Hi there,
Nearly June already, huh? Jeez Louise — I barely have time to keep up nowadays. It feels like just as soon as one newsletter is out the door I’m starting work on another.
We are delighted to see plenty of newcomers joining BookRoar once again. Welcome one and all. Take a seat, grab a coffee, and buckle up for some great reads coming your way. In our last newsletter, we mentioned some helpful tips and tricks to ensure each of you get the best out of your BookRoar experience, so please Click Here to read all about it. Most importantly, (and I can’t stress this enough) don’t forget to move the Credits you acquire onto your books — we can’t offer your books out unless you tell us which ones you want reviewed. BookRoar is a place where we hope each of you will get out exactly what you put in, so don’t wait around too long before selecting a book from the Review Pool.
Right, let’s jump into this month’s news.
Suspension of Credit Sales
We have always been conscious about how many Credits we have circulating in BookRoar’s ecosystem at any one time, which is why we limit the amount we sell through our Ko-Fi page (shout-out to those on the waiting list). Fewer Credits going around means fewer books are available for selection, which increases everyone’s chances of being selected. This, we hope, will help us deliver a better service for everyone.
As such, we have temporarily suspended Credit sales for a short time. We expect the benefit of this to be felt soon, and we hope many of you will see a better return from BookRoar in the coming months. So if you haven’t been selected yet, please stick with us as we seek to optimize and improve BookRoar’s services for everyone.
BookRoar does not currently operate for profit and every penny we make goes back into the site and contributes towards its ongoing development. We are still accepting donations, so if you want to support the work we do then please visit our Ko-Fi page and send us a tip. Alternatively, a free way to support us is to post a review on TrustPilot — trust us, this simple act goes a long way, as it helps us appear higher up on search engines and attracts more members to our site.
An Outpouring of Love (Part Two)
Ohh, everytime we see the word ‘BookRoar’ posted on social media it fills us with a mixture of nervousness, nausea, and excitement. If you have been with us for some time then you’ll know what I’m talking about — it’s the same feeling you get when you recieve a new email from us titled ‘Review Awaiting Approval’. Like you, we rush to see what has been said, whether it is good or bad.
Well, this month we were tagged in a really lovely blog post from Harmony. We feel that she has really captured the essence of what BookRoar is all about and what we aim to do, and we can’t thank Harmony enough for this lovely post about her experience using BookRoar. Please head over to her site and have a read, and if you feel like it please post a comment. Posts like this are really lovely to read as they let us know whether or not we are on the right track in what we aim to do.
Your BookRoar ‘Blacklist’
OK, ‘blacklist’ is probably not the best word to describe this, but it is what we’ve been calling it in the office and it is what we’re sticking with. We promise it is not as sinister as it sounds!
You see, every time you read and review a book on BookRoar, our database ensures that the author of that book will not be offered one of yours in return. Likewise, you will never see any of your reviewer’s books on BookRoar from the moment they select you. Simple, huh, and a very effective way of preventing review swaps from happening. But what if authors have interacted and reviewed one another outside of BookRoar? How can you be sure you don’t select them, or that they don’t select you?
We are, of course, unable to track review swaps if part of the review occurs through another platform, so to resolve this we are introducing the BookRoar ‘blacklist’ to further protect you from accidental review swaps. The idea is simple: tell us about all the books and authors you have reviewed or have been reviewed by on Amazon, and we’ll see to it that you won’t be able to select one another’s books by adding you to each other’s ‘blacklist’. Think of it as an extension to the existing database that helps to keep you within Amazon’s Community Guidelines.
So that’s it. The BookRoar ‘blacklist’. Quick, effective, and not at all as frightening as it sounds.
Improvements to the Genre Filtering Tool
We previously mentioned that many people were only seeing a small selection of the books we had available on BookRoar, and that using the Genre Filtering Tool was the best way to help you find different choices. Please use it: genre filtering is the best and quickest way to help you find a read which is more suitable to your preferences.
You may notice that when you next go into the Review Pool, the Genre Filtering Tool will open itself automatically, encouraging you to delve deeper amongst our bookshelves. It is extremely simple to use — simply select the genres you like to read and click Search. BookRoar will then hone in on the books available to you. We hope that this will ensure a wider selection of books are selected and that it will take each of you less time to find your next BookRoar read.
Competition Results
We are still running our 3 Credit giveaway which has been ongoing throughout May. Just to remind you of the rules, for each review you submit to us at BookRoar, you get one entry into the competition. The more reviews you submit then the greater your chances are of winning. We have tried numerous competitions over the past few months and this has been by far the most effective way of driving review turnaround and book selection, so we’ll aim to run it again soon.
To give you all a bit more time to get those last minute reviews in, we will now close the competition and announce the winner on the 4th June. Keep your eyes peeled on your emails first and then our social media channels to see if you are the winner.
I think that is it from me. Stay awesome, y’all. We’ll be back next month!
The BookRoar Team
