BookTour Blog

Feature Update 8/7/07

Today brings a complete rewrite of the site's book genre back-end (again). As a result, the following features are now faster:
• The homepage (or RSS feed) for subcategories (approx. 10x speed improvement)
• The Library page and pages linked to from it (approx. 3x speed improvement)
• Author pages that include category listings (approx 20% speed improvement)
The rewrite also makes future speed improvements much easier.

Feature Update 8/6/07

New today:
• The advertising page has been updated to reflect the authors who've previously been featured on the front page.
• The email sent to authors upon signup has been tweaked.
• The All Authors page now links properly to individual authors.
• Auto-location guessing for non-logged-in users has been improved.
• A Home link has been added to the footer.
• A bug that prevented a couple author requests from going through has been fixed.
• For British authors, if a book is not listed on Amazon.com, information is now also looked up on Amazon.co.uk.
• By popular request, referral links now go straight to the main page, rather than taking first-time visitors to the signup page.
• Australians can now sign up for the site.

We're Huge in Canada: Thanks Cheryl!

Here at BookTour.com we don't believe in patting each other (and since the three of us are rarely in the same room and none of us is related to Plastic Man, can't happen much anyway). But we gotta admit, the recent launch of BookTour Canada is already paying big dividends.

Case in point: This week's winner of our featured author contest: Cheryl Kaye Tardif. Cheryl's a Canadian mystery author (we've also heard rumors she's our first registered author from Up North), has three novels to her credit and has strung together an impressive virtual tour throughout the month of August. Her additional prowess at referring authors to BookTour has earned her the featured spot today.

Well done Cheryl. And remember how it works. Each week we see who has referred the most authors to book tour (that's so far and not just within the last week). Come Saturday evening that author gets the top spot for Sunday.

Feature Update 8/5/07

Today brings several big features. First, the auto-location-guessing has been improved noticeably for many suburban locations.

Second, the genres an author has written in now appear on his or her author page, right below the name.

Finally, and most importantly, the site is now open to British authors and readers!

Feature Update 8/4/07

New today:
• A bug that caused the wrong featured book to appear next to an author on the Newest Authors page has been fixed.
• A link to the Newest Authors page has been added from the Master Feature List.
• A link to the All Authors list has been added via a More button from the Newest Authors list.

Feature Update 8/3/07

New today:
• A bug that mistakenly allowed readers to contact authors whose email addresses were nonexistent has been fixed.
• The links to track authors and venues have been moved to the top of their pages.
• A bug that prevented authors whose books don't have cover images on our site from rearranging their books has been fixed.
• A bug that broke some media links on author editing pages has been fixed.
• A typo in the Master Feature List has been fixed.
• The Add Event page has been updated with information for authors who have already signed up.
• A list of all authors on the site has been added. It's available through the "Browse our new features" button on the front page.

Feature Update 8/2/07

A bunch of cool stuff today:
• Authors can now easily format their biographies. Bold, italics, and links can be added with a single click.
• The front-page algorithm has been tweaked to change authors more often.
• A display bug that caused pop-up menus to appear on strange parts of author editing pages in Safari has been fixed.
• Authors can now drag-and-drop their books into the order they want them to appear. In addition, the book at the top of their list becomes their "featured book."
• Weekly emails have been updated with unsubscribe links. Sorry, this should have been added a long time ago.
• Dates on the site now no longer appear with a preceding 0 if they don't have to. For example, "September 09, 2007" has become "September 9, 2007."
• RSS feeds and widgets have been added to venue pages.
• The Master Feature List has been updated.

Feature Update 8/1/07

New today:
• The FAQ has been updated.
• The buttons on the front page have been tweaked to be more general.
• There's a new master feature list at http://booktour.com/events/master_list.
• A bug that caused the "Currently in your area" subheading to appear twice on sub-BookTours has been fixed.
• On Profile pages, information about Amazon account access is now contextual based on whether it's been used before.

Friends of BookTour Bowl Together...

Actually that's not quite it. That's just Adam and myself with Kristin Gore, author of the new novel Sammy's House. Kristin has been a supporter of our efforts here at BookTour since the very beginning. When she passed though San Francisco, we met up with her at her event at The Commonwealth Club and presented her with an official BookTour.com bowling shirt. We have these babies printed up for longtime supporters and friends of the project.

Kristin's new novel Sammy's House is available at a bookstore near you.

Feature Update 7/31/07

To wrap up the month, we've got two really cool features. First, you no longer have to sign up to see events near you—all you have to do is visit our homepage.

Second, we've created a sweet mashup for Google Earth. Check it out here.

Other news:
• Above the nearby events listing on the front page, the site now shows where it thinks you are. It's an old feature that's been in hiding for several weeks.
• A typo has been fixed on Profile pages.
• A bug that prevented some users from seeing the link to their Amazon account access page has been fixed.
• A bug that caused some Amazon account accesses to fail has been fixed.