Did you read the comment on book covers on yesterday's Candy blog?"

Ms. B., what's a 'Candy blog', & where is it? Thank you.

Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Ms. B., what's a 'Candy blog', & where is it? Thank you."

Candy = Thursday Candy, aka the blog post booklikes makes every Thursday revealing new goodies to us.

I think she means: http://blog.booklikes.com/blog

D.A. -bully victims suffer more than a star rating on their commercial product wrote: "Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Ms. B., what's a 'Candy blog', & where is it? Thank you."

Candy = Thursday Candy, aka the blog post booklikes makes every Thursday revealing new goodies to ..."

Ah, thank you. I looked yesterday & didn't see any announcement, figured they were all recovering from the big implementation, and celebration, the week before.

The announcement came a little later in the day than usual, I remember - they were, no doubt, exhausted from last week's big push.

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "There are going to be problems on BookLikes. Did you read the comment on book covers on yesterday's Candy blog?"

Problems? I didn't see anything in the post or comments that sounded problematic.

Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "Ms. B., what's a 'Candy blog', & where is it? Thank you. "

It was a silly phrase I used once and it stuck.

I doubt if we will get anything this week as Dawid and team have been at BEA. They are probably having fun in NY and hopefully are not in talks with Amazon ;-)

Ms Bubbles SockieP wrote: "I doubt if we will get anything this week as Dawid and team have been at BEA. They are probably having fun in NY and hopefully are not in talks with Amazon ;-)"

NOT funny!

LOL

Maybe Hatchette might be interested.

Snort!

D.A. -bully victims suffer more than a star rating on their commercial product wrote: "Maybe Hatchette might be interested."

THAT'S funny!

But not funny haha unless you are of the point of view that publishing should be one big supermarket and everything everyone wants should be easily available. Everyone who wants something a bit special can always go to the deli. Except, what deli?

I'm not using booklikes for books or status updates for the next few months. I've just had it; the current version just doesn't work for me. Which is a hard decision for me because I absolutely desperately wanted booklikes to get a book database. I just never expected them to take away my access to all the other site features, settings and menu choices to implement such a long-term buggy one that trashed my existing book catalog.

Not completely giving it up; but, it's on the backburner with fifty other book sites waiting to see what they do (or in the case of some sites if grows a membership large enough to make for a more lively community).

I suspect if I were a book blogger I might have more patience with booklikes.

Once one (now drastically changed) team challenge ends here on goodreads, looks like I'll be most active on Leafmarks and The Reading Room. Not a social site, but, still on fictfact for series.

And determined to delve more into the nuts and bolts of programs like Book Collectorz, Readerware and Calibre. I'll probably work a bit harder to remember to cross-post reviews to non-amazon booksellers. Barnes and Noble usually discourages me from doing so (so wonky about posting reviews thanks to their strange script)—but, if I remember to try them last even if a nook book I'd been discussing with nook friends, I should do better. I'm actually rather fond of the kobo community.)

I'll update currently reading on most sites.

D.A.-bully victims suffer more than a ★ on their commercial product wrote: "I'm not using booklikes for books or status updates for the next few months. I've just had it; the current version just doesn't work for me. Which is a hard decision for me because I absolutely d..."

I am sorry to hear that, I enjoy reading you opinions. Here is another book site a couple of authors I enjoy are trying: Booktropolous Social

'Booktropolous Social- it was created by an author and works like FB'

No, thank you.

Sandi - Protester of Goofreads wrote: "...Here is another book site a couple of authors I enjoy are trying: Booktropolous Social ..."

No thank you. I don't trust the future of any community for readers to catalog, discuss, review, and engage about books that is run by an author, a group/ organization of or for authors, publishers or booksellers. Boy, are a lot of publishers ever trying to start up book blogging sites.

Booklikes attracted a lot of my goodreads friends and how I used to be able to do review posts was nice -- so I broke my own requirements that I needed a topnotch book catalog no matter the blogging or social aspects.

I'm not expecting any site with a membership drastically smaller than goodreads to be as good for the social aspects. All have to grow from somewhere. I'm not completely giving up on booklikes, but, right now it is too frustrating to use and may not be going in a direction I like.

I'm also not investing my efforts in sites without acceptable TOS and privacy policies.

The only thing worse I am finding are the number of sites just wanting to recommend my next books to me. I know if the site is free then I am the product or at least the marketing target for book promotions but at least pretend you are offering me some features.

