FictionDB Blog

FictionDB on Facebook and Twitter

2009-07-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

With the rise of social media and our recent obsession with Facebook, we are going to be moving most of our communication outside of this blog.

I'm really more of a 2-line Facebooker than a blogger, so this fits my writing style perfectly. One of the reasons I never blog is that I feel like I have to come up with some big long article. Well, Facebook and Twitter are all about short sound-bytes, so you'll hear more from me.

I'm going to be posting FictionDB tips on the Facebook FictionDB page, so become a fan and see what you've been missing.

I haven't actually tweeted anything yet, but you can follow me at the FictionDB Twitter page.

All of these links are now available from the homepage as well as a way to promote FictionDB on sites like Stumpleupon and Digg. If you're a big fan of our site, help us promote it!

FictionDB Celebrates its 10th Anniversary with a New Look and New Features

2009-07-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that FictionDB is now 10 years old. It seems like just yesterday that I launched the very first version of the site. It was a very memorable occasion because I was racing to launch the site before my first child was born. Luckily my son didn't come early! We've even gone back to our original slogan -- your guide to authors and books. Everything does eventually come full circle.

As most of you have noticed, the new FictionDB was made available to the public this weekend. A few minor hiccups along the way, but the site is now stable.

I want to send out a huge thanks to the FictionDB Redesign Team -- a group of volunteers who put the new site to the test before the launch. They came up with some great ideas on how to improve the site. Thanks for all your patience and feedback!

The new FictionDB functions much like the old site. I encourage you to click on everything you see. Most text has information about the feature (make sure you click the lightbulbs at least). A few things have changed and here's what you'll see:

1) a much cleaner, uncluttered design

2) simpler navigation using breadcrumbs at the top of most pages

3) an improved search box at the top of each page -- use the dropdown menu to choose how you'd like to search.

4) streamlined layout for author and book pages -- the right hand column on each page gives you quick access to information

5) a better system for cataloguing your books

-- book lists that can be named by you. Your books are still in the same place. We've just done away with the words bookshelf, wishlist and archive.

-- lists by author A-Z so you don't have to scroll through all the authors

-- quicker access to your books from most pages on the site

-- easily filter your books using a wide variety of criteria

-- keep track of your favorite authors

-- rate authors

-- set a status for your book. Click on the blue box to the left of your list icons on any author page. You'll find lots of ways to classify your reading.

6) an updated new releases area

-- searching by date now shows reissues as well as new releases

-- use the filters at the top of the page to find just the books you're looking for. I encourage everyone to play around with the filters to get used to how they work.

7) a new Top Authors page listing some of the most-visited authors by genre

As I've said in previous posts, this redesign was necessary from an infrastructure standpoint. Now that the base has been completed, we can easily add new features, so the site is by no means done. You can expect lots of little upgrades in the next couple of months.

I know change can be tough on some people, but I think you'll find that the new site delivers a better experience for everyone.

What happened to...?

Printer-friendly listings -- you can still easily print listings -- we recommend highlighting what you want to print and then click on File -- Print -- Selection. You can print as little or as much as you'd like.

New Releases by Authors on my Bookshelf -- if an author resides in your catalog, he/she was given Favorite Author status during the cutover. You can add and delete favorite authors by clicking on the little red heart. On the new releases page look to the far right. You will see a dropdown titled Filters. Select Favorite Authors and only books by your favorite authors will be displayed.

We're very proud of the new site and hope you'll like using it. As always, feel free to tell us what you think of the new features.

And now after working 7 days a week on this for the last 5 months, I'm going to go lay by a pool for a week!

FictionDB Redesign Is Complete

2009-07-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

The member areas of FictionDB will be unavailable on Saturday, July 4th, as we cutover to the newly redesigned site. The basic information will still be available to everyone -- author lists, new releases, etc.

All member data will be moved to the new site and your existing username and password will continue to work after the cutover.

Thanks for your patience during the transition.

What Should You Read Next?

2009-04-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Good question. We all go through it at one time or another --2000 books on your bookshelf and nothing to read.

I'll be giving a free talk (no registration required) on this subject next week. It will be Wednesday, April 15, at 7:00 p.m. at the Torrance Public Library. The presentation will cover defining your reading tastes, genre descriptions, and internet resources. Believe it or not, FictionDB is not the only resource on the web for books.

If you live in Southern California and want to come to the talk, I'd love to meet you!

The FictionDB Redesign

2009-01-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

Whether you're a long-time FictionDB visitor or have just found us, we'd like you to have a say in how the future FictionDB will look and function.

Why does FictionDB have to change?
FictionDB will be ten years old in November. Much of what you see on the current site has been around for a long time. Technology has drastically changed and with the site's recent growth spurt, we need to take advantage of that. While FictionDB is currently not broken, it could break in the future if we are not prepared.

What input do we need from our visitors?
We'd like you to tell us what you like and don't like about the site. How can the site better serve your reading needs? The site is going to be rewritten from scratch so here is your chance to make it exactly what you want.

When will the redesign be done?
Good question. We don't know. It will take as long it takes. As soon as we get a test version up and running, the redesign team will be invited to take it for a test drive.

How to join the FictionDB Redesign Team.
We've started a Google Group that can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/fictiondb

Everyone is invited to join and share their thoughts on the process. We think getting your input is really important to the future of FictionDB.

eBooks -- Thanks, but no thanks

2009-01-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

I had never read an eBook until yesterday. I never had any reason to. Every book that I've ever wanted to read is available in print format. For me, reading is a sensory pleasure. I relax on a comfortable couch, proving the old adage -- curled up with a good book. I enjoy the feel of books and I like flipping around in the book, reading sentences here or there just to get an idea of where I'm going. None of this can be done with an eBook and I've never wanted to try -- until yesterday.

A couple of days ago I read Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn in one sitting -- over 750 pages. Luckily I had that comfortable couch. For fans of the Twilight saga, you already know the scandal attached to Midnight Sun, Twilight told from Edward's point-of-view. For those of you who don't, an early draft of the book was printed on the internet and the author was so upset she isn't sure she's ever going to finish it. Meyer posted the draft on her own site to forestall illegal downloads elsewhere. So there it is -- a 264 page book only available in electronic format that I had to read.

I did it. I read that book on my computer and it was the longest couple of hours of reading I can remember. I was miserable -- no comfy couch, no thumbing through the pages. It completely messed with my vision for awhile after finishing it -- that scared me the most. I spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer screen, but it's not the kind of absorbed focus you use when reading a book. I do not EVER want to read another eBook.

I know that other eBook machines may allow me to move to that comfy couch, but the other physical discomforts remain. I've taken a close look at the Kindle and the Sony reader, but neither of them made me want to really read a book on them. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, but the thought of trying to read a book on that is ludicrous! (FictionDB looks great on it though)

Besides my dislike of the physical unpleasantness associated with eBooks, there are several other reasons I won't read eBooks. I love nothing more than finding good books to read and giving them to my friends to try. eBooks are a one-person affair. You download it once and that's it. Now, you can lend someone your Kindle and they can read it there, but let's be real. If I paid that much for an e-reader, there is no way I'd ever lend it out. Telling someone "Go download this book. It's really great" is just not the same as handing it to them. The ability to handsell a book is completely gone with an eBook. I can't tell you how many books I handsell for the book stores I frequent -- they should really pay me! I also love to possess books. I will stand in front of my bookshelves and just savor the feeling of owning all those glorious books. Not quite the same with an eBook.

So what does this mean for my future reading? Everyone says that eBooks are the future. For non-fiction reference materials, I completely agree. The ability to search a book and find relevant information works perfectly with an electronic format. But what about fiction? That thing we all love so much? To tell you the truth, this scares me to death. Will I be able to find new books in the format I want? I do have over 3000 books I haven't read yet and that will certainly keep me going for a while. Maybe the demise of the traditional book won't happen until after I'm gone -- that's what I really hope.

Blazing fast synopsis search

2008-11-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

How many e-mails have I received over the years with errors when you try to do a complicated synopsis search? Too many to count, let me tell you you. Well those days are over. Yesterday we installed some new software and now synopsis searches are blazing fast! Well, maybe not blazing, but way better than before. We do have more than 70,000 synopses to go through. Before today, a complicated search could take up to a minute to give you results. Today, results are coming back within 5 seconds. How cool is that?

A walk down memory lane

2008-11-13T17:34:00.000-08:00

In honor of the 30th anniversary of reading my first romance novel, I thought I'd take a walk down memory lane, revisiting the good, the bad, and the unread.

I was allowed to read my first romance novel when I turned 13. I had always loved the romantic elements in Nancy Drew, the Janet Lambert books and others I was allowed to read, but a REAL romance novel was my Holy Grail. On my 13th birthday, I picked out my first romance novel from the Spokane Public Library. It's funny how vivid that moment remains in my mind to this day. I remember the wire rack with all the covers facing me, begging me to pick one. I must have stood there for 10 minutes before making a decision. I chose A Very Naughty Angel by Cartland, Barbara. It was everything a first romance novel should be: a virginal heroine looking for a taste of adventure before she is married against her will, a handsome rogue who is really the prince in disguise, a night of steamy passion (Okay this is a Barbara Cartland after all, so steamy was just a few kisses, but come on, I was 13! This was passion!)

I then discovered Harlequin Romances. Good Housekeeping used to reprint condensed Harlequins in their magazines. I read To Catch a Butterfly by Marjorie Lewty and was hooked. I must have read several hundred that first year. Who could forget Adair of Starlight Peaks by Essie Summers or my favorite, Desert Barbarian by Charlotte Lamb? I moved on to Harlequin Presents and those domineering Greek men -- Violet Winspear, Anne Mather, Anne Hampson. And then along came an American writer, Janet Dailey. I used to hang out in the book department at Sears (yes, they used to have books) every month waiting for the next state to be published. To this day Fiesta San Antonio is one of my favorite books of all time. I was happily reading the kisses only Dailey books, but then came Touch the Wind. Some may point to other groundbreaking romance novels, but for me, this was the big one. This book had S-E-X. I remember passing it around at school and all my friends reading the "good" parts.

I get my love of reading from my paternal grandmother, another voracious reader. Until the day she died, we swapped books back and forth. I remember turning 16, the age that she thought appropriate to read The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes. Luckily, my birthday is in the summertime because I read one of those books every day for 8 days and didn't get dressed at all. I think my parents thought there was something wrong with me, but I guess by then they were used to used to my obsession with books.

