Hey, so I'm retiring the old thread for the FanFiction Recommendation Engine, and starting this one to engage for a few very specific things:

- First, I am in the preliminary stages of creating a tool that lets you build your own custom ebook out of anything at all. The tool can be found here, but be warned it is the Pre-Alpha version... no styling, no helpful text, just the raw tool.

The Chapter upload expects an HTML document without the HTML or BODY tags, (in other words, just the HTML for the content). At the moment the only "Theme" that works is the basic one, which looks like all other ebooks that you can download from the site. It does, however, let you upload cover art, and upload images to use inline for your stories.

My question is what features would you like to see a tool such as this have? What needs to expanded on?

- Second, I am also in the process of creating a way for authors to control the publication settings for their stories. Right now, my vision for it goes like this:

You create an account on fanfictionrecs.net (which is something that hasn't been turned on yet). In there, you get to "Claim a FF.net Account". This gives you some text to put in your bio (anywhere in the bio). After it is there, you tell the website to crawl it. If the text is in the bio, you claim the account as yours, and tie your FF.net and FFR.net accounts together.

After you have claimed your account, you are given the ability to block your stories from ebook downloads, from search results, or both. You can provide your own custom message for the ebook downloads if you choose to block it, or you can upload your own "Approved" ebook version to substitute for the auto-generated one. This approved version must be in epub format, and will be able to be created using the tool described above.

When that happens, all previous "blocks" for authors that have requested the removal of their content will be removed. It will be up to the authors to block their content if they wish to. But if they do, the user will be notified that the author has blocked it... I'm not going to let authors worsen the user experience and then blame it on my site.

- I am looking into, once accounts have been launched in part two above, creating "VIP" Accounts. A VIP account would be an account tied to an email that has submitted a donation of ANY SIZE in the last year.

VIP Accounts would have several special features available to them, including statistics on ebook downloads of their stories, how often their stories come up in search results, and an approximation of the number of readers that have found their work through the site.

In addition, VIP Accounts would allow users to leave FFR reviews for stories that will appear in results with rating numbers. The idea behind the FFR reviews is that they are supposed to be JUST for other readers, not messages to the author. To that end, you only can submit one review per story, but you can edit it after posting. These reviews will be available in search results for visitors to read before they open a story up.

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So, what does everyone think of these proposed features? Is this the right direction or the wrong direction? Do you see any ways to improve what I've outlined, and do you foresee any issues with what I'm describing?

Also, I would particularly appreciate feedback on what you think of the VIP Accounts. I'm trying really hard to balance between having the website pay for itself and giving a uniform and pleasant user experience. I think what I've outlined does that, but would love to hear other opinions.

There will also be a beta period for each of these new features, which is what the testers is all about. If you are interested, let me know.

Jordan

PS: In case it went unnoticed by someone who wanted it, there is now a feedback option in the navigation for FFR. You can use it for any reason that you would need to contact me directly.

 

I wonder if you have considered offering to integrate with DLP? Your website is very useful, but as I see it, it doesn't seem to get very much traffic and most of the expenses result from server-side activity.

I don't know how it would work practically but I imagine that integration would give both of you more traffic, more donations, and probably reduce cost by unit.

 

That's a possibility. The site is running about 500K-750K page views per month, and in between 600-1000 unique visitors per day.

 

That's actually significantly higher than I thought it would be, but that only helps the argument, really.

 

I think the traffic will increase quite considerably if I add registered accounts, author controls, and reader ratings & reviews. I'm not sure what the traffic will level out at... particularly because it has been slowly but steadily increasing each month, mostly through search results.

 

I'm interested in the idea, and if you need testers you can sign me up.

 

It's good to see the word getting out; it's a very useful tool for newer members of each fandom (though I admit to having found a couple of stories to read as well).

 

Also of note: the advanced search now lets you crudely refine your search by pairing, and exclude results by pairing.

 

that's an interesting option, considering that if i search something on FFN, I get really pissed when a thousand fucking draco and harry stories come up

 

Please be kind to my server when it comes to using this feature. It's completely unoptimized right now, so it's quite the hit on the server to do it.

 

just because everyone assumes I'm a troll, doesn't mean I'm not polite. I really like the idea.

 

Oh no, I meant be kind to the server, as in don't click a bunch of fandoms over and over to make the pairings list reload over and over.

 

okay, thats probably a good thing to clarify, because that sounds like something I would do. You have my word I will not repetitively reload the list and unintentionally crash your server.

 

That's something you might want to fix ASAP.

I approve of this. Congratulations on your traffic. I had no idea you were doing so well.

 

Well... I mean, right now "doing well" means I'm paying about $200/month so that other people can use it.

I'd prefer to not do so well and not have to pay if I could, or get people that use it to pay for it, which is why I was looking at the VIP Accounts...

I am happy people find it so useful.

---------- Post automerged 07-01-2011 at 11:27 AM ---------- Previous post was 06-30-2011 at 04:25 PM ----------

I have added Google +1, Facebook Like, and Delicious Save buttons to every page. I think this site is finally ready for prime-time, so I'll go into promotion mode as I finish up my features from the OP.

Also, for a funding update, the site is now paying approximately 10% of its monthly costs via advertising, which is better than the 0.75% the first month I had them. I doubt they'll ever pay for everything, but one can hope.

ALSO, I am planning on redesigning the site. If there are any designers that would like to help, I would welcome a more professional eye when it comes to the layout and design. I basically threw the site's current design together in half an hour back in November.

 

I'm not a professional designer but I can tell you right now that light blue isn't a good color to put with white. Medium gray-black, various shades of red, etc all work better.

 

What do you think of this? It's a pretty minimalistic design, with larger fonts, less color, more warm tones, and a wider format. I'm still tweaking a few things...

 

We never did finish talking about integrating my bookmark system into your site. Still interested?

 

Absolutely. It seemed like earlier both you and me didn't have time for projects like this, but my time has freed up a bit.

 

First off I like the site I think it has alot of potential. One thing I suggest is seeing if the search feature could be improved for instance search by something other than story id?

If you're still worried about color scheme later on let me know I'll see if I can dig up my website design materials I had a useful color chart that helped explain things.

Other than that I think the tool and site are looking good; ideas sound good although I don't know why anyone who posts a fanfic would have a problem with someone making an ebook of it.