No, wait, some of the indie author sites and blog tours that want to offer award after award bookcover seals to authors joining and openly insist all public reviews from readers and authors be above a certain star rating and conform to rigid "niceness" prohibiting anything non-book promotional in the content are worse (privately you are allowed to tell site support and authors negatives about their books but prepare to be dropped or banned if they feel you Insufficiently proved your point by making copyediting suggestions they can use for next revisions).

I do wish amazon hadn't quite so quickly began turning the book data pages here into author product/catalog pages; I see where it's headed but I also hope they don't have as much success with breaking the following the reviews and book activities of friends and followed reviewers by changing the book pages to their idea of "display more useful" and put so much noise on the feed in the interest of book promotions that it's hard to follow your friends posts ...

Uh oh, that booktropolous thing has a policy against "bulling" that makes it sound like run by some of those authors rampantly misspelling things in comments on that petition to force reviewers to forego basic internet safeguards. I doubt even half of the comments on that petition could spell bully, bullies, or bullying (and not because of autocorrect fail)—didn't stop them from demeaning victims of bullying by equating getting a rating/review on your commercial product with being bullied ... * steps off soapbox*

https://booktropoloussocial.com/index... says (emphasis mine)

"Booktropolous Social is a support site for Booktropolous.com, an online ebook store...

The few things we do not tolerate is bulling, harassment of any kind, or deliberate assaults or attacks towards people in this community...

We want this environment to be as supportive as it can be, taking into account the extremely hard work and effort authors put into their creations...

So, when in doubt, think about the effect of your content, and take a pause. All we ask is that you be supportive and have fun! "

Yes, my next book site will so be one that takes into account how hard an author works on their creation and not on how much I enjoyed reading the book I purchased. Because that's what consumer product reviews are supposed to be — recognition for the work that went into the product I purchased. *gag * (and seriously, it's "The few things ... are" not "The few things ... is"). I is here just to support authors financially and by slavishly churning out book promotional content and being a member of the street gang to share out book discoverability aiding posts on various sites ...while downvoting all those "bulling" posts from the evil warlord book hoarders and "bulling" gangs of reviewers...duh doh dunhh!

I wish I could start a cake shop like that. I try so hard to bake sponges, but they always come up high on one side and burned on the other. I try with my icing but it either drips or it is so thick it rips up the cake. Also I sometimes get the amount of baking powder wrong and it can taste a bit bitter.

But I think I should be able to sell my cakes at top price and get fab reviews on and offline because I try so hard. And I think first in line should be all those SPAs who think that they deserve 5 star for effort even when the book is infantile crap. They should understand where I am coming from and immediately order a dozen of my best fairy cakes to be shipped to them priority. I will send them one, like an ARC, free on the 'promise' that they will give me a FANTABULOUS review and tell all their friends what an amazing cake baker I am. I might then rise in the Amazon rankings and everyone will want my buns.

The truth of the matter is...
just as I've written.
Can't bake cakes but I like trying and would like to earn a lot of money if possible.

LOL. I'd try your cakes at least once. Of course, if you got good at baking cakes after practice, new recipes and possibly coursework or training from more experienced chefs -- no doubt you would not have to work nearly as hard. Why, you might even make it look easy and even be able to judge by sight or taste when a pinch more of an ingredient is needed once you have more experience...

The support I offer authors is money and reading hours. They publish it; I buy it at agreed upon price. I find the time to read it. That's the only support their hard or easy work gets.

My reading experience is just my reading experience.

That site sounds like I could only relay that experience if they felt it sufficiently praised an author's efforts.

[I apologize if they are cattle ranchers or of the Hindu faith and I've offended because "bulling" had some meaning related to bovine care or abuse. I just presumed, based on author comments elsewhere, that "bulling" was a misspelling of "bullying."]

I did post this awhile back. Have not gotten any response from BL even though I have mentioned it many times in discussion rooms, and do know some people have send email about the subject:

http://hfk.booklikes.com/post/928345/...

I have to say that I am rather surprised that bloggers are not really interested about this considering how many wanted an functional book database, and how people usually are quite concerned how their reviews are handled/how they are showing up because this clearly is very problematic issue in our hands.

I dislike reblogging. When I retweet something, it's very clear that I'm not claiming it as my own content. In fact, the culture at Twitter encourages the practice. When I reblog someone else's material, the lines are blurred.