BookTour Blog

Feature Update 7/23/08

Over the past few weeks we've migrated our entire server setup to new web services (Amazon S3 and EC2). In general, you'll find the site to be much faster, although you shouldn't notice too much difference. That is, except for the new features and bug fixes we've made, including:
• You can now find authors who are based in your area right on the front page.
• The front page now loads all at once; sub-front pages are now entirely customized for their genre. Additionally, short descriptions accompany each feature on the front page.
• Venue search has been sped up, and now only shows venues with upcoming events.
• It's now possible to access venue pages without the "/show" section. For instance, http://booktour.com/places/show/13709-Sawyer-Free-Library and http://booktour.com/places/13709-Sawyer-Free-Library are identical.
• The boxes that float on top of faded-out BookTour pages (e.g. from clicking the More Stores link on an author's page) have been redone from scratch. Not only do they now work properly in Internet Explorer (finally!), but because there's no fade-out animation, they appear instantly.
• A bug that caused new author widgets to not display in Internet Explorer 6 has been fixed.
• A bug that caused a few authors' RSS feeds to return error pages has been fixed.
• A bug that caused custom widget pages to update incorrectly has been fixed.
• A bug that didn't redirect correctly to the custom search page has been fixed.
• A bug that broke iCalendar feeds has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented about 1% of users from seeing the front page has been fixed.
• A bug that made pins' shadows appear without the pins themselves on place search result pages has been fixed.
• A bug that briefly caused search results to fail has been fixed.
• A broken link on the master feature list page has been fixed.

Feature Update 7/5/08

The past few days have brought the following improvements:
• There have been substantial speedups to author and venue pages.
• A bug that caused some users to see an error page when they clicked the "More" link in the lower-right of the front page has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented about 0.5% of event pages from loading correctly has been fixed.
• A bug that caused a few disambiguation pages to be formatted incorrectly has been fixed.
• A bug that caused new-style author widgets to have a small gap between the last event and the bottom of the widget (when loaded in certain browsers and when there was only a small number of events in the widget) has been fixed.

Feature Update 7/2/08

New today:
• You no longer have to know HTML color codes to customize author widgets. On any author widget page, select Custom from the pop-up menu, and then click a text box to change the corresponding color.
• A bug that caused some people's browsers to crash (!) when loading the event-adding page has been fixed.

Feature Update 7/1/08

The major feature news is a totally revised version of author widgets. Here are the improvements we've made:
• Author widgets now expand vertically to fit the number of events they're showing, so they're never too tall (wasting space) or too short (cutting off important events)
• You can customize the number of events your widget shows
• You can customize the width of author widgets so they fit properly on your webpage
• The unseemly white border and the lines between events are now gone on author widgets
• Your widget's color scheme is now totally customizable; you can choose from classic and modern styles, or change the colors entirely to make the widget blend in even better with your webpage (a much-requested feature)
• You can preview the appearance of your widget right on our new widget-design page, and see how tweaks you make affect the widget's appearance in real time
• Author widget data is now totally synchronized with author RSS feed data, so it doesn't matter which format you use to get your BookTour events on your own website
• Widgets load faster than ever

To take advantage of these new features, just visit the page for the authors whose widget you want and click "Follow this author on my website."

Old widgets will continue to work, but won't have any of these new features. Give the new widget a try today!

Feature Update 6/12/08

Major new in the past few days:
• You can now email any event on the site to a friend using the "Email to a friend" feature under the event on an author's page. The feature works whether you're logged in or not (although if you're logged in there's one less field to fill in).
• A preliminary version of predictive searching is now present in all search boxes. Type in a few letters of most authors' names, and you'll see a list of the authors that match.
• The Advanced Search and Custom RSS features have now been integrated into a single feature at http://booktour.com/events/custom_feed. In addition, after performing a search, it is possible to preserve the parameters of that search as an RSS feed by clicking the RSS icon in your browser's address bar on the search result page. Moreover, Advanced Search URLs are now copyable, so if there's a search you want to return to in the future you can simply bookmark it.
• Genre support now permeates virtually every section of the site. The final major revision to achieve this was making the More button for "Authors currently touring everywhere" link to more results for just that genre. Additionally, whenever you're in a section specific to a genre, the genre's name will appear under the BookTour logo (a feature previously restricted to sub-homepages like http://booktour.com/scifi).

