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Can we select which of our videos goes on the profile?
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The ability to customize what is seen on your author profile is something we're strongly considering. At present, the way everything is organized (books, videos, groups, etc.) is by popularity. Your most-rated book will appear first on your profile, and then your next most-rated, etc. The same is true for videos. This is a good solution from the general user's perspective as, by definition, the most popular work is most likely to be what they are looking for. But from an author's perspective, it presents a problem: how to promote new content -- be it a book or a video -- which, because it is so new, isn't as popular (yet). We're always evaluating how our author pages are set up, so this is something we might change in the future.
I didn't know that about either the video or book. How is voting done? Is that on YouTube or on Goodreads?
As you say, popularity presents a problem to the author, especially one like me who didn't even know that was the system GR is working under. So in some ways I've been handicapped in getting the word out since joining.
As you say, popularity presents a problem to the author, especially one like me who didn't even know that was the system GR is working under. So in some ways I've been handicapped in getting the word out since joining.
Patrick,Yes... the system forced authors to "spam" their friends and beg for votes in order to get newer content onto the front page.
In fact, there are two arguments to your assumption, because quite often a reader will most want to know when their favorite authors have a new book out, and may often be unaware that a new book is out.
Hey, Patrick,GoodReads must have the functionality. When I look at my Friends, I can choose whether to look at who was most recently online, or by the date they befriended me, or by alphebetical order of their name.
So, in theory readers ought to be able to check out our books by chronological order (first in series), by reverse chronological order (last in series), date written... or most popular.
How about sorting books by keywords, too. If we knew we had some control, we could help you out by putting #1 in series, #2 etc etc in our tags.
Just a matter of communication what we can do, and how we can help make it happen.
:-)
My newest video is now on my profile page, I'm glad to say!
http://www.goodreads.com/videos/show/...
Rowena wrote: "So, in theory readers ought to be able to check out our books by chronological order (first in series), by reverse chronological order (last in series), date written... or most popular."We can. See the sort by dropdown?
I think the issue is adding that to the already quite crowded author profile page.
Cool, Rivka.Obviously, I don't know how others feel, but I think anything that serves the reader should take priority.
If you wanted to simplify my author profile page, for instance, there must be a lot of stuff... such as my favorite quotes by my own characters, and my exchange of pleasantries with people who have been kind enough to leave a comment on my page that isn't supremely fascinating to readers.
How would you tidy up a crowded author profile page?
Should/could certain features be optional for our visitors to see in full or in part or not see (apart from a one-liner) ?
A lot of the things you're talking about -- comments, quotes -- are down at the bottom of the page. The crowded part is just above the books, where there is information about average rating and so on. I don't know enough about programming OR webdesign to be certain, but I think putting the dropdown there might mean removing that entire line, which is a problem. Especially since the dropdown is just one click away, by clicking on the author's number of works.But I do know that customizing author pages is something that the GR folks who actually do know about programming and web design have been batting around for a while.
As I like to say, the easy things get done here really quickly. The impossible ones just take a little longer. ;)
Rowena wrote: "So, in theory readers ought to be able to check out our books by chronological order (first in series), by reverse chronological order (last in series), date written... or most popular."I know readers would love to see series books in proper reading order, but I imagine that's one of those things that is going to require the much promised "series object" change in order to properly implement.
Jack wrote: "Patrick wrote: "The ability to customize what is seen on your author profile is something we're strongly considering. At present, the way everything is organized (books, videos, groups, etc.) is b..."If the video is about one of your books, you can certainly post it to your profile. What we don't do is host videos, though, so you'd have to first upload it from your hard drive to a service like YouTube or Blip.tv first.
It appears that if I want my newest, least seen video to appear on my profile page, I must request votes.
Is there another way? If not, could there be?