Vaginal Fantasy Book Club discussion
Group Feedback & Merch
>
Update on Group Improvements!
Lots of thanks and VF love to Felicia, Bonnie, Veronica, Kiala, your assistants/interns, and group mods for making this an awesome experience for the rest of us. This is a kick-ass group, and we're lucky to have organizers that seek out our input and make changes for the better.
Yes, what Jackie said! Thank all of you for the work you put into making this group so great!
Great work. And the message on Fridays will help me remember to watch the livestream!
Looks great! Looking forward to future reads :)
Thanks, Felicia! The changes sound great and I hope they'll make all the mods' lives easier. Mostly though: YAY! New mic for Kiala!!!!
Yay! Especially for Kiala's new mic - it seemed like if anyone else talked when she was speaking, it would drown her out.I'm also really happy with discussing the main in the hangout but the alt just on the forums. Now the discussion won't feel as rushed :)
I love the fact of the audio podcast as I don't always have time to watch.
Yes, what Jackie/Kathryn/Dawn/Heather/Beth/Caitlyn/Krystle/Joyce said!!! So nice of you to sift through so many responses and tweak our beloved VF experience!
Thanks for the awesome group and I look forward to the next hangout!
Nice job incorporating the ideas of the viewers into your changes/updates. It's clear that some goodly thought went into how to go about actually enacting things. Kudos.
Never enough thanks for y'all, so here's another!
Sounds pretty much perfect to me :) Thank you for taking the time to read through all of your comments and making a few changes.
New mic for Kiala! Brilliant! Thanks for working through that enormous thread.
Thank you, thank you, thank you in advance for all the work you'll do towards the podcast release! It will be so helpful to us who aren't on your time zones or have internet speed that can handle video version.
I can never join the hangouts because of the time difference so I will be waiting for the podcasts. Nice improvements.
This is amazing! I'm really excited about the time change and the twitter only during the chats.
So excited for the podcasts! I love to listen to VF while I commute but having the youtube app always destroys my battery... Can't wait!
Dawn wrote: "Great work. And the message on Fridays will help me remember to watch the livestream!" I'm also excited about that!
These all sound like awesome, positive changes. :)
yay! these suggestions will be so helpful! As a windows phone user (and not an itunes user)- can you add the podcast feature to the xbox store? Or if it's easier I know how to go about it, but will need the RSS feed address to do so. Generally speaking there are many podcasts i'd like to listen to but can't as they hide the rss feed info. I have added a couple in the past as I discover them and have access to the feed. (I can also give you the email address to send the feed to)
Thanks so much for all your work!
Mod
As a windows phone user (and not an itunes user)- can you add the podcast feature to the xbox store? Or if it's easier I know how to go about it, but wi..."
When we get it up and running I'll post the RSS and any help you can provide with that would be great!
I'm really excited for more forum interaction with you guys on alt picks, and deeper on air discussions of the mains!You are all doing an amazing job, hats off and thank you!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T START SKIPPING THE ALT BOOK DISCUSSION... PLEASE WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??? THE ALT IS SOOOO IMPORTANT... THE FORUM WILL NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO LIVE UP TO THE LIVE AMAZINGNESS OF THE FOUR OF YOU!!!! PLEASE RECONSIDER!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! LOTS OF LOVE... YOUR AMAZING IN EVERY OTHER WAY!!!!
I agree on not skipping the Alt Book discussions on the hangouts. You don't really spend all that much time on it to have it cut and I enjoy the extra discussion, especially since the Alt book have been better than the main pick recently. I don't think anything would be lost by keeping that in the hangouts at all but plenty would be lost if you take it out.
Mod
The problem is that half the group never gets to the alt, and it feels like a very short shrift for anything in depth. And we don't interact based on not wanting to spoil. So that will free us up to actually interact around the book on the forums, theoretically!