The next several years are a blur for me. School and boys got in the way of reading. I know I read Linda Howard, Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz and even a few by Diana Palmer. I got into historicals with A Pirate's Love by Johanna Lindsey, The Windflower by Laura London and Sweet Surrender by Catherine Coulter. I also read a lot of completely forgettable Western-set romances in the Zebra Heartfire line. To this day, I refuse to read Western-set romances -- I think those books actually did me harm.

I found my first used book store when I was in high school. I had always gotten my books from the library, never owning any of my own. The store was really an old house, but since it was on a major thoroughfare, it had been leased as retail space. Each little room had its own genre -- series romance in one, mysteries in another. I would spend hours sitting and going through books. How would I spend what little money I had? I would go to garage sales or mooch books off my parents' friends. Anything to get cheap books to trade back in to the store and get what I wanted to read. Even after graduating from college and finally earning real money, that behavior never changed.

You always have that one friend who is never ready when they say they are going to be ready. My sophomore year in college, I discovered Lavyrle Spencer this way. My friend had left a copy of Separate Beds in her dorm room and while I waited, I read. I would much rather have finished that book than gone out to a party, but I wasn't so lucky.

When I graduated from college and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, I had a lot more time to read. I discovered the Loveswept line and Kay Hooper, Iris Johansen and Sandra Brown, authors I still enjoy today. Those were the days of Karen Robards, Amanda Quick, and Katherine Stone. I also discovered Nora Roberts about this time. I hadn't read her series books, but I did read Hot Ice and loved it. There were lots of used book stores in those days and I would drive around all day looking for treasures. I even worked part-time in one for awhile. That's how I found Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux and Judith McNaught. There is nothing like working in a book store for getting great author recommendations. Customers would tell me about the great books they were reading and I would just have to have all those books. This is when my book collecting began. Before working in the store, I only owned books that I would be reading shortly. I never had more than 15-20. Well, with all the recommendations, my TBR grew to several hundred in a hurry. Today it's at 2500, so I guess I can blame all this on that little store.

I moved to Los Angeles for business school, another great area for used book stores. Somehow I always end up living in places with great access to used books. Well, except for the summer I spent doing an internship in New York City. I could never live there! There is not a single used book store in the city that stocks romance novels. Luckily I had that huge TBR stack to get me through the summer. And I did start reading Susan Elizabeth Phillips that summer. I also got around to Kathleen Gilles Seidel and Judith Duncan, not as well known but great reads nonetheless.

I moved to Dallas after graduation to work for an airline. There is probably no better place to live if you love romance novels. The rents were so low that stores could stock all the old romances, not just the new ones. I was in heaven and I spent so much time flying that I had plenty of time to read. I started reading Regencies pretty heavily at this time. I had always enjoyed the period, but had not yet discovered the traditional Regency. After reading Loretta Chase, Jo Beverley, Carla Kelly and Mary Balogh, I became a lifelong fan. I am so disappointed that the traditional Regency is gone. I do, however, have several hundred of them in my TBR stack, so I'm set for a few years yet.

When I got married and moved to Chicago, I started reading a lot more Regency historicals too. I've mentioned that I rarely buy new books, but one night I was waiting for a prescription to be filled and picked up All Things Beautiful by Cathy Maxwell. After reading the first few chapters, there was no way I was leaving the store without that book. I also started reading Julia Quinn, Danelle Harmon, Jo Goodman and Mary Jo Putney. A local UBS owner demanded that I read Georgette Heyer and I am so glad I allowed myself to be persuaded.

When I moved back to Los Angeles ten years ago, I began to read a lot more romantic comedy, I glommed Jennifer Crusie, Rachel Gibson, and Janet Evanovich. I have to admit I tried quite a few others with mixed results. I would bet that comedy is the most difficult to write. I found most of these comedies just stupid, slapstick humor. I have since given up on Evanovich for just that reason.

I also tried a bunch of the paranormals when they became so popular a few years back -- Christine Feehan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Karen Marie Moning. I decided that they just weren't for me. I prefer less world building and more relationship building in my romances. But for general fiction or fantasy, it's fine. I love Charlaine Harris, after all.

Today, I still read most of the authors I've talked about here. I do find new authors every now and then, but the bulk of the books in my TBR pile have publication dates more than 5 years old. I don't like the trend toward more graphic sex. No one believes me when I say I don't read romance novels for the sex, but it's true. Sexual tension is so much more exciting than jumping straight to the physical act. Many of the older romances got this right, the newer ones don't. I know I'm not alone here. Several members of my book club read more old romances than new. Everything is cyclical and the kind of books I like will come around again. But until then I have 2500 books to read!

FictionDB in the news

2008-11-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today there's an article in my local paper, the Daily Breeze, on FictionDB. It's a quick little story on me and the site and you might find it entertaining. It's always interesting what a reporter picks out of an hour and a half interview to put in the article. This article is on the front page of the business section, but reads more like a human-interest story.

I was in my local used book store today discussing the article and a woman walked up and said, "I saw that article. Wasn't it about a man and a cat?" Obviously, I need to start wearing more pink :) I just got a pink dog collar for my dog since everyone thinks she's a boy. She's half French Bulldog and half Boston Terrier so she does look pretty tough, but I don't think she looks like a cat. Anyway, let me know what you think of the article.

FictionDB Article in the Daily Breeze

And, no, I don't really work on a couch in my bedroom, but I wish I did.

Mills & Boon Series Lists on FictionDB

2008-11-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

We have just finished putting together the Mills & Boon series lists. This was a huge effort and I can't thank members Ursula and Heather enough for their help. I certainly couldn't have done it without them. There are still a few gaps here and there, so let us know if you have some of the missing titles and numbers. Quite a few books were also republished with different titles so if you see any of these, please let us know so we can get them combined.

The By Request and Spotlight reissue anthologies have also been added to our anthology section. Subscribers can search for these on the advanced search page using the anthology title search.

Many of our visitors are from outside the U.S. and we hope this helps our Mills & Boon readers keep better track of their books. If you live in Australia and have been keeping lists of the series there, we'd love to include those in the site as well.

Mills & Boon Blaze
Mills & Boon Blaze 2-in-1
Mills & Boon Desire
Mills & Boon Desire 2-in-1
Mills & Boon Enchanted
Mills & Boon Historical
Mills & Boon Intrigue
Mills & Boon Medical
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
Mills & Boon Modern Romance Extra
Mills & Boon Modern Romance Heat
Mills & Boon New Romance
Mills & Boon Presents
Mills & Boon Romance
Mills & Boon Sensual Romance
Mills & Boon Special Edition
Mills & Boon Super Romance
Mills & Boon Temptation
Mills & Boon Tender Romance

Cover variations are FINALLY here!

2008-10-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

One of the most requested features over the years has been for cover art variations. You see a "new" book by an author you love at the book store. You know you've never seen the cover before, but have you read it?

On the book detail page, you will now see multiple covers for each book right before Recent Publishing History. We added around 40,000 additional covers, so obviously we're just getting started. Right now, what you'll see are covers with different ISBN's. The pesky problem of multiple covers for the same ISBN will be addressed with this month's update. We are also not currently including covers for audio since they usually have the same cover as the printed books.

There is a catch, though. You need to be logged in to your account (free or paid) to see the covers.

Here's an example from the Jude Deveraux booklist -- Wild Orchids. Enjoy!

Books That Change Our Lives

2008-09-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

When my dad was a child in the 1940's he read a book called Mickey Sees the USA -- Mickey Mouse touring the country in a car pulling a trailer. This book changed my father's life forever. He, too, wanted to see the USA by car. I grew up spending two weeks every summer in a car pulling a trailer, seeing the country. My parents now have a bus-like motor home and they go around the country every fall on their way to their RV home in Happy Trails, Arizona. To this day, that faded old book rides around the country in that motor home.

The book that has had the most impact on my life is Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marilyn M. Bates. When I was in my early twenties, right out of college, I played trivia every Tuesday night at a local bar with a group of friends from work. The average age of this group was around 50, so these people were much more experienced in life than I was. While all the people my own age quickly became bored with the Tuesday night group, I loved it. For the first time in my life, I was socializing with what I would call "intellectuals". Why did I prefer this group over the party-loving people that made up most of the other groups I knew? One night at trivia, one of the men told me I must be an NT to love going to trivia every week. NT? What the heck was an NT? They gave me this book to read and I was hooked. It explained so much about me and why I always felt different from everyone else. It's based on the Meyers-Briggs assessment which I'm sure anyone who's ever worked in a large corporation has taken at one point or another. If you've never taken the test, you can do so here. I am an ENTJ (there are 16 types) -- women of this type account for less than 1% of the general population. The book jokingly refers to this type as Stranger in a Strange Land. There are many more books and tests based on this research and I have read most of them. They provide a great framework for anyone trying to understand the people around them -- particularly if you're like me and no one around you is like you :) When I was working as a manager, I tried to get my people to take the test so we could all communicate better. No luck. Most people are intimidated by this sort of thing, so I then found the book The Art of Speedreading People by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger. It shows you how to recognize a person's communication style without having to administer a test. How perfect is that?

Okay, you're thinking, that's a weird look at Kelly's quirkiness, but what does any of this have to do with FictionDB? Well, a lot, actually. I've been spending a lot of time lately visiting all the other book information sites on the web and trying to figure out what kinds of people they appeal to. Someone like me goes to a book social networking site and freaks out and runs away. "Where's the order? The consistency? It's not organized. Where's the organization?" Now, someone else goes to that same site and thinks "Cool, I can see all these people and what they're reading. I don't care about organization, I just want to meet people." So chances are, if you're a frequent FictionDB visitor, you probably have a J at the end of your Meyers-Briggs type. J's account for 50% of the population and are characterized by orderliness.

Given that I only read 1 or 2 non-fiction books a year, it's pretty funny that the book that changed my life is non-fiction.

Catalog your books at FictionDB!

2008-09-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

It seems that every book site out there lets you catalog your books for free and so now FictionDB will, too. Sign-up and start adding books to your shelves right away. Don’t forget you can do bulk uploads, too.

If you have had a FictionDB account in the past (even a trial subscription), you can now login for free to that same account. At login you will be directed to a payment page. You can choose to continue with payment or choose the free membership. Just click on Continue With Free Membership at the upper right-hand side of the payment screen.

Along with this new change, we have reduced the price of an annual membership to $20. To see what each of the feature sets includes, take a look at our comparison chart. We have also discontinued the free trial and the free book with membership promotion.

So, why are we making all these changes? Well, it’s all about growth. FictionDB needs to grow and find new people who value what we have to offer. There are quite a few tools out there (mostly inaccurate) that measure traffic to the different sites and we have taken a good, hard look at our competition. Every business needs to assess its position in the marketplace now and then and determine what changes, if any, need to be made. The changes we are making reflect that analysis.

