Books On Track discussion

Hey everyone and welcome to the group!

Please feel free to leave your comments, suggestions or questions below.

Hi. It's a huge undertaking, but I'm really glad that this is a possibility so a huge thank you.

I've started my part of helping by adding the first books in a few of my favorite series' on the bookshelf. It may be prudent for any others to also just add the first book in a series too for simplicity.

kittykat wrote: "Hi. It's a huge undertaking, but I'm really glad that this is a possibility so a huge thank you.

I've started my part of helping by adding the first books in a few of my favorite series' on the b..."

Thanks kittykat! Appreciate the support. :)

Go, Thenia!

I went to the Google drive folder you directed us to for us to drop our FF exports and I got the error "You do not have permission to upload to this folder." Any suggestions? Maybe change the permissions?

Steph wrote: "Go, Thenia!

I went to the Google drive folder you directed us to for us to drop our FF exports and I got the error "You do not have permission to upload to this folder." Any suggestions? Maybe cha..."

Sorry about that Steph. Give it a try now and let me know if it works?

Before Fictfact closed, i went through and called up a lot of my favorite author pages and printed the page to pdf. My goal was to do everything from my next books list but, as luck would have it, we had storms in the area the day before the website closed and my electricity went out and by the time i had power again, the website was gone. But i do have pdfs of over 100 authors books. If these would be helpful for you, let me know as i would be happy to share.

So, which way is more efficient for you Theina? Is it easier to use the form to list our series or to put the first book of the series on the bookshelf here in this forum? I'm willing to do either, or both, but wondered what would be the easiest for you to work from.

(And I really want to thank you for taking on a lot of this. I know it isn't going to be easy, but it'll be appreciated more than you know! )

Paula wrote: "Before Fictfact closed, i went through and called up a lot of my favorite author pages and printed the page to pdf. My goal was to do everything from my next books list but, as luck would have it, ..."

Thank you for the offer Paula! Getting the information out of the PDF files can be very tricky, but if you could drop a few of the PDFs into the shared folder for the FictFact exports, I can give it a try and see if I can work with them. :)

Teri Pre wrote: "So, which way is more efficient for you Theina? Is it easier to use the form to list our series or to put the first book of the series on the bookshelf here in this forum? I'm willing to do either,..."

Thank you Teri, I really appreciate the support!

The form is easier for me since it gives me the information I need directly, without me having to go through the extra steps needed to process series from books added on the group bookshelves.

If all someone can do is add books on the shelf, however, I'm happy for them to just do that. Every little bit helps.

Thenia wrote: "Teri Pre wrote: "So, which way is more efficient for you Theina? Is it easier to use the form to list our series or to put the first book of the series on the bookshelf here in this forum? I'm will..."

Will do! Is there a way to sort them so I don't repeat already-added series? I'll try to add ones that are a bit more obscure, but I'm sure I'll overlap at least some of them.

Teri Pre wrote: "Is there a way to sort them so I don't repeat already-added series? I'll try to add ones that are a bit more obscure, but I'm sure I'll overlap at least some of them. "

I'm afraid not unless I give you access to the sheet itself. How are you with spreadsheets? Send me a private message if you are up for some data entry. ;)

Hi Thenia,
I put a couple of the PDF files into the export file for you. Let me know if they are useful as i could probably just upload my entire folder. And let me know if they can't be used, maybe I can use the info they contain to manually create a spreadsheet for you.

How do you access the bookshelf using the Goodreads app?

I went to that link with the spreadsheet, but it doesn't tell you how to do anything to add your books to it. Adding all my book series by hand will take ages and I haven't even gotten all my series on the site I chose to keep them on until FictFact is replaced.

Thenia wrote: "Sorry about that Steph. Give it a try now and let me know if it works?"

Thanks, Thenia. I'm at a spot with no wifi at the moment, so I'll have to try again once we move to another spot.

Teri Pre wrote: "(And I really want to thank you for taking on a lot of this. I know it isn't going to be easy, but it'll be appreciated more than you know! ) "

Second that, wholeheartedly!

Kristine wrote: "How do you access the bookshelf using the Goodreads app?"

I was just looking into that and can't find a way to do it through the app. So unless I'm missing something, you can only access it through the website.

Jwb52z wrote: "I went to that link with the spreadsheet, but it doesn't tell you how to do anything to add your books to it. Adding all my book series by hand will take ages and I haven't even gotten all my serie..."

You can just drop your file as it is in the folder (link here) instead of adding your books on the sheet if you prefer.

Thenia wrote: "You can just drop your file as it is in the folder (link here) instead of adding your books on the sheet if you prefer."

I've dropped mine in using the link you provided; it's under StephB. Thanks again, Thenia!

Thenia wrote: "Teri Pre wrote: "Is there a way to sort them so I don't repeat already-added series? I'll try to add ones that are a bit more obscure, but I'm sure I'll overlap at least some of them. "

I'm afraid..."

Sorry for the late reply Thenia. RL and all that. :) I'm afraid I'm a novice at spreadsheets, although FF going out of business has honed my skills somewhat. If it's simply adding info across columns, I can do that, but anything more complicated is beyond me. PM me if this is something I can do. :)

Thanks for all helping this project. Where and/or is or name of Google Drive folder?

