Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Suggestions and Feedback for Authors.com

We Want To Hear From You! If you have an idea or suggestion, we'd love to hear it. Do you want to see more groups, threaded forum vs flat, more articles, etc.?

Your feedback is very valuable to us. So post away!

Cheers,

Authors.com

1 member likes this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kay Elizabeth on February 8, 2011 at 9:42pm

I would love to see scheduled chats happen. Now we have a large member base it would be a wonderful way to network and get to know each other more. When there's a set day/time that members know people will be more likely to be hanging out they are more likely to stop in.

Obviously with us having an international membership it's not easy to narrow it down to a set time every week that would suit everybody, but choosing a day alone helps. I've have chatrooms before on my own sites and it doesn't take long for people to get used to popping in on a set day. I'd still keep it open 24/7 as it is now, but designate a particular day every week as Chat Day. Mine were always busy all day long with folks popping in and out. SAHM's would tend to come in and chat once the kids were off to school or in bed, and others that were at work or college would stop in more in the evenings. Some would drop by before heading out for the day for a virtual coffee just to say good morning and check in. It was nice. :)

For it to work best, really what you need is a person or persons to be a chat host, willing to be there in case anyone pops in. Once it gets going, you'll find the chatroom usage expands well beyond that day and members get in the habit of dropping in when they are on the site. I used to sit in mine all day long and keep it minimized, so I could check it easily while I was online.

I feel that chat's really underutilized. It can also be a wonderful platform for speakers too. We had formal chats scheduled as well where a speaker would come in and talk about their book or whatever their subject of expertise was, and those were great too. I'm sure we'd have no shortage of volunteers in our membership that would be happy to share their support for that by volunteering to talk. If nothing else, it's good practice for them in talking to an audience. The format was usually a lecture type session first, followed by a Q & A. There was a host that coordinated it all to prevent it becoming a free-for-all. I can explain that in more detail if need be and there's interest in having such chats.

I love to chat, that's why I'm so keen to have us all use this more. :) New members also aren't aware that when they sign in, they are automatically in the chat room and only need to click the bar at the bottom of the page. And on that note, please don't fret people if you don't get a reply sometimes in chat! Others that are online may simply not have the chat window open. When I use it, I select the pop-out window option to keep it separate and easier to check.

I'll be glad to hear what others think. I'm going to hang out in chat for a bit now in case there are any questions and get myself into the habit of doing so when I'm on the site.:)

On the Groups, I think a Social Media Help one would be good. Many authors would love to make the most of Twitter, Facebook and so on, and don't know how to use them to their best advantage. We could also do with a Fiction Writers Group and a Memoir Writers one.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on February 10, 2011 at 1:34pm

Thanks for the feedback Kay! We have noted them all.

Keep 'em coming!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by scribbler on February 11, 2011 at 1:45am

Please don't change the forum style to threaded. I can't stand that. But hey, I'm just one opinion LOL.

I feel the Groups layout needs changed to where you can see far more discussion topics when you open any Group. At the moment it's only three right under the Group's description. If the member doesn't notice the View All link below them, they would think that's all there is. I think this is why Groups aren't frequented so much. People take a quick look and don't always realize there's more posts there.

If possible I would expand those three to at least a dozen. If that can't be done I would suggest adding a note in the description section of each Group explaining you need to click on View All to see more.

Also the Search function: I only discovered the other day by chance that the Search tab function is different from the Search box at the top right where you log in.

The tab searches the member database, while the Search box with the magnifying glass searches the whole site, members and all.

I would add a line in the tab search page to say that, because I've looked for something before I knew was here and cursed that tab because it was only about the authors and I thought I couldn't search for a topic LOL. Ideally I think the "whole site" search function would be better in the tab slot than just the author search. It's a more prominent position and would do away with the need to have both.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on February 11, 2011 at 2:02am

Excellent point! We have expanded this so there should be 20 topics listed by default for every group.

We'll see what we can do about the search. We'll try to place the main search box in a more prominent spot in our next site update (within the next few weeks).

This is very helpful and we are very grateful for all the feedback given to us. Thank you!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by scribbler on February 11, 2011 at 2:06am

Fabulous and wow, what an incredibly fast response. The Groups look much better now. Thank you!

Authors.com said:

I feel the Groups layout needs changed to where you can see far more discussion topics when you open any Group. At the moment it's only three right under the Group's description. If the member doesn't notice the View All link below them, they would think that's all there is. I think this is why Groups aren't frequented so much. People take a quick look and don't always realize there's more posts there.

If possible I would expand those three to at least a dozen. If that can't be done I would suggest adding a note in the description section of each Group explaining you need to click on View All to see more.

Excellent point! We have expanded this so there should be 20 topics listed by default for every group.

I would add a line in the tab search page to say that, because I've looked for something before I knew was here and cursed that tab because it was only about the authors and I thought I couldn't search for a topic LOL. Ideally I think the "whole site" search function would be better in the tab slot than just the author search. It's a more prominent position and would do away with the need to have both

We'll see what we can do about the search. We'll try to place the main search box in a more prominent spot in our next site update (within the next few weeks).

This is very helpful and we are very grateful for all the feedback given to us. Thank you!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert L. Allen on February 25, 2011 at 8:23pm

How about adding a Fiction section in the group page? Now you have Science Fiction, but not Fiction. Some people write fiction but not Science Fiction...Thank You!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on March 1, 2011 at 2:21am

Thanks Robert for your suggestion. We will add "Fiction" as a new group shortly. We just want to get a bit more feedback and then incorporate all in one sweep.

Keep the suggestions coming!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on March 2, 2011 at 1:04am

Fiction and Social Media groups have been added!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert L. Allen on March 2, 2011 at 7:37am

Wonderful!!! Thank you.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on March 2, 2011 at 9:56am

You are most welcome! :)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Authors.com on March 28, 2011 at 3:24pm

Donald,

That sounds like a great idea.

Could you please provide the name of the Group and also an image (if you have a book cover or something similar). You can send this via PM (private messaging) to us.

Thanks!