But what about revenue, you might ask? Aren’t we just throwing away money by reducing the membership price? Yes and no. We all remember Economics 101 – supply and demand. Same thing here, short term revenue loss for long term viability. So, if you decide not to renew your membership and just use the free features, please support our advertisers and our affiliate programs with Amazon – particularly when you decide to buy that big-screen TV :)

So, if a lot of the site is free, why should you subscribe? For less than $2 a month, you can support the effort in maintaing the site. Isn't that reason enough? No? Well, there are a few key features not included for free. The biggest is the Advanced Search. No other site lets you search through synopses, time periods, sub-genres, you name it. The Google search for FictionDB is good, but it will never search the actual database for exact criteria. Another key feature in the premium site is the lack of ads. Without ads on each page, the information can be arranged in a more user-friendly fashion. Many of us are also getting internet-ready cell phones and want the ability to keep track of our reading on-the-go. The FictionDB mobile site is part of the upgraded version.

We hope you like the new changes and find FictionDB to still be the best source of fiction information on the internet. If not, let us know about it!

*** A note to current subscribers: If you subscribed within the last three months at $29.99, three additional months have been added to the length of your subscription. If you are having trouble logging in or receiving errors, see this blog article.

Trouble Logging In?

2008-09-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

For subscribers: if you're having trouble logging in or are receiving error messages, do the following:

Click on Login at the top of the page
Click on Clear Cookies
Login again and save your login details

I will have a full blog later today on the changes to the site.

Fun With Book Covers

2008-09-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do something better with book covers on FictionDB and I finally got around to it. The old author cover gallery pages were boring and not very user-friendly, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

The new cover galleries are much more visual with the covers 5 to a row (subscribers) and 4 to a row (non-subscribers). I've been having a great time today just browsing all the authors. Check out the Cassie Edwards cover gallery or the Debbie Macomber cover gallery. You get the idea that there really aren't that many cover variations out there.

I'll be working on the other cover galleries too (series, search results, etc.), but I thought you'd enjoy this first view.

FictionDB Welcomes LibraryThing Recommendations and Tag Clouds

2008-07-31T06:41:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the inclusion of LibraryThing recommendations and tag clouds on the FictionDB book detail pages. LibraryThing is the leader among the book social networking sites and can provide us with a wealth of information from their dedicated members.

I have blogged before about the differences between FictionDB and the social tagging sites and I believe this is a perfect example of how the two systems together can provide great information for readers. Take for example Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts. FictionDB provides the synopsis, series information, genres, time period, cover, awards, reviews and publishing history. LibraryThing gives further insight into the themes in the book through the tag cloud. If you’re interested in a particular theme, just click on the tag and you can search the rest of FictionDB for similarly themed books. LibraryThing also gives recommendations for other books that you might like if you liked Blood Brothers. We’re all looking for that next great read and here’s the perfect way to find it.

I’m on LibraryThing now, so come find me: Kelly's LibraryThing Profile. If you’d like to export your bookshelf from FictionDB to LibraryThing, just click on My Account and Export Books. Copy the link for the page into LibraryThing and they’ll upload your books for you.

We're very excited to provide our visitors with even more great book data, so check out the new features and let us know what you think.

It's Official -- I'm Not Interesting

2008-07-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm always on the lookout for interesting book sites and I found one the other day. Literature-map.com is an innovative way to find new authors. You type in an author and it will show you a map with other authors that score similarly in their algorithm.

I'm thinking this looks fun, so I did some exploring. I was thinking about linking to their site, but I always ask permission before I do any deep linking. The site is part of a larger network of sites run by flork.com. Flork.com requires a login to dig deeper, so I filled out the obligatory form and waited for my login to be activated. This is what I received:

Sorry, but you have not been accepted into the Flork Community. To keep flork an exciting place, only people with interesting profiles are accepted.

Gee, I didn't know it was an audition. I guess FictionDB won't be linking to literature-map after all.

And I AM an interesting person. I am! I am! Sniff...sniff.

Minor changes around the site

2008-07-24T13:15:00.001-07:00

As we enter the dog days of summer, all I want to do is go hang out by the pool and read a book. Well, okay, I did that for a whole week at the beginning of July, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to do it again. Instead, we've been making huge changes behind the scenes (you don't care about these) and some minor ones you will care about.

Since we opened up the site to everyone, our traffic has more than tripled. Along with all the new traffic has come a lot of suggestions. For those of us who've lived with FictionDB for a long time, we forget what it's like to see the site for the first time. We know how to navigate through all the data and don't think twice about it, but our newbie friends aren't as savvy.

What's good for our new friends is also great for the rest of us. We've added a lot of links that tie the pages more closely together. Many of these changes can be found on the author pages, the heart of FictionDB. Here are a few of the changes:
-- From an author's main page, you can now see the multi-author series lists.
-- Hover your mouse over the series and anthology numbers and you will see the series name or the anthology name.
-- Hover your mouse over a book title and you will see if the book is part of a series.
-- Subscribers can now jump directly to the author's books on their bookshelves - previously you could only jump to an individual book.
-- We've also combined the book detail page and the buy the book page. You'll now find information on buying books at the bottom of the book detail page.

We've added a Google site search on the Advanced Search page. While non-subscribers don't have access to our premium search, they can now use the Google site search. Google has only indexed about 40% of our site since we opened it up, so the results aren't great yet, but things should improve over time. The Google search will never be as accurate as the premium search since it relies on Google's cached image of the site rather than going directly to the database itself.

If you have suggestions for the site, please don't hesitate to e-mail us. We're always happy to hear from our visitors. We add all of our updates to the What's New page, so check there every once in a while.

Back from BEA

2008-06-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back from a great but exhausting weekend at Book Expo America, the site has been updated, and the free books for subscribers have been listed. We love attending BEA, meeting all the authors and mingling with other book lovers. We're willing to overlook the lack of sleep (we usually get to the convention center before 6:00 in the morning) and the sore muscles (no wheels allowed on the show floor) just to get a chance to meet the biggies. We met James Patterson, Lee Child, Jonathan Kellerman, Robert Crais, James Rollins, Neil Gaiman, Philippa Gregory, Kim Harrison, Iris Johansen and Julia Quinn. I also have to admit my own fangirl moments with Lisa Gardner and Katherine Neville. Both were very gracious with my gushing :) Lucky for her, Meg Cabot wasn't there this year, because she could certainly have accused me of stalking her around the convention the last time I saw her. However, most authors are really generous with their fans. Some of the lines were really long, but many authors pulled their lines over to side tables and signed until they ran out of books. Authors are just class acts!

Take a look at the books available for subscribers. I think you'll find something for everyone. There is certainly no shortage of books available. I've also noticed that many of you have also been haunting the list and have grabbed a few of the choice ones already. Good for you -- perserverence pays off!

FictionDB Is Now For Everyone!

2008-05-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

We’ve got great news!

FictionDB is now for everyone -- the occasional reader who just pops in for a little information every once in a while and the hard-core reader who needs full access to the best fiction database on the web. Which category do you fall in? If you’re like me, that would be the second one.

If you’re just an occasional visitor, you now have access to a lot more information than you did before. So what does this mean? Well, you will definitely see advertising – there’s always a price to be paid, isn’t there? But along with the advertising, you’ll also be able to see the complete author book lists, the books in a series, and the title detail page.

Subscribers will see the same site as they did before, but with a few upgrades. You definitely won’t see a lick of advertising, but if you really want to see the advertising…just kidding. And, since you’re not seeing ads, the site will be much faster. You’ll also have access to more data on each page of the site. Most authors’ data is now all on one page – no more clicking through pages looking for that one book. We’ve also modified many of the pages to speed up the database processing.

For a detailed list of the features, click here.

We’re really excited about sharing FictionDB with a lot more people, so help us spread the word. Many of you belong to other online groups and if it seems appropriate, tell them about the changes to the site. The more the merrier!

Interim Site Update

2008-05-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

We just completed an interim site update and you'll probably see more of these in the future. You've been doing such a great job in adding data through our new features that we thought you should see your changes a little quicker.

We'll also be attending BookExpoAmerica here in Los Angeles at the end of this month, so our normal update schedule will be thrown off by up to a week. If you're attending BEA, let us know. We'd love to meet up with you. Our entire staff is attending this year since the event is here in our home town. We'll be bringing back lots of brand new books, so if you're resubscribing soon, you might want to wait until after BEA to pick your free book.

You might also have noticed lots of little changes around the site. We've added a Tour for our new visitors, lots of fun new graphics, a new series classification: Reissues, a column on the author page for multiauthor series and a bunch of other stuff.

We're also planning some more changes based on your survey results, so if you haven't done it yet -- Take the survey!

Edit the FictionDB Database Yourself!

2008-03-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

We've been going through the responses to our survey and are happy to report that 87% of you think our data is Very Good or Excellent. So in looking at the 13% who thought the data was just Good we found one common theme. More data! Yeah, um, we knew that. People want information for absolutely every book on the site. Well, so do we, but we don't HAVE all the books in the database. We enter data as the books come through.

However, YOU have books that are missing information in the database. So now we're going to put you to work. You'll notice a new link on the Book Detail page right above the tags -- Add missing details to this book. You can now add or change just about everything to do with a book. Add a subgenre, change the time period, add a synopsis.

The only downside is that your changes won't be seen on the site until the first of the month. In order to provide live updates, we'd have to completely redesign the database and we're not quite ready to do that yet.

So the next time you see we're missing information on a book, enter the information for the next person who comes along. They may have already entered some information for you :)

The FictionDB Book Club

2008-03-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Three or four years ago (I can't remember now) we got rid of the discussion forums in our site redesign. There are just so many places to talk about books on the internet that we weren't sure there was a need for another one. While I still pretty much agree with that, there has been some interest from our survey responses for a place for FictionDB subscribers to congregate.

Last year, I looked into a site called ning that hosts social networks (what they seem to be calling forums these days). It's a free site so I set up a FictionDB page. I set it up with a Book Club theme since I'm much more interested in finding a great book to read than I am in reading the latest snarky comments on some of the other book blogs.

You can visit the new area at http://fictiondb.ning.com/ We haven't completely customized everything yet, but let us know if you like the area or not. And yes, you do have to sign up with them if you want to post :(

Export Your Bookshelf

2008-03-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

We are in the process of designing a nifty new interface for printing and exporting your books -- uniquely created by each person.

In the meantime, I've thrown up an export page with your basic information on it. You can find the link on your My Account page.

http://fictiondb.com/Accounts/BookShelfExport.asp

You can copy and paste this page into Excel or just save the page itself to your computer. Either way, you will now have a copy of your bookshelf to use as you like.

