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Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

idreambooks.com

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Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#11

Post by aw3c2 »

random honest critical 5 minute feedback:

The reviews are below the fold on my 1050px height. I wondered what was so special about the site before randomly scrolling.

The justified text with the font for the description is hard to read and ugly.

Encoding issues in http://idreambooks.com/newbooks/140-Drift ? Lots of issues on other entries too. Did you scrape other sites for this, not using a legal and well-formed source...?

Thumb-up/-down icons are pretty much not disginguishable for me. Looked like rotated stars on first glance.

The "overall rating" is not intuitive, I only noticed it when I checked what else was on the page. Rottentomatoes is not better for either though, I always have to think what they might mean before I get it (the symbols).

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#12

Post by rhizome »

danso wrote: post #8

Very cool. One feature that RT has that you don't have yet is the ability to see all reviews by a reviewer/institution. Actually, being able to see all books by the author would be especially useful. And it's a view more particularly essential than it is for RT (since an author has a more singularly important role in the quality of a work, compared to the actors/studios/directors/writers/producers/financial backing t…

To put a slightly finer point on it: sites like this are incredibly relational. Everything (almost) should be clickable for a collection view.

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#13

Post by rahooligan »

lpolovets wrote: post #10

Nice UI! Two minor comments: 1) Sometimes the same book shows up in different columns (e.g. Bestsellers and Recent Fiction). This feels redundant (and possibly unintentional?) 2) There's a Sign Up link. What does signing up do? Is it to write reviews? Subscribe to new books? Something else?

The redundancy is unintentional...need to fix. If you sign up, you get to add books to your 'Reading List' (link under book show page image), enter giveaways and receive a newsletter with top rated books. We plan on adding more features...

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#16

Post by lpolovets »

rahooligan wrote: post #13
lpolovets wrote: post #10

Nice UI! Two minor comments: 1) Sometimes the same book shows up in different columns (e.g. Bestsellers and Recent Fiction). This feels redundant (and possibly unintentional?) 2) There's a Sign Up link. What does signing up do? Is it to write reviews? Subscribe to new books? Something else?

The redundancy is unintentional...need to fix. If you sign up, you get to add books to your 'Reading List' (link under book show page image), enter giveaways and receive a newsletter with top rated books. We plan on adding more features...

Sounds great; just signed up. You should advertise the benefits on your Sign Up page (and/or homepage).

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#17

Post by rahooligan »

danso wrote: post #8

Very cool. One feature that RT has that you don't have yet is the ability to see all reviews by a reviewer/institution. Actually, being able to see all books by the author would be especially useful. And it's a view more particularly essential than it is for RT (since an author has a more singularly important role in the quality of a work, compared to the actors/studios/directors/writers/producers/financial backing t…

We will be adding sort/search by author/reviewer as we grow the db.

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#18

Post by lpolovets »

rahooligan wrote: post #13
lpolovets wrote: post #10

Nice UI! Two minor comments: 1) Sometimes the same book shows up in different columns (e.g. Bestsellers and Recent Fiction). This feels redundant (and possibly unintentional?) 2) There's a Sign Up link. What does signing up do? Is it to write reviews? Subscribe to new books? Something else?

The redundancy is unintentional...need to fix. If you sign up, you get to add books to your 'Reading List' (link under book show page image), enter giveaways and receive a newsletter with top rated books. We plan on adding more features...

Also, Amazon links would be great. You got me interested in a few books, and I'm ready to buy them. The site should definitely get an affiliate fee for that.

Re: Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books

#20

Post by rahooligan »

afterburner wrote: post #9

Looks nice. Is it possible to have separate categories for Science Fiction and Fantasy? EDIT: Also, you should put the author's name wherever the title is displayed. (eg. in the subgenre pages)

Didn't think you could get more granular than SFF. We tried to group genres together for simplicity. But some users don't seem to be liking that. All genres/categories are currently listed in the dropdown in the header.
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