Promoting books

There is a page at richsoil where paul had a list of books. He is trying to phase it out in favour of the book grid.

Unfortunately the grid is hard to find. It is buried in the books forum. Most regular users probably don't know about it. New users definitely will have a hard time finding it.

The question is then, how can we promote the grid in such a way that user can start looking at it to find excellent permaculture books.

Any suggestions?

have the books bumper sticker go to it instead of the books forum?

have the auto-link for "books" go to it instead of the richsoil page?

banners for "permaculture books"?

How about banners for the book review grid? Big ones and the little square ones?

Currently, the top of the book forum says "click here for the book review grid" - maybe make that a lot bigger?

Maybe each book in the book review grid needs to have a link back to the grid that says something like "this item is part of THIS review grid"

As weird as this may sound. Make a youtube video about it, and a quick description on how it is used.

Find the book you are thinking of purchasing (or loaned from the library), look at the quick rating on the page, click on the rating to take you to a more specific description of the review. It would be best , in my opinion, if clicking on the quick rating opened a new tab/window

paul wheaton wrote:Currently, the top of the book forum says "click here for the book review grid" - maybe make that a lot bigger?

Maybe each book in the book review grid needs to have a link back to the grid that says something like "this item is part of THIS review grid"

The grid should be always on top in the forum, first thread on the forum, is that possible?

for sure the banner on the book forum could be bigger, I hadn't even seen it and I go there often.

In the summary of each book we could have a sort of top link to the grid saying what Paul wrote, and I quoted above: this item is part of THIS review grid

the article at richsoil instead could be edited linking the books in the article to their summaries in the forum.

One thing maybe could be even, I know Paul has got very little time, that Paul gave some acorns to the books he's put on the list, the acorns could be just in the article, if Paul doesn't want to have his name on the grid. If we look at the attention people put in post's or threads started by Paul its easy to understand that if Paul started using the acorn scale on his article, and the artcile was snazzed up I think the grid would get more attention and be viewed more.

Just some thoughts

Please don't do stickies.

It is true: I should not review books at this time. The function of permies is to be a community, not "the paul show".

I think that the recipe we started is awesome. I think that soon we will see authors/publishers tripping over each other to give lots of books to reviewers. And then we will have reviews for a dozen other categories. And then we will have a huge link on the home page for "reviews". I think that in time, these review grids will be of huge value.


HOWEVER! We are missing a critical component. The current review velocity is very low. We need lots more reviews for lots more categories. We need to get our velocity up, and we need to shoot for a higher velocity every week.

I made it bigger.

Maybe if we have the book summary as special threads where users can easily post their review and visually select the rating like at amazon.

Adrien Lapointe wrote:Maybe if we have the book summary as special threads where users can easily post their review and visually select the rating like at amazon.

I really like this idea. I think a lot more people would review things if it was more of a form that they fill out that generates the actual review thread. There could be an 'add a review' button on the review grid pages and on the specific review threads that would take you to a page that you would fill out.

I remember reading somewhere that the more choices you give someone the less likely they are to make a decision. Just asking people to write a review thread is like giving them too many choices: How do I word the 'x out of 10 acorns' line, do I keep it basic, try to get fancy and use graphics, etc. vs. I just click on how many acorns I give the book then write a paragraph in the box. I know it seems silly but human beings are so very fickle about what will constitute too much effort or too much hassle especially when it comes to interacting on the internet.

LOVE the idea of a "add a review" button with the ability to choose how many acorns.

it could be very similar aesthetically to the rating forums thing.