FictionDB is Up! Woohoo!!!!!!

2008-02-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

My nightmare is finally over!!

FictionDB is again available for subscriber login. When the login worked this morning, I really couldn't beleive my eyes. After the last week of one failure after another, I really didn't dare hope that things were finally resolved.

Okay, so what do you need to know?

1) Subscriber data on the site is from February 6. The site didn't actually go down until the 12th and I know many of you may have made changes when the site was going up and down. However, we found instances of questionable data with backups after February 6. We made the decision to go with the backup from the day before the server was damaged in the data center move. We need to ensure that the data on FictionDB going forward is stable. We apologize to anyone who is greatly impacted by this, but I hope you see our point of view.

2) Anyone who made a payment after February 6 has already had their account updated with their new expiration date. However, you will need to pick your free book again. We will also send out e-mail reminders to those impacted.

3) If you registered for a free trial after February 6, your login information is no longer in the system. Please go ahead and try another 3-day trial. We're really not as bad as you've been led to believe over the last week :)

4) Obviously we were in a great hurry to get the site back up and running, so we haven't tested everything as thoroughly as we would like. If you notice any errors or inconsistencies with the data, please don't hesitate to let us know.

I swear I must be jinxed!

2008-02-19T18:40:00.000-08:00

I've always thought of myself as being a lucky person. Everything tends to go my way most of the time. Well, I can now tell you I am paying for all those other times.

So where are we? The login procedure isn't working. Nothing has been changed from the old server, it just doesn't work. ??? So, I'm having the developer who created the software look into it. I don't have an uptime yet. Sorry!

Temporary E-mail Address

2008-02-18T08:01:00.001-08:00

I have set up a temporary e-mail for communication -- FictionDB@gmail.com -- during the site move. We will probably lose regular fictiondb e-mail for 6-12 hours. If you need to contact us, please use the temporary address.

On the topic of e-mail, many of you have e-mailed us asking about the site. We appreciate your support and concern. If you haven't received a reply from us, it's not becuase we didn't send one. Many of you have your e-mail security settings set very high and you bounce our e-mail right back to us. Each mail program is different, but if you are one of these people, try making FictionDB.com a trusted site.

If I Wasn't Laughing, I'd Be Crying...

2008-02-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Yep, you guessed it. Do I even have to say it?

When my database administrator called to tell me that my new server had crashed, I started laughing. I mean, really! What more could possibly go wrong?

After a week of really terrible customer support, I threw in the towel and am leaving my current hosting company. I've ordered a server with a new company with glowing customer service reviews and the people I've spoken to this morning have been great.

Ah, yes. We've been here before, haven't we? Me telling you that the site will be up very soon. I have done my best, but fate has conspired against me.

So, what is the estimated uptime now? Well, my new host says the server will be ready sometime tomorrow. Assuming no roadblocks, the site could be up tomorrow night. But you know what? I'm not even going to think that. It will be up when it's up -- can you tell I haven't slept in a week?

The only positive about this week is that I have lost a lot of weight from the stress. I knew there had to be a silver lining here somewhere...

FictionDB Status

2008-02-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Everything is almost ready. Everything except the data -- what you really want, of course. The database piece is not quite finished.

I'm hopeful that the site will be fully operational soon -- We've hired an expert database administrator to speed things up. He's working on it now. Unfortunately he's running into problems as well.

I'll post here again when the site is fully operational.

I cannot begin to tell you how hard this has been on us knowing that our customers are being so thoroughly disappointed. When the site does come back up, all of our subscribers will be given an extra month's subscription. I know this can't possibly begin to make up for the outage, but we would at least like to try to make amends.

As for this happening in the future -- we will do our best to prevent it. It was unforeseeable that our server would be damaged in routine data center maintenance, but that's no excuse. Our new server is state-of-the-art and comes with a backup server, so that in the case of one of the hard drives going down, the other will still be available.

Hopefully we've had enough bad luck with this to last a lifetime. We appreciate your patience.

FictionDB Still Down -- Status

2008-02-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

The last 48 hours have been incredibly frustrating. The tech people are still trying to figure out what is wrong with the server. We call them 4 or 5 times a day and constantly hear -- "It's almost done." Well, we're not going to wait anymore.

As of this morning we have ordered a new server. Best case scenario, the old server comes up soon and access is restored. Worst case scenario, we get the new server up and running in a couple of days.

While we are incredibly disappointed with the situation, we feel like we are controlling the outcome now.

Rest assured that we are doing all we can to minimize the downtime.

Site is down again

2008-02-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, the site is down again.

Since the server move that happened on February 7, the server has been unstable. We are working with the data center personnel to get a resolution, but don't have one yet.

What this means is that you may experience infrequent outages until we can resolve the issue.

We apologize for the inconvenience and want you to know that we are doing everything possible to get this fixed.

Site Outage -- Scheduled Maintenance

2008-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

FictionDB will be down on February 7th from 12:00 a.m. to 7:00 EST. Our host is performing some routine maintenance.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Take the FictionDB Visitor Satisfaction Survey!

2007-12-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

It's been quite awhile since we asked for your assistance in improving the site, so we've created a survey for you to take. The survey is completely anonymous, so tell us what you really think!

Take the Survey

We've come to a crossroads with the site. Do we continue to implement new features or do we just keep doing what we do best: provide tons of information on books? You will help us make that decision. We don't want to be all things to all people, but if there are one or two major areas that you would like to see incorporated into the site, we'd like to know about it.

Import Your Books & Quick Rating

2007-09-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest challenges with adding new features to FictionDB is the database structure. When FictionDB first opened its virtual doors in 1999, the site consisted of Authors and Titles. Period. As we added data to the site, we kept the existing database structure -- authors and titles. The biggest advantage to FictionDB's structure has been that the books are not ISBN dependent, the ISBNs are book dependent. This really cuts down on the clutter for an author. Visit any major bookselling site and type in an author name. You will basically get an ISBN list with every version of every title -- try doing an author search for Nora Roberts on Amazon (3091 entries for her 161 titles).

We have had numerous requests for an upload feature and we have always wanted to provide one, but how could we do it with our existing structure? No matter how clear you are about upload formats, even a minor misspelling in an author name or title would result in a rejection. So last year when we started providing multiple ISBNs for each title, we finally had a way to match books for an upload.

Import ISBNs can be found on your My Account page and on My Bookshelf, My Wishlist and My Archive. You can import your books with just an ISBN list or you can add additional information -- your rating and when you read the book. You can also specify where in FictionDB you'd like your import to go. See the page for all the specifics.

So, you don't have a list of all your ISBNs, what can you do? For around $10, you can buy a Cuecat barcode scanner on eBay. You can then scan your books directly into the import page. I love my Cuecat and am currently on my fourth one.

Wait a minute, I've already put all my books into FictionDB. What benefit do I get from all this? Well, you can now specify the ISBN of the book you own. We've pre-filled your existing books with the mass market paperback edition. Feel free to go in and change this if you want. We'll be adding large print and audio editions next month.

If we don't currently have the ISBN for your book in the database, there's now a quick and easy way to add it. Type in the ISBN on the Book Detail page and we'll add it in the next update.

We've also implemented Quick Rating. For those of us who don't always write notes about what we've read, we can now rate a book from the Book Detail page. This new box is located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. You can rate your book (the date read defaults to the current month), move it from shelf to shelf or delete it. You can also click through to the full edit page.

We're also working on an export feature and a user-defined printing feature, so look for those in the months ahead.

Site Maintenance -- July 25

2007-07-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

We have completed our upgrade to a new database server. Everything went smoothly and only took about 15 minutes.

One of the features of our new database server is something called a Full-Text Search. It is very similar to the process that Google uses to return results so quickly. While it's not operational just yet on FictionDB, it will speed up the synopses searches tremendously (well, the documentation says so). We should have the kinks worked out in a few more days, so bear with us.

Thanks for your patience during this process!

Synopsis Search Problems in Advanced Search

2007-07-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

Many of you have e-mailed us in the past couple of weeks about server timeout errors when doing a synopsis search. Rather than answering everyone individually, I'll address the issue here.

FictionDB appears to be outgrowing its current home. We have added a lot of extra information in the database over the last couple of months and our search performance is reflecting this. On average, a synopsis search takes around 16 seconds, while any other search takes from 2-5 seconds. Why is this? We now have over 60,000 synopses in the database averaging around 200 words each. For every synopsis search, the server has to go through each word in each synopsis before displaying the results. If lots of people are searching through synopses at the same time, you can imagine the result -- timeout errors. Our existing server is just getting overwhelmed with requests.

We are looking at options to fix this intermittent problem, but what can you do in the short term? The easiest answer is to add additional criteria to your search. The fewer synopses the server has to check, the less likely you are to see a timeout error.

So when will this be fixed? The answer is complicated. We may need to find a new home, but we are hoping to upgrade our existing space. FictionDB hasn't had a site outage since August 2004 and we don't want to create one by making any snap decisions. We also don't want to move just because one small part of the site isn't performing as we'd like. We are thoroughly researching our options and will be making a final decision soon. If we do have to move, the site could be down for several days.

Okay, that's the story. I hope it answers all your questions.

Tagging Comes to FictionDB

2007-06-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I blogged about the times changing for FictionDB. Well, today we release a major change to the way you interact with the site.

In the past, all of the data on the site passed through the FictionDB staff. We certainly welcomed your input and will continue to do so, but now you can make changes to the information on the site directly through the use of tags.

Tagging (the process of attaching words or phrases to an object to give it meaning) has become very popular on the Internet because no two people see the world in the same way. I may tag a book "Reformed Rake" and you might tag it "Bad Boy". Both are valid. We just see things a little differently.

There are sites that provide a lot of structure to book information (top-down) and sites that are almost completely created by their visitors (bottom-up). We've been wrestling with the issue of how to create a hybrid. While looking at other people's tags is fun for awhile, I still need to know that I can find the complete Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris in order. So how do we blend the use of tags into FictionDB? Hopefully we've done it in such a way that those who don't want to take advantage of tags will still see the same FictionDB. For those who do want to use tags with their existing bookshelves, we hope we've created a seamless transition. There are probably even some of you who have never used FictionDB's book cataloguing functions, but might use tags to accomplish the task.

There are certainly lots of choices if you're interested in social networking sites for books -- LibraryThing being the best example. The initial rollout of tags at FictionDB doesn't include any social networking features. Maybe down the road it would be fun to compare our bookshelves but we're not quite there yet :)

So how will tagging work? Links to the page for adding tags can be found on any Book Detail page throughout the site. You don't even have to have a book on your bookshelf to tag it. Two types of tags are going to be available -- Public and Private.