Felicia wrote: "The problem is that half the group never gets to the alt, and it feels like a very short shrift for anything in depth. And we don't interact based on not wanting to spoil. So that will free us up to actually interact around the book on the forums, theoretically!"Ah well, we'll have to see then. It really seems like you've thought this through so the change might be nice. I'm willing to see what this new change creates. It might be better than I'm thinking and in that case, you can totally tell me "I told you so". =p
I think it's the perfect solution actually - you're killing three birds with one stone - still have the alt, have more main book discussion on the hangout, and have the potential for host interaction on the forums with the alt. Ingenious.
Mod
Consolidating the live feedback to one service will definitely be an improvement, and Twitter is probably the most user-friendly forum. Remember, however, that you have the @vaginalfantasy account now. I would suggest you promote that instead of a hashtag to help encourage people to follow. You have 11,500 members but only 2,800 follow on Twitter.
While a VF convention is obviously a logistical nightmare, might I suggest an occasional (semi-annual?) bonus hangout, perhaps for a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon, where you can talk about the direction of the hangout, take fan questions, or discuss the genre in general. Or, you know, get drunk and go off on tangents without regret.
I love our Vaginal Fantasy book group.Twitter is my preferred way to ask questions & the hashtag makes it easy for anyone to respond to questions & not just the @vaginalfantasy handle or our amazing hosts. I personally prefer the alternate books but agree with Felicia that they are better left for the goodreads forum since not everyone has the time/money to read two books a month.
Will you lovely ladies be at VidCon this year?
Will the older Vaginal Fantasy episodes be available via podcast?
Mod
Twitter is my preferred way to ask questions & the hashtag makes it easy for anyone to respond to questions & not just the @vaginalfantasy handle or our ama..."
We will not be at Vidcon, a lot of us will be at SDCC so we will try to arrange a meetup around that, and all the older VF eps will be in the RSS feed when we get it up, yes!
Let's see how the changes go and then we can re-evaluate and tweak from there, thanks all!
Oh yay! I might actually be able to watch a hangout live now :) I live in Atlantic Canada, so 4 hours ahead of PDT. I will have to learn to get better at Twitter conversations though, I generally get so confused..lol
Caitlin wrote: "I think it's the perfect solution actually - you're killing three birds with one stone - still have the alt, have more main book discussion on the hangout, and have the potential for host interacti..."Exactly how I feel about it. I'd love the ladies to feel more free to talk on the forums
I'm all for dropping the alt. I don't think I've ever read the alt books and it really does take time away from the core of the discussion.
So I am late to this party (I was away on vacation) but I wanted to also add my thanks for the consideration that went into these changes. It is clear they were well thought out and there was certainly a lot to sift through. I am particularly happy with the time change because being on the east coast, it was a bit late for me to watch live! Looking forward to seeing this all go forward!
I've just read the April selections (noob here) and just wanted to say that I hope you/we keep the alt - I like that it was another book in the same genre. It was very concise! :)
Wouldn't you agree that there have been many cases of the alt-books having been exceedingly more popular, than the main-books? Even during the hangouts - not just amongst us group-members/fans ... you agreed on prefering the alt to the main! That (ability to witness your) comparison and contrasting of the two books was incredibly rewarding and entertaining to watch... you wouldn't have to go into all the detail... but maybe you could keep at least that element...? The increased forum interaction idea is also great, but these forums are also rather time consuming to navigate (at least on my smart-phone) and shouldn't the monthly hangout stay the most important central focus of this 'club'? If people haven't yet read the alt they can choose to stop watching when you start talking about it- if you keep it at the end of the hangout -as before... But why would you want to reward those who don't even (or can not) (care enough to) read both books at the expense of those who do take the time to read both? I'm sure more people would agree... but just don't read this forum as often... maybe you could have a vote/pole on this (publicised during the next hang-out)?
I think we should give Felicia's decisions a try before we clamour to change them. Maybe having one book for the hangout and one for the forums won't be as fun. Maybe it will be wildly popular. We won't know until we at least try it though, and Felicia even said up-thread they're going to see how it goes and go from there.
