The New Author Spotlight - Post your comments here.

[Ken Anderson]

Bump

[ARIYA]

Here's what I'd like on the new Spotlight:

- use of basic HTML for reviews and excerpts from books etc.

- ability to rearrange the order of my works by hand

- ONE entry for each book with the multiple buy options listed in buttons below

- be able to add images

- be able to use custom banner for title

- be able to select colours to co-ordinate background, font and buttons

- to have stats on number of visitors to Spotlight (and individual hits on titles)

Linden

http://stores.lulu.com/ariya

[cgage]

Where to begin?  I have more than 50 titles, and I need to be able to sort them alphabetically. The browser sort thing does not serve me at all. The "bestseller" thing is annoying. I sell plays. My million-dollar play may not be a best-seller as a manuscript, but it made first-class production. THat's what producers care about... so the "bestseller" thing is actually a disservice for my field.

I also don't like that download/ebook/hard copy all get three separate entries.  Clutters the page and makes it extremely likely that folks will weary of scrolling. I really need to have all my titles consolidated on one page. Clicking away is a buzzkill for browsing customers. And, as noted, there is this issue with the "relevance." I have not been able to figure out what that means... How on earth do you know what is or is not relevant to my customers??

I also liked being able to like to some of my books that are NOT on lulu. No, I don't think it took customers away. I think it enhanced the use of the platform, driving traffic to it. 

Long story short... I spent the last two days making a storefront on my website at http://carolyngage.weebly.com/storefront.html.  This meets my needs. Not as convenient, but at least not likely to lose me customers, as the Spotlight will assuredly do. If you read any manuals on how real people use webpages, your Spotlight breaks a number of cardinal rules. 

If you want to look at my current Lulu storefront, it's at http://stores.lulu.com/carolyngage.

I have not switched over, because I am also hoping you will be able to iron out some bugs. I dislike that in order to see the new proto one has to entirely delete the current storefront. I actually distrusted that the Spotlight would appear, and sure enough, another poster has indicated that it did not.

I love Lulu and I have taught several workshops on how folks can get started on it. I have made several thousands of dollars for your company. This feels like an unusual and atypical and un-Lulu-like move. Anyway, I hope you get the bugs out and are able to, if nothing else, allow authors to sort their own work. That's REALLY important. Why didn't you do a market survey of what we cared most about before spending so much money on this thing???

[benziger]

This is a suggestion from the discussion about the new storefront in the Announcement section. I copy it here. If you like it, please click on the star on the bottom to vote for it. You cant vote for each suggestion once.

Please propose not only two column layouts, but also three column layouts.

[benziger]

This is a suggestion from the discussion about the new storefront in the Announcement section. I copy it here. If you like it, please click on the star on the bottom to vote for it. You cant vote for each suggestion once.

- It should be possible to replace the Name by apicture (image banner) with the compnay name (The text can still be behind for search engine and if the picture is not loaded) .

[benziger]

This is a suggestion from the discussion about the new storefront in the Announcement section. I copy it here. If you like it, please click on the star on the bottom to vote for it. You cant vote for each suggestion once.

- I would like have tabs. So, my (and lulu's) client can find easyly the books. 

-- First standard tab would be "New" (Nouveautés, Neuheiten): max one page, the newest ones.

-- A second standard tab would be "Bestsellers": all books sold at least for one time, the most wanted on the top.

-- I can tag my existing and new books with up to five tags. This tags appears as Tabs. If I am a publisher, such a tab can be the name of an author with some books or for different series, ... . Or as an author I write novels and children books. ....

This suggestion is important for everyone who has more books on Lulu as appears on one page.

[benziger]

This is a suggestion from the discussion about the new storefront in the Announcement section. I copy it here. If you like it, please click on the star on the bottom to vote for it. You cant vote for each suggestion once.

- It should be possible to ad more and different fields in the columns left and right of the book section; not only one picture, one film, some links and the profile:

-- more then one text fields (free text)

-- include titles from a RSS feed

-- a counter (maybe also for each book)

shown in red in the picture

[benziger]

This is a suggestion from the discussion about the new storefront in the Announcement section. I copy it here. If you like it, please click on the star on the bottom to vote for it. You cant vote for each suggestion once.

Profile name: it should by changeable. As a publisher, not an author, the site defaults to my name in the profile section, where I want it to read my company's name.

[Ken Anderson]

It's not a good idea to use the Kudos button for that purpose.

But keep the thoughts and comments rolling in.

[benziger]

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Ken Anderson schrieb:
It's not a good idea to use the Kudos button for that purpose.

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In the article: Kudos: What they are & How to give them  it is written: "Kudos are a way of saying, " I like this post" or "I agree with this post" (... )"