Public tags are for adding data that all visitors can see. I would add my "Reformed Rake" tag as a public tag, since others might be interested in knowing this. Other types of information that might be of interest would be theme, location, plot points, time-period, characters, etc.

A Private tag is for your eyes alone. These tags are for information not directly related to a book's themes. You might want to classify your awful reads as "Wallbangers". While this is of interest to you, it's not the sort of information we'd like to see in Public tags. You can certainly still use our existing rating/comment system to let people know your feelings about a book. Private tags also allow you to create your own cataloguing system. You may want to classify your books as "tbr", "loaned", and "to be bought" rather than using FictionDB's system. However you want to use the private tags is up to you.

We've also added Quick Tags at the bottom of the tagging page. Just click on a tag and the book will automatically be updated with a tag you've already used -- this really cuts down on the typing!

Once you've had some fun tagging a few books, you can look at your results by clicking on the My Tags link at the top of every page. We've moved the My Bookstore link to the My Account page and the My Tags link has taken its place.

So are you going to be the one who adds the very first tag to FictionDB? Well, no. We've already added over 400,000 tags. Remember all that data we've been collecting but haven't had a way to show until now? We'll be adding information to books the same way we always have, but now we have another way too. For example, the demon subgenre has been picking up steam lately. Instead of adding a new official subgenre to FictionDB, we'll be adding this information through tags.

So get out there and have some fun tagging your books!

Subscription Site Pricing

2007-05-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

You see it everywhere on the internet these days. Subscription sites. The days of the free ride are almost over. Sites will give you a taste of what they offer for free but if you want the premium content, you have to pay for it. But how much should sites charge their visitors?

This point was brought home to me this weekend by my seven-year-old. The hot site for first-graders in the the know is ClubPenguin. You get your own penguin avatar and get to build him an igloo with cool stuff and let him waddle all over Antarctica meeting other penguins. Social networking sites for younger kids concerned me quite a bit, but after visiting the site and reading their policies, I allowed my son to sign up for the free content. But of course that wasn't enough. Oh, no. "Mommy, do you know what you can do if you pay? Mommy, it's the coolest thing. Can we pay? Please? I won't go to McDonalds ever again if we can pay! Please?" Okay, I looked at the membership price. $6 a month -- $72 a year to let my son's penguin avatar have a really great time in Antarctica. Wow, that's some penguin!

But this got me thinking about what people are willing to pay for on the internet. At FictionDB, we've priced the site like a magazine subscription. You get useful information that helps manage your real hobby -- reading. $30 a year to streamline your information gathering process seems reasonable. That's less than $3 a month -- not even the cost of one book. So why does ClubPenguin charge so much? Becasue the site itself is the hobby, the entertainment. $6 a month to entertain my son seems reasonable -- it's one less Star Wars action figure, one less trip to McDonald's. So while I was initially shocked at the price, once I really thought about it, I paid.

The internet is constantly evolving and who knows where it will go next, but for right now paying for premium content seems to be the norm.

"Your database isn't complete!"

2007-05-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

I've written before about how I get the books that I scan for the site, but it's always interesting to me how people perceive the holes in the data. I was reading some message boards recently and saw a complaint about FictionDB regarding missing information on series books. (Yes, I know I should be thicker skinned, but it gets to me anyway) At last count there were over 180,000 individual titles and over 300,000 unique ISBN's stored in FictionDB. Over 55,000 or 1/3 of the titles have complete data. And since I just added 60,000 new titles last month, the percentage used to be better. Of course, 180,000 out of 180,000 would be better, but let's be realistic for a moment. There are over 500 new fiction titles released every month. Just keeping up with the new ones is a monumental task, let alone all the older ones.

I've been at this for years and yes, there are still holes in the data. Why? Because I haven't found the book yet! I'm down to less than 10 Loveswepts that need to be scanned. I swear I know those numbers by heart. Where are they? They're not the expensive ones -- I've scanned the Evanovichs and the Brockmanns. They are just random titles that haven't crossed my path yet.

Rest assured that we are doing everything in our power to complete each and every title in the database, but these things take time. I am lucky enough to have access to a large quantity of books from my local Friends of the Library. In fact, this month the library received a donation of over 5000 older romance novels. Of those, I took around 2000 to scan for the site. The donation was in order by publisher series number and by author, so finding the books I needed to scan was relatively simple. I carry a Treo with internet access everywhere I go. I have a barcode scanner attached to the top of it so I can tell in a second if I need the book for the site or not.

Most people understand the incredible amount of work that it takes to maintain a site like FictionDB and we appreciate your support. To all the others, I'm dancing as fast as I can!

Where's the monthly update to the site?

2007-04-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, as many of you have noticed, it's April 10 and the site has still not been updated. We usually update the site on the first of the month, but this month we have been making so many behind-the-scenes changes that it's still not ready.

Rather than put up a partial update, we've decided to skip this month's update. The site will be updated on May 1 and will include all the changes I've spoken about in recent blogs.

Thanks for your patience!

Is FictionDB still relevant?

2007-03-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

This is a question I've asked myself since reading a discussion of bibliographic databases on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not supposed to be an advertisement for websites but many people still try to add their own site and then defend its relevance when challenged. This particular discussion dealt with the sites that are really only a repackaging of an ISBN catalog. There are quite a few of these sites around and they don't have any of the depth of FictionDB. No advanced search capability, incomplete backlists, little series or sub-genre information. You get the picture.

Because I tend to be something of a control freak, I put together an analysis of all the sites similar to FictionDB, listing their strengths and weaknesses. Bang for your buck, FictionDB still came out on top. Many of the free sites have strengths in one area, but are lacking in so many others that I had to mark them down overall. You're probably thinking I'm just saying this because I run FictionDB and you're partially correct. However, the reason is this: If I really did find a site better than FictionDB, I would do everything in my power to improve a FictionDB weakness whether it was a technical feature or content.

I spend a lot of time surfing the internet for tidbits of information to add to FictionDB. I think the value of FictionDB is in the compilation of a huge amount of information in one place. Not too many people want to spend hours sifting through Google searches looking for that one piece of information on a book. I even came across a post by a website designer for authors that stated you should always visit the author's website because that site will always have the best information. I beg to differ! If that were really the case, we'd be out of business tomorrow :) Some authors do a really great job of providing information on their books but most don't. Their interest is in selling their most recent book, not in giving information about books that are out-of-print. And what about all the authors who don't even have websites? I'm still amazed at the number of top-selling authors who don't have a web presence outside a blurb on their publisher's site.

So what is the real result of all this introspection and paralysis by analysis? Enhancements and more content, of course!

Starting next month, FictionDB will no longer be just a genre fiction site, it will be a complete fiction site. We're in the process of adding close to 100,000 general fiction titles. In a recent blog, I discussed my reasons for adding young adult content and the same reasons hold true for general fiction. Many of you have asked for more general fiction on the site and we're finally responding.

This is going to be a slow process though. Right now, the books selected for addition are only from the big publishing houses -- bestsellers, etc. An offshoot of this addition will be a new search feature -- searching by publishing group. The big houses change imprints at the drop of a hat. What was Avon last week could be Eos this week. Now you'll be able to search by HarperCollins and you'll find the book whether its Avon or Eos :) There are going to be other small enhancements too, but I'll wait to tell you about them until they're close to being launched.

So in the end, while we believe the site is still relevant, you won't find us trying to get FictionDB into Wikipedia. At FictionDB we're taking the high road on blatant self-promotion -- we don't use link farms, web rings, or any other shady means of promotion. We believe that the site stands on its own merits and our subscribers do a great job of promoting the site for us.

Celebrate Romance in Kansas City

2007-03-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

I just returned from the 10th annual Celebrate Romance conference in Kansas City. For those of you unfamiliar with the event, it is for readers to discuss the genre. Authors do attend but they are encouraged to participate as readers. Most of the other romance conferences really focus on writing (RT and RWA), but this one is all about reading, which is why I love attending. I have no interest in a writing career as can be demonstrated by this blog :)

I am always amazed at the number of bright, articulate women who are passionate about romance novels. I have never been accused of being well-spoken, so I didn't speak up much, but many of these women are and their thoughts on the genre were really interesting. One of the biggest suggestions for readers was to write to publishers and editors. Personally, I'm happy with the variety of books available to me, but if you aren't, let the publishers know. According to the author attendees of CR, other than buying new books, writing directly is the best way to get a different type of book on the shelf.

CR is a fun, well-run event thanks to the hard work of its organizers. Attending an out-of-town conference is not inexpensive, but getting the chance to meet people that you've known online for years is a real treat. If CR ever comes to a town near you, I highly recommend it.

Getting away for a long weekend gave me the chance to do things I don't normally get to do. I read lots of books, watched lots of junk TV, and ate at lots of nice restaurants. Combine that with chatting with other readers and you have a near perfect weekend!

The times they are a-changin'

2007-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

Many years ago when I started creating the database that eventually became FictionDB, categorizing books was a pretty easy thing to do. Romances were romances, mysteries were mysteries and all was right with the world. Well, things have changed pretty dramatically in the last couple of years. Genre lines are blurring and bending. Every month when new titles are released, I have to determine what genres they fall into. Is it a historical romance with a vampire sub-genre? Okay, I can handle that. But what if it's a futuristic setting with werewolves, vampires, and witches who are obsessed with Manolo Blahniks? Hmmm. Not so easy.

I've known this day was coming. I've known it for several years, but the actual having to do something about it just seemed more than I wanted to deal with. Well, I've finally whipped myself into shape and have started the conversion process. Within the next couple of months, you will be seeing books categorized in as many sub-genres as they require. It may seem like a pretty straight-forward thing to do, but unfortunately for me, it will require a behind the scenes rewrite of several key areas of FicitonDB.

Not only are genre lines blurring, but so are the lines between adult fiction and juvenile fiction. To this date, FictionDB has focused on adult fiction. Young adult fiction has been sprinkled in where an author writes predominately adult fiction but has also written a few juvenile books. I find myself reading more and more young adult books and enjoying them immensely. And, of course, just about everyone reads Harry Potter. So starting next month, FictionDB will also contain young adult/juvenile fiction that may be of interest to all age levels. I have chosen to include books written for ages 12&up. So while you may be reading the Magic Tree House books to your kids, you probably won't find them on FictionDB.

Out with the Old...In with the New

2006-11-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

We're doing some redecorating in our home this month. My youngest child is finally at the age where he doesn't spill everything he touches. New carpet, new furniture. Yeah!! One of the rooms we are recarpeting is the one where I keep all my books. While the prospect of temporarily moving over 2000 books is daunting, it also provides a much needed opportunity to pare down the TBR pile.