Of course I agree that the most important thing is that hosting the hangouts keeps being fun and exciting for Felicia and the Ladies... so if the changes provide increased enjoyment in that respect- never mind my previous input!!! Thank you for doing an amazing job! I'm a huge fan!!!
Thank you for such a great show!
Thank you for taking the time to hear out your fans and do your best to incorporate all we want. And I hope this helps you have fun like you did when I originally started watching. And if we can do anything more to help I am sure we will be happy to help.
Caitlin wrote: "I think we should give Felicia's decisions a try before we clamour to change them. ..."Well said.
While I agree that we should give Felicia's decisions a try, I respectfully state that I will certainly miss the alt book discussion, no matter how brief or vague it might be.
If there is to be no discussion of the alt book, I don't see the point of having one. And sadly for those of us (how ever few we are) that don't use Twitter, I don't see the point of watching the hangouts live. Since, we have no real voice in joining the conversation.
Mod
Andrea, we pull questions and comments in advance from the first thread in the monthly book folder, it is the primary source of comments, so you can definitely be heard if you post on that thread!
And I thought the alt would be discussed in the forums?
Thank you for the HUNDREDS of comments you made on the input thread, a lot of it REALLY helped me in trying to re-evaluate the club! I want to share the changes we'll be making, now and in the future! Hopefully they make it easier and more fun to participate with us!
GENERAL CHANGES:
-The Hangout time will move to 7pm PDT so we don't get sleepy and more people can watch. It remain the last Tuesday of the month, per our schedules.
-The group will only discuss the MAIN pick in the live hangouts from now on. Alt book discussion will be for forum interaction only, hopefully allowing us to interact more here without fearing spoiling the live stream!
-We will be taking feedback from the forums over the month for comments and questions, but DURING the hangout we will ONLY be taking audience feedback on Twitter with the hashtag #vaginalfantasy. YouTube has gotten too hard to use live, and chat is too hard for audience to find. This will allow us to interact more hopefully during the stream!
-We will be ripping the audio from the Hangouts and doing a podcast feed for those of you who enjoy audio podcasts. It will be the same audio as the video hangouts and will be served on the Geek and Sundry website, and via iTunes! This will be up in a month or so, will post when it's done!
-Book Picks will rotate through each host, so we'll each get our "month", then every 5th month I will post a poll around a theme for the forum to submit books and vote on those submissions in the same poll. Next month will be Veronica, as I did this month's!
FORUM:
-I have tweaked the group description to talk about the club more than the hangout to encourage new members to participate more.
--I will post the link to the Hangout directly as early as possible in the first thread in the folder. I am trying Google Events this month to see if that link is evergreen. Also we are trying to create a FB Event too to see if that helps.
-I will also do a "direct message all group members" the Friday before each hangout to remember everyone of the livestream!
-I will contact Goodreads about rearranging the order of the videos, since it's a bit messy. Unfortunately, we are limited to some design features here on Goodreads and can't improve everything we could! But this is certainly a great central home for us.
-Everyone should feel free to post LOTS of threads about the monthly books! I will only be posting ONE thread to start the folder off, one for submitting things you want us to talk about that month live, all other threads should be started be the members, to encourage participation!
-I would love it if Local Groups could post opinion roundups of the book, to encourage interaction outside just their group and be a part of the larger community too!
-I would also love Vicki to do a FAQ for the group for new members! Vicki, let's work on that together!
-Events are now open to non-mods to post here, so if you have a local meet up, post it so more people can see!!
Lastly, just for the Videos:
-We're changing the metadata order to be clearer
-Upgrading our Equipment so we look fancier (Kiala, new mic incoming!)
-We are consider Guests but only very special occasion, because the dynamic in the group seems to work so well, we don't want to mess it up. We WILL have as much fun as we can, for sure!
Lastly:
We cannot do a whole VF convention anytime soon, but at Comicon in SD and other cons that each of us attend, we will make our best efforts to do meetups! And plan for that big con in the future where we can celebrate romance literature together! :)
Hope these seem like positive changes, and of course, we will always take input in the future, as we continue reading. Thanks all!!!
XOOX
Felicia