Thenia's folder link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Hi, thank you for doing this. I have a suggestion if someone has not mentioned it before. A bulk upload facility would be great and that is something Fictfact never added. Also, if it could do clean exports it would be great as I monitor a lot of my reading material through Calibe.
Speaking of Calibre, would an export from my Calibre library help as I no longer have my export from Fictfact?

Zelda Wendy wrote: "Hi, thank you for doing this. I have a suggestion if someone has not mentioned it before. A bulk upload facility would be great and that is something Fictfact never added. Also, if it could do clea..."

Thanks for the suggestions Zelda Wendy! We will certainly look into bulk uploading, since I know how time consuming importing all your data in a new system can be.

I also understand what you mean about clean exports and will do my best to keep the database as tidy as possible so everything comes out as it should.

As for a Calibre export, it might be helpful if you could drop a copy in this folder.

Thanks in advance!

Quick update: Despite RL being quite demanding lately, I have been hard at work on putting together the database for the new site and have made significant progress, so we are one step closer to bringing the site to life!

Thank you all for your suggestions. Keep them coming and I will do my best to implement as many as possible.

P.S.: If anyone is up for some simple admin tasks please send me a private message.

As I mentioned in the other thread, if you aren't familiar with TheTVDB.com or themoviedb.org, you should check them out. Both are completely updated by the community that then have an API which let sites like Trakt.TV, TVtime, etc operate. Users that don't want to add the shows can just go to TVTime to track their viewing while those who want to contribute go to TheTVDB.com to update the series.

Anyone know what MyNextList is going to be? The next project from Brian with aspects of FictFact. Vague.

Switzead wrote: "Anyone know what MyNextList is going to be? The next project from Brian with aspects of FictFact. Vague."

MyNextList is a project for tracking more than just series. Sadly real life is in the way right now so I haven't had much traction on it.

Quick update: I'm nearly done with the first version of the database that covers over 3000 authors.

Next step will be designing the website!

Yay!

😀😀😘😘

That's incredible, thank you so much for all your work. Really looking forward to seeing the results of your efforts.

Quick update: I've been stumbling my way to some decent progress despite a number of obstacles, including losing my partner in crime to other pursuits.



I might be overly optimistic, but I'm currently aiming for Christmas for a test version of the site going live.

Maybe.



I'll keep you posted either way!

That's great news. Thank you so much!!!!!!!

That’s awesome. Looking forward to it, whenever 😁

You're amazing!! My vacation starts shortly after Christmas so if you need help with it (within my limited capabilities!) I'm available!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Quick update: Unfortunately RL intervened so the test version is not ready yet, but I've unexpectedly acquired a new partner in crime who knows the things I don't and we've already made some good progress!

I wanted to have the site ready for the holidays since if you're anything like me, you are probably spending time reorganizing your shelves before the new year, but since that plan didn't work out, I am now aiming for launch sometime (early) in the new year.

Sorry for the delay, and as always, I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Happy holidays and an awesome 2020 for everyone!

Thanks for keeping us updated Thenia! Glad you found a partner in crime. Looking forward to seeing what's in store in the new year! Oh! And thanks for all of your hard word behind the scenes!

I may be able to help. Sent you a DM.

Any updates on progress?

Quick update: Hey everyone, sorry I've been MIA for so long - RL has been quite demanding these past few months and that delayed the project's progress...

However, If things go as planned, the site will be ready for beta testing within the month!

I have created a form that you can find here , where you can fill in your name and email address if you are interested in helping with beta testing the site. I'll randomly select a few people from that list that will hopefully be able to flag any potential issues with the functionality of the site before it opens up for all users.

Thank you all for your patience. We are nearly there!

I too am one who was devasted when FF closed - I did use their link anytime I purchased a book - obviously not enough. I believe I saved "my books" spreadsheet that FF offered - I can't find it! I very undereducated on Excel, any clues as to what the file name might be?

thank you.

Carrie L McKay wrote: "I too am one who was devasted when FF closed - I did use their link anytime I purchased a book - obviously not enough. I believe I saved "my books" spreadsheet that FF offered - I can't find it! I ..."

Mine is called FictFactList.csv

Thank you!!!! I found it! Now I can at least see if I read one of those 996 books!

Thank you, can’t wait to see it!

Quick update: Hey everyone, time for an update.

There were some issues that popped up that forced me to backtrack to fix them, which in turn broke some other things that worked fine before and fixing those broke something else and...



It probably didn't help that I decided to expand the scope of the database that now includes over 30,000 authors and 65,000 series, but if you're doing something, do it right, don't you agree?

That means that you will have to be patient for a little while longer, but I'm hoping that the results will make you happy enough to forgive me.

And although I've been keeping things quite close to the vest, wanting to give you all a (hopefully good!) surprise when the time comes, I think you deserve a teaser snapshot of the new, working(!) Book Release Calendar:


(Book Release Calendar - test version)

What do you think?

Enjoy your weekend and stay safe everyone!

P.S.: Thank you to those who signed up to help me with testing! You'll receive an email when the time comes. :)

THAT LOOKS AMAZING already.

Thank you so very much for all the work you and any others have put into it, I look forward to the introduction.

Love it! You're doing great work! Keep me on that list of testers!

Woo! So many series :)

If you need an extra tester, please add me to the list. I'd love to try it.

I would love to test it. I beta test many apps such as Waze and would love to try this out too