I started collecting books around 1990. Before that, I would read and toss. I hadn't started any of that crazy glom behavior yet. Then I went to work part-time in a used bookstore. A customer would recommend an author and the books were right there on the shelf waiting for me to take them home. I don't think I ever took a paycheck home from that place. Back in the early 90's I collected Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Barbara Delinsky, Elizabeth Lowell -- all the usual suspects. When I glommed an author, I bought it all, no half measures for me. Unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy all those early books by most of these authors. Why was I reading those alpha jerks from Krentz? Maybe I would have enjoyed them in 1982 but not in 2006.

I remember bidding furiously on eBay in the late 90's for the Jayne Bentley books. Winning those books at the oh-so-cheap price of $125 gave me a lot more enjoyment than actually reading one of them ever could. So came the realization that I would probably never read these books and it was time for them to find new homes.

My reading tastes have changed through the years. I used to read almost any book from one of my favorite authors even if it didn't interest me. I am attempting to break that habit with this move. Out the door goes any book set in the American West -- I can't find anything romantic about the period but my mother won't read anything else, so she gets those. Out goes lots of romantic suspense with serial killer plots -- I've decided I like action adventure not grisly murders.

I've gotten rid of almost 600 books in the last week and I feel much better about what's left on my shelf. I might actually get around to reading a few...

Reading Slumps

2006-11-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm in a reading slump. No book can hold my attention for longer than a chapter. I have 7 books sitting on my nightstand with bookmarks in them. I'm reading books by authors that I normally love, so what's wrong with me?

Reading slumps usually happen around once a year for me. In a normal month I'll read between 10 and 15 books -- not bad considering I work full-time and have 2 small children. Last month I only read 4 books and this month I'm not doing much better.

Since I haven't been reading much, I've been watching movies. I signed up for the new Blockbuster movies by mail service and have been having a blast. We have a Blockbuster store about a mile from us and with the new program you can return your movies to the store and get a free movie to take home. So for the same price I was paying at Netflix, I can get twice as many movies. Since I can never get near a TV set in my house, I've been renting the TV shows on DVD and watching them on my portable DVD player. I have been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and am now starting Season 4. It's funny to me that I'll watch movies and shows in a genre that I would never read in. Take Buffy -- I really love the show, but can't stand vampire romances. What's romantic about falling in love with a dead guy?

When I'm in a reading slump, I spend a lot of time trolling review sites looking for the book that is going to get me out of the slump. I tend to try a lot of new-to-me authors hoping that I just need a fresh voice to get me going again. So far it hasn't worked. I tried Julia Ross last night, an author whose books had recommendations from some of my favorite authors, but couldn't get past the third chapter. Any little historical inconsistency throws me off these days and the book hits the pile on my nightstand.

Hopefully this nasty slump will end soon and I can return to regular reading. Until then, I can find out how Buffy will survive without Angel...

The Overlooked...

2006-09-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

We receive a lot of e-mail regarding recommendations for new features. Usually it is something that we've already thought about and put on the enhancement list or rejected as not something we see for FictionDB. But every once in a while, someone e-mails us with something that we'd just plain missed. This happened recently with the Anthology section of our site.

I read anthologies by author. I will read the stories by the authors that I like and then discard the book. So when I designed the anthology section, I designed it for me and the way I read anthologies. Obviously a big mistake! I have now rectified this problem. You will find a new anthology title search area on the Advanced Search page. For those of you using the Bookshelf area of FictionDB, you can now search your personal collection by ISBN which will find the anthology for you.

The ISBN searches throughout the site are now tied to the reissue data, so typing in an ISBN for any issue of a book should pull up the main FictionDB listing. If we're missing an ISBN, please let us know. The reissue data is the newest on our site and so may not be completely up-to-date.

So, if there's something you'd really like to see on FictionDB, let us know! Maybe we haven't thought of it yet.

Reading Until the Wee Hours of the Morning...

2006-08-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

It's rare that I stay up most of the night finishing a book. It's even more rare when it happens 3 nights in a row, but that's what happened this week.

I'm not a night person by nature. I have two small children and my schedule tends to follow theirs. In bed by nine, read till ten and then up again at six. Even before children, it was rare for me to stay up all night reading -- after all, I had all those early evening hours to read :)

Finding a book that I'm willing to risk zombiehood the next day for happens maybe once or twice a year. I don't know if I'm just jaded from having read so much for so many years or what, but I can finish a chapter and put most books down for the night. When I find a book that keeps me up, I get really excited. I think it reminds me of my youth when finding these kinds of books was a regular occurrence.

So what were these rare reads that have turned me into a zombie this week? I don’t often read chick lit or women’s fiction for that matter, but I had heard about Emily Giffin and decided to try her first book, Something Borrowed. The basic premise of the book is a woman who sleeps with her best friend’s fiancé and deals with the repercussions. I should have hated this book and I’m actually surprised I even tried it. This plot line doesn’t quite hit my Ick Factor but it does hit my Disgust Factor. Maybe since I knew this book was not a traditional romance, I was willing to give it a shot. I am so glad I did. I loved this book from start to finish. Maybe I’m just getting older and am more tolerant :) The characters and their problems were ones I could empathize with. Giffin wrote about people that I could know and she wrote a very realistic work environment which is another big plus for me. People actually work in her book!

I started the second book, Something Blue, the next night thinking that there’s no way that the second could be as good as the first. At 2:00 a.m., I had to disagree. Then came day 3. I at least started reading Baby Proof earlier in the evening so I was finished by midnight.

I’ve read over 60 books so far this year and these were my first all-nighters, so I guess I was due. Hopefully, tonight’s book won’t be as good and I can get some sleep…

Amazing New Library Links

2006-08-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

I found the most awesome site today -- WorldCat.org -- and I've now added book specific links to it.

What is it? It's a library catalog site -- lots of catalogs in one place. They've taken all the libraries in the country and put their catalogs in one place. This may not be important to you if you don't live in a major metropolitan area, but I live in L.A. If I want a book from the library system, I have to check 6 or 7 different web sites. Now I can go to 1 place and see which library in my area has the book. For instance I just found Georgette Heyer's old contemporaries that have never been reissued. It took me 10 seconds!!

Of course, I had to add this amazing site to FictionDB. Click on the anywhere on the site and you will be taken to the Buy page. We've now added direct links to WorldCat from this page.

The Ick Factor

2006-08-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

There are just certain kinds of books that I cannot read no matter how good the writer. I've encountered several of these over the last couple of months and it got me to thinking about the exact plot device that makes me say "I think I just threw up in my mouth" (a brilliant line from that classic movie, Dodgeball).

The other day I picked up one of the new Silhouette Bombshells. I'd never read one before so I picked one written by a writer I usually like, Ruth Wind/Barbara Samuel. I know that the Bombshells aren't traditional romances which is fine with me. I like action adventure books and have been reading a lot of Vince Flynn lately, so this book should have been a good read. Well, it was, until the throwing up in my mouth part.

So what causes this thoroughly disgusting reaction in me? Huge age discrepancies between the main romantic characters where a parental or close relationship had previously been involved. I'm fine with May/December romances where the characters meet as adults, but tell me that the man was the guardian of the girl and then had the hots for her when she became an adult and I just lose it. I don't care how good a writer is, this disgusts me beyond belief. In my little Pollyanna world, you don't lust after kids you've known since they were in diapers and Daddy's best friend is not a candidate for sex (the case in the Wind book). I barely finished an older Iris Johansen Loveswept with this same plot and threw away a Meagan McKinney and a Karen Robards.

This particular plot device used to be fairly common and I'm almost okay with the guardian who's never actually spent any time with his ward. But anytime the two characters knew each other well when one was a child, the ick factor sets in and the book goes in the trash.

Searching by Cover

2006-06-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

A woman in my book group has been looking for a book for the last 5 years. She remembers several things about the book, but she knows she can recognize it by its cover. Everyone in the group has tried to find this book at some point and today was my turn. I created a link from the Advanced Search results page to another page displaying all the cover images from those same books. Yippy!! Now in just a couple of minutes, my friend can find the book she's been looking for.

It seems that all enhancements to FictionDB come from someone's need to get the same data in a different way. Hopefully, my friend's request can help you find the books you've been looking for :)

Authors Behaving Badly

2006-06-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

I tend to spend a lot of time on the internet trolling for information, mostly for FictionDB but sometimes just because. I visit quite a few author sites and blogs as you can imagine. What always amazes me is the way some people behave on the internet. In some ways the internet is very anonymous -- you can browse without anyone knowing what you're doing or where you're going. But in other ways, the internet is very public. Take for example a recent rant I found by an author in a blog. The author was upset about a book of hers being sold on eBay. She was obviously furious since every other word was of the four-letter variety. While she may have had cause to be upset, was the internet the right place for her to vent? Would she have spoken the same thing in front of the annual RWA convention? I seriously doubt it! Copies of her blog will forever be available in some form on the internet and new readers interested in her work will probably see this rant. For me, I wouldn't want to read a book by someone who spoke like this let alone wrote it down for the world to read. I would assume that if writing is your occupation, you could get your point across just as successfully without using such extreme profanity. The scariest thing of all is that this author is a high school teacher.

The author has lost a potential reader in me and I'm sure I'm not alone. Now I am not opposed to free speech, far from it, but writing is a business. The goal of most authors on the web is to promote themselves and their books. Many authors are always professional and gracious in their communication no matter how they really feel. They'll probably retain and acquire more readers than someone who throws hissy fits. Over the years I have seen other authors behaving badly and I've always wondered if it affects their sales at all. Maybe it doesn't. After all, the bulk of the buying public doesn't spend a lot of time reading author blogs. Most of these authors behaving badly are midlist authors who come and go frequently, so it's hard to tell if it's the writing quality or not. Some readers may be able to completely separate the author's personality and behavior from their reading experience, but I can't. I don't even like meeting my favorite authors because I will hear their speaking voice when I read their book rather than their writing voice. Authors behaving badly may entertain me on some level, but they will never get me to buy their books...

Never Say Never

2006-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

You've heard the old adage -- never say never. Well, it's true. Every time I've said "I'll never do ____ with FictionDB", I've had to eat my words. I usually say "Never" when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed with enhancements that need to be made. Then, when things die down again, I start looking around for new things. Now, most of the enhancements don't require a huge time commitment. It's usually just some programming. When I want data enhancements, then the time factor really kicks in. That's why I say "Never" to those requests that require major changes to the structure of the data.

Then along comes some technological advance that allows me to rethink my original "Never" position. Then I start telling myself, "See it wouldn't take that long." And then it happens. Well, it happened this month and ta da -- FictionDB has the publishing history of the books on the site.

On the bottom of the book detail page, you'll now see the recent (post-ISBN) publishing history for each title. You'll see whether it's been reissued, been reissued in another format, or been reissued in an anthology. Of course, with any undertaking this big, there are going to be glitches. The data is not complete for every book in the database -- that will take time. But in the meantime, let us know what you think of the new data.

Reviews -- Do they really influence readers?

2006-04-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

FictionDB doesn't review books. Why? There are so many sites out there already who do a pretty good job of reviewing new releases. We do, however, provide links to over 60,000 reviews. Which brings me to the point of this post.

A review is just one person's opinion about a book. We all have different tastes, hot buttons, and ideas about what constitutes a great read. I've read reviews for years, but a single review rarely influences my purchase of a book. What does influence me is volume. If 5 reviews say the book is great and one says don't bother, I am more willing to try it.

This past week, I added RT's reviews to the FictionDB database. As I was going through them, I noticed that they had given one of my favorite Regencies 2 stars. This is a book that I have given to many people who have all loved it. The book is Lord St. Claire's Angel by Donna Simpson. RT's reviews are only 2 or 3 lines which is why you won't see them as review buttons . Given their brevity, it is often difficult to determine the reason for the rating. This gets back to using a single review source. Several other sites loved this book as much I did, so looking at a variety of reviews gives a better idea as to the quality of the book. I also tend to look at who is reviewing the book. There are some reviewers who I always disagree with -- we just have different taste in books. I think in the case of Lord St. Claire's Angel, the RT reviewer didn't think the hero's actions were acceptable for the time. I didn't get this impression at all. The setting of the book is a country estate. If we were talking about behavior in the middle of a ball in London during the season, I'd be much more of a stickler. But even if this were one of my hot buttons, I wouldn't downgrade a book this far -- I certainly didn't for the Samantha Saxon books that did hit my hot button. A good story and great characters can overcome almost anything!

So, can a single review really influence buying behavior? Let's hope not!

That's why you'll see links to several review sites on FictionDB. We've now made reviews searchable. Visit our Advanced Search page to search by review site, rating and more.

Awards! Awards! and More Awards!

2006-03-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Tis the season for awards. They're certainly all over the Tv and the news. What was the best _____ of 2005? I'm always entertained by awards and how different my tastes are from the actual winners. We've included awards on FictionDB for awhile, but without much focus. That has just changed!

We've added all the major awards for all four genres. There are obviously a million awards given to books, so we've stuck with the majors from each genre. To access the new awards area of FictionDB, you can visit the Advanced Search page or click on the Awards link from an author page. There are several search options to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Awards aren't always given to the best book, but you may just find a few new authors to try...

What are my books REALLY worth?

2006-03-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

I used to be a book collector until the day I ran out of space. I'd track down an author's complete backlist and stack them on a shelf somewhere. I'd get around to them eventually.

Before the likes of Amazon and eBay, I used to locate hard-to-find books the old-fashioned way -- I drove from store to store. But this could take quite awhile. No matter how difficult to locate, I knew I'd find it eventually. Now, of course, with so many people selling books online, those little gems are a lot harder to find in stores, but they're only a click away on the internet. I picked up Mary Balogh's complete backlist last year in a couple of weeks -- this would have taken me years on my own!

The problem was I kept finding new authors and I couldn't read them all fast enough. Something had to give. Since I don't reread books, the books I'd already read were the obvious choice to get rid of. I knew many of them were supposedly worth a lot of money, but which ones? Well, now I can find out!

FictionDB will now show you the used price of all the books you've organized in My Bookshelf, My Archive, and My Wishlist. Click Here for the direct link or go to My Account and then to Value My Books.

Some books I thought were worth something aren't and vice versa. It sure was fun having a look. I have a new reading strategy now -- read the expensive ones and sell them :)

Let us know if you find a diamond in the rough!

New vs. Used -- That same old story

2006-01-28T10:07:00.000-08:00

I was asked recently how much money I spend each month on books. The answer was $5.00-$10.00. Given that I buy 30-40 books each month, I obviously don't buy new. I almost felt bad about it for a minute, but then I got over it...

I've read countless articles on this topic on the internet. The authors don't get recognition or royalties from used books, blah, blah, blah. If the publishing industry's royalty model is broken, is it my responsibility as a reader to fix it? Absolutely not! You don't hear GM or Honda complaining that consumers are not buying their products new. They've already factored that into their business model. It seems to me that authors should take up the issue with their publisher instead of trying to make readers feel guilty. Frankly, they should be happy someone wants to read their book.

Given that I never have trouble finding any book I want used, someone is buying those books new. There are some people who don't like reading anything but a brand new book and I say great! It ensures I get the book I want that much quicker!

I am lucky enough to live in Southern California where a tremendous amount of books are available used in Like New condition for $0.25-$0.50. These books are made available through library book sales. I am a huge supporter of libraries. When I started reading at the tender age of 3, my parents couldn't afford to buy me 15 books a week. But they could take me to the library where I could check out my 15 books absolutely free! Maybe this is why I'm unwilling to pay a lot of money for books. 20 years later when I could afford to buy books new, it just seemed like a waste of money to me. I would much rather give my money to the Library Friends who support those kids who can't afford to buy new books. It's a win-win situation and the MBA in me loves the practicality.

Hooray for libraries!

New Year -- New Features

2006-01-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

Several new features went online in the last couple of days. We hope you'll check them out and let us know what you think.

One of the joys of going to the bookstore is browsing all the new book covers. Well, we have created a similar environment here at FictionDB. From the New Releases page you can click on Cover Gallery and be taken to a page displaying all the new covers for a given month. Cover galleries now exist for new releases and new in paperback releases.

I tend to add to My Wishlist from the New Releases pages as the books become available. Sometimes I forget whether I've added the new month's titles to My Wishlist. Or sometimes I think I've added a book to My Bookshelf but I really haven't. Now I can catch all the discrepancies easily.

Meet our new icon:

If you are logged in to your FictionDB account, you will see these checkmarks throughout the site. They indicate that the book is on My Bookshelf, in My Archive, or on My Wishlist. I have been going through all my favorite authors and making sure I haven't missed any of their books. Luckily only a few have slipped through :)

Like to request a book be added to the site? Click Here to suggest a book. We'll do our best to get the title added in the next update.

We will also be updating our printed reference guides within the next couple of weeks. Check Here to find out if the new books are available.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading!

Nitpicking habits

2005-12-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

Recently I've discovered that I have a huge pet peeve. It has been growing for some time without me even realizing it. Everyone has that one little thing that will completely throw them out of a story and may even stop them from finishing the book. I've always said that a good writer could get around some of that stuff, but now I'm not so sure....

I finished Samantha Saxon's latest book the other day, The Lady Killer. This book embodies my frustration with many authors who attempt to write in the Regency period. I know, it's not a new complaint, but lately it's been driving me nuts! Titles and forms of address. Now, I was willing to cut this author some slack with her first book. After all, everyone makes mistakes. But she didn't fix the errors with the second book and the excerpt from the third book shows even more. This author states that she is a member of RWA. Did none of her author friends read her book and pick up on this? This author shows talent and I really wanted to like her books, but every time Lady Purvill or Lady Appleton entered the scene, I lost it.

I started to wonder why this bothers me so much. After all, it's just a book. Why not just toss it and move on? The answer is: I feel cheated. I expect an author to do their research and I want to be able to trust that the historical pieces of a book are accurate. If an author isn't willing to research something as easy as titles and forms of address (the best titles site), how can I trust that they did their research on anything else? That's what irks me. I like to learn about history by reading fiction with a strong sense of place and time. There are some great romance novelists out there who make this look easy. Unfortunately too many of them aren't willing to do the legwork.

Hopefully, this trend doesn't continue and I can happily read and learn at the same time....

November Site Update Completed

2005-11-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

We have just completed the November update.

So what's new this month? We've added reviews from several new sites including ARomanceReview.com and ChickLitBooks.com. Later this month, the book detail page will list all the reviews available for a particular book.

As usual, we've added around 500 new books to the database. In browsing through the upcoming books, I'm really looking forward to several. Visit our New Relaeases page and find some great books to read this winter!

Using Barcode Readers with FictionDB

2005-08-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

I will do just about anything to speed up a process. In my corporate days I was the annoying person always coming up with new ways to do something better, faster, more efficient... I drove the change-averse people nuts! Well, you get the picture. A couple of days ago I bought OmniPage 15, the software that I use to convert covers to text. Scansoft, the software company, just loves me. Whenever they send me an e-mail that they have a new version, I'm the first person buying it. Here's why. I scan over 1000 covers a month. The new software will save me 15 seconds per cover. Not much for one cover but that's over 4 hours per month, 48 hours for the year. Well worth the $100 pricetag!

I have now scanned a significant percentage of the romance covers. Since I buy the books that I scan, I can't just buy a box of books knowing that I'll probably need to scan a large percentage of them. I needed a quick way to determine whether I should buy the book or not. Technology is great. Whenever I have an idea, there's usually a solution. I had received the new Treo 650 cell phone for Christmas last year (I created the FictionDB Mobile site just for my new phone). I learned I could buy a tiny barcode scanner that would plug into my phone. Awesome! I could now whip out my phone, scan a barcode and know whether I should buy the book.

Of course, this got me thinking about other ways I could use a barcode reader. I came up with lots of ways to increase my throughput using a scanner, but I didn't want to use the one on my phone. I wanted one attached to my computer, but I wanted something cheap. eBay to the rescue. I bought a CueCat barcode reader for $15. You may remember Radio Shack was giving these away for free several years ago. If you want to buy one make sure you get one that has been MODIFIED. Most eBay sellers put this in their description.

So what does this all mean for you? Well, if you're like me and want to catalog your 4000+ book collection, the thought of entering all those books into FictionDB seems like a nightmare. If you collect by author, this isn't so difficult. You can add an author's complete backlist with just one click. But what if you have lots of onesy-twosy books? Enter them with our new Barcode Scanner page. Just scan the barcode that starts with 978. For mass market paperbacks this is usually inside the front cover. For hardcovers and trade paperbacks, it is on the back cover. Not all barcodes are in our database, but a large percentage of mass market paperbacks are available. Books in hardcover that have not been released in paperback are also available.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

The New Look

2005-08-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

We hope you like the new look of FictionDB. We are always looking for ways to improve our visitors' experience with our site and we believe the new site offers significant improvements over the old design. The new design is also more simplistic. The old site incorporated many graphics that took quite a while to download. For our users without high speed access, you should notice a significant improvement in page speed.

Why was the redesign necessary?

I am probably FictionDB’s most active user. I have over 4000 books catalogued and use the site as a daily reference tool. Every time I have a “If only FictionDB could do this….” moment, I write it down. Many of these were not possible with the old site design. The biggest limiting factor was the left hand navigation bar. The bar took up almost 2 inches of prime data real estate. I would look at that bar and covet that space. FictionDB is a data driven site and the more data we can make available, the better. Unfortunately, under the old design, the data was getting smashed together and wrapping onto multiple lines making it really hard to read. So I wanted to consolidate all the navigation at the top of the page. A left nav bar is not any more accessible after you scroll down from the first page.

Give us your comments on the new design.

Like anything new, it always seems strange at first, but then you get used to it and can’t remember what the old way was like. I have been living with the new design for several weeks now and have found it easy to use. If you have a different experience, we’d love to hear from you. Obviously we can’t make every change that is requested, but when many people have the same suggestion, the item is often quickly implemented if possible. We are currently looking for ways to allow visitors to change the font size they see. The new font on the data pages is not any smaller than the old font, but there is a perception that it is.

New Features

So what are some of the new features? Well, the biggest addition is the sorting you’ll now find on many of the pages. You can sort by date published, title, and author. We’ve also added several new search items like a search for continuing characters. Other additions are on the book detail page: Paperback release date and mulitauthor series.

A big thanks to our redesign team!

The site was designed by Vivian Lund of electric-webs.com and we think she did a fabulous job. My neighbor, Alix Morehouse, drew all the great characters you see sprinkled throughout the site. Without the creative expertise of these two women, FictionDB would be a purely text site!

As always, we are looking to make the site more useful, so if you have suggestions or comments, please let us know at Kelly@fictiondb.com.

FictionDB and Literary Works

2005-07-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

We are often asked if we include literary fiction on FictionDB. The answer is a somewhat emphatic "NO". You will find a few sprinkled throughout the database, but we have made no effort to include them.

I was at a book sale recently -- one of those where you wait in line for 3 hours before it opens. I stood next to a college English professor and eventually the subject came around to what we read. She, of course, was appalled by my choice of reading. I proudly read romance novels. She then went down the track of "well maybe you should read some really GOOD books, like ...." This always infuriates me and I am nothing if not opinionated and vocal about it. I am of the opinion that if you have to read a book about the book just to understand what the author is really trying to say, reading the "classic" work is a waste of time. Horrors!! Every high school English teacher's worst nightmare! To me reading is reading and any kind of reading is a good thing. I'm still thinking of going on Jeopardy and seeing how well I can do with my "romance novel" education.

My hairdresser is taking an English class right now. You know, the kind where you have to write a five paragraph paper on the book you just read. This always struck me as an odd idea. How am I to be graded? On the quality of my writing or on the content? I believe it always comes down to the quality of writing because how can someone else tell me what I got out of something I read? All the scholars in the world still can't tell you what someone who has been dead for 400 years really meant. Well, they think they can, but I still disagree.

When I was an undergrad business major, I took several upper-division history classes because I love history. What I learned in a hurry was that I wasn't being graded on my knowledge of history, I was being graded on the quality of my writing. Since I am not a great writer, my grades suffered and I stopped taking the classes. Unfortunately, GPA mattered to the companies I was looking at as potential employers.

This was so strange to me. In the English class, I was told I was being graded on the content of something that was fuzzy at best -- my interpretation of a novel. And in the history class, I wasn't being graded on history but my writing skills.

It was right about this time that my aversion to literary works crystallized. I rebelled against the academic community and their definition of quality literature. In general, if a book is released as a trade paperback -- the industry term for quality paperbacks -- I won't read it. I've found that I just don't enjoy those sorts of plots, characterizations, etc. There are plenty of websites out there who specialize in this sort of fiction, but we're not one of them.

I recently returned from Book Expo America where the publishers are promoting their upcoming releases. Genre fiction is not well-represented at BEA, but a few sneak through. Tess Gerritsen wrote a wonderful blog article on her experiences at BEA with the literary book-of-the-moment.

I am firmly of the opinion that everyone should read what they like. If you like to read literary fiction, great! If you like horror, great! Just don't tell me what I SHOULD be reading. I don't read to admire great prose. I read to be entertained.

And so I delcare my independence!

Happy 4th of July!

July Site Update Completed

2005-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

The July update has just been completed and it's been a busy month for us here. We started June at Book Expo America in New York City. Check out all the new books we brought back for our subscribers. Free Books We met lots of authors and enjoyed ourselves immensely :)

We've also added over 2000 series romance covers within the last couple of months. If you've never clicked on Cover Gallery on the author detail page, you're in for a treat. If you're anything like me, the pictures of those old romances really bring back good memories of romance reading days gone by. I even found my favorite Harlequin Romance by looking through the covers -- Charlotte Lamb's Desert Barbarian.

We've just started on a new website design. Within the next couple of months, you will see the results. Don't worry, we aren't planning to drastically change the way the site works. We'll just be refreshing the look and adding additional data to some of the pages. It's going to be a big undertaking, so be patient if we don't respond to your e-mails as quickly as we should.

That's it for now, but I'm hoping to be better about blogging more often. How do those authors find the time to write??

RT BookClub Convention in St. Louis

2005-05-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

We just returned from the RT BookClub convention in St. Louis. We had such a great time! Thanks to all of our subscribers who stopped out booth by to say hi. Your continued support means a lot to us.

The people we met are the best things about attending an event like this. When you can connect a name or product to a real live person, it opens up your mind to all sorts of new experiences.

First, the authors. While it's great to stop by the book fair and say hi to your faves, it's much more fun to get to know them as people. Our next door neighbors in the hotel were authors Holly Fuhrmann (Jacobs) and Erin McCarthy. We met on the first day outside the elevator which also just happened to be outside our rooms. We had a strategy session on how to sleep without the elevator bell driving us nuts. We ran into them for the rest of the weekend and even ended up giving Holly a ride to the airport. Here's what's so great about this: I don't read the small Silhouette Romance line, but after meeting Holly, who is hilarious, I read one of her books on the flight home and really enjoyed it. Of course, she's an award-winning author (scoring two awards at the convention ... go Holly!), but I can honestly say I would never have tried her books if I hadn't met her in person. For a list of Holly's books at FictionDB click here .

Next, the vendors. We were lucky enough to be set up between two great groups of people. On one side was Nancy who had the most beautiful shawls for sale. She had come in all the way from Oklahoma for the convention. It was fun to hear her talk about her on-the-road life as an exhibitor at trade shows. On our other side was Book Soundtracks. You may have seen their ad on the back cover of the April RT BookClub magazine. Again something I never would have considered if I hadn't seen it. Book Soundtracks are CD's you can play while reading. Sounds simple enough. Why not just turn on the radio? But after listening to their CD's for 4 days, I can tell you they did a magnificent job creating the music to set the mood while you read, just like a movie soundtrack. Trammell, Felicia and Ken are music professionals from Nashville who decided to turn their considerable talents to creating music for romance readers. You can hear clips of their music on their website BookSoundtracks.com. We even have several Romance Soundtracks to give away to subscribers (more details on that in our June newsletter)

Last but certainly not least, readers and booksellers. Since I happen to be both, it was a chance to chat with some kindred spirits. I received all sorts of wonderful ideas for enhancements to FictionDB. I'll be putting all the suggestions to good use in the next couple of months. I was also able to meet people who I had "known" online but never met in person. Plus, I attended several sessions geared to readers and booksellers and really enjoyed the lively discussions.

I also had the chance to sneak away for an afternoon at the St. Louis Book Fair. I stood in line for 4 hours in the freezing cold to get first dibs on some treasures. Saint Art, my husband, manned the booth back at the convention. What a guy!

Overall, a really great trip!!

In the beginning...how FictionDB really started

2005-03-23T14:32:00.000-08:00

I am often asked why I created FictionDB. Why did I set out to create a database filled with all sorts of information about 150,000 books? Why would anyone in their right mind start on a project that could never be finished and would always need constant updating?

Well, the answer is this: I didn't decide to do any of this consciously.

I have always been a listmaker. I like lists of things. I have always kept track of every book I've read, movie I've seen. Well, you get the picture. If you work in a corporate environment, then you've taken the Myers-Briggs personality assessment in some form. This is a fascinating theory, one of which I happen to be obsessed with. But the most interesting thing about the test is that you really learn why you are the way you are. I am an ENTJ -- the final J makes me an incurable listmaker. So it's no wonder the database began to grow and grow.

When I got my first home computer in 1991, I immediately found a use for it. I could keep track of my reading. Wow, $2500 for a place to store my lists. Such a bargain! I am one of those people who must read an author's books in the order they were written. It doesn't matter whether the books are related or not, I must start at the first book. It's just a little habit of mine, one I am currently trying to break. So when I found a new author, I would always have to figure out what other books they had written. This could be a real pain in the pre-internet days. So I got an idea. If I kept track of all the new romances released each month, then when I needed to glom a new author I would already have all the information ready to go! Now to most people this would seem absurd. Keep track of over 150 new releases each month on the off-chance that I would need them in the future? But remember, I am an incurable listmaker. I already spent all my free time either reading or in book stores, so this was just another extension of my passion for books. A rather time-consuming hobby, but a hobby nonetheless.

So on it went for several years. By 1995 I had created the romance portion of FictionDB. I had diligently updated the database to include over 40,000 romance novels. The funny thing was I loved every second of it. Even though FictionDB would be my own personal database for almost 10 years, I never thought twice about the countless hours I spent on it. I would sit in my local used bookstores and write down every book I could find that wasn't in my database. Even though I knew I would never read most of the books I was entering, the creation itself gave me great satisfaction.

In 1999, FictionDB became available to the world. Earlier that year, I was approached by a college student looking to create a book website for a class she was taking. She had heard about my database from another person on one of the mailing lists. I gave her a copy of my data and I hope she got a good grade, because it gave me another idea. How hard could creating a website be? There were thousands of them! I had been a computer programmer many years before, albeit a mainframe one, so I felt up to the task. Once I figured out the basics, it was a breeze. I had a deadline of Thanksgiving to get it up and running as I was expecting my first son and wanted the site finished by his birth. So one week before he was born, FictionDB.com was born too.

And that's the story of Kelly and her database.

Welcome to the FictionDB.com Blog!

2005-03-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

We thought we'd try out blogging as a way to keep FictionDB.com users up to date on our site and our reference guides. Who knows how frequently we'll be publishing, but what a great way to keep us connected to our community!