And some minor updates:
• Featured authors now exist in all genres
• It is now possible to open "in your area" author links from the front page in new tabs. Previously the way rollovers were implemented prevented pages from opening in new tabs.
• A bug in the title of some RSS feeds has been fixed.
• A spacing bug on the More results page for "Currently in your area" events has been fixed.

Feature Update 6/9/08

New in the past few days:
• Clicking the More link for the "Currently in your area" section now links to an interactive map page with more events. The page automatically loads the genre you're currently exploring; for example, more nearby Mystery events can be found at http://booktour.com/readers/more_events/Mystery.
• In the "Currently in your area" section on genre pages (and the More Events pages described above), events are now split up by how soon in the future they're happening.
• The More link on genre pages described above now appears even for users who are not logged in.
• Links that were broken in some RSS feeds have now been fixed.
• The Home page now links to a fully functional RSS feed.
• A bug that caused clicking the Profile link in the body of the New Ways to Find Events page to redirect to an error page for non-logged-users has been fixed.
• The New Ways to Find Events page has been entirely redesigned.

Feature Update 6/5/08

New features:
• The "Featured author" now blends in more nicely to the main listing.
• The "Currently in your area" and "Authors touring everywhere" columns have been flipped (stay tuned).
• Mousing over one of the rows in the "Currently in your area" listing displays the next event in your area.
• After signing up, the site now redirects you back to the page you were at before you were asked to sign up. (This now works for both signing up and logging in, so there are no "lazy" redirects to the homepage anymore.)

Feature Update 6/4/08

Lots of new features recently:
• Google Earth View updates more frequently. See all upcoming BookTour events on the globe here!
• A bug that caused some dates to incorrectly show up as "tomorrow" has been fixed.
• New genre pages have been added for food, science, and science fiction.
• The "More" link on the front page for nearby events now lists even more events, and displays how many there are.
• Author page loading is now faster.
• The "currently in your area" section now displays cover images for books.
• On genre pages, the "currently in your area" section now only displays authors in that genre who are in your area.
• After logging in, the site now redirects you back to the last page you visited, rather than the homepage.

Adding Events for Anyone

By popular request, it's now popular to add events for any author you know about. No need to rely on spreadsheets, authors, or their publicists—add the event yourself and it'll show up on the site instantly!

The place to go is http://booktour.com/events/add.

Poetry Section Now Online

For all poetry fans: now there's a section of BookTour just for you! Be sure to bookmark http://booktour.com/poetry.

Independents Day:

We love independent bookstores here at BookTour and see them as vital to the continuing success of this project. So it's with great pleasure today that we now include BookSense searches for all books and authors in our database.

What this means: You can now click on the "Independent Bookstores" link under the "Other Stores" tab of each book on BookTour and be directed to a list of independent bookstores in your zip code powered by BookSense, a nationwide directory of independent booksellers.

Try it out. We're way excited.

Feature Update 9/12/07

New this week:
• A bug that didn't show BookTour stories for certain authors has been fixed.
• A bug that caused parts of the Stories page to sometimes appear blank has been fixed.
• All known bugs have been fixed with the Search feature. Work continues on speed and accuracy, but error pages should no longer appear.

Feature Update 9/04/07

The past few days have brought a number of improvements:
• The "nearby events" section of the front page now loads much faster. For certain postal codes, the improvement is as much as 15x.
• Profile pages have been improved. Authors can now choose between which portion of their Profile pages to look at: the author-editing section (the default) or the individual-settings section. In addition, spacing issues have been fixed.
• The Stories page has been redesigned.
• The FAQ has been updated.
• A Section of the site for UK authors has been added.

Feature Update 8/26/07

New today:
• During Place searches, pages now indicate how many results there are and how far through the results you are.
• The Stories section has received a new design.
• BookTour stories now automatically show up on author pages.

Feature Update 8/26/07

New recently:
• A bug that briefly prevented the Stories page from appearing has been fixed.
• The Stories page (http://booktour.com/stories) has been changed to add a New Stories section to the right side.
• The size of text on individual story pages has been increased.
• Disambiguation pages have been added to the site. If more than one author has the same name, their URL will now redirect to a page that lets you choose which one you want to examine. You can also report duplicates from the disambiguation page.

Feature Update 8/21/07

New today:
• A bug that allowed some incorrect postal codes to sign up has been fixed.
• The Master feature list now loads faster.
• There's a new section of the site devoted to stories about book tours: http://booktour.com/stories. If you're an author, just go to your author-editing page to add a story. Anyone can vote on stories, too; on a story's page, just click the "liked" or "disliked" link at the bottom of the page.

Feature Update 8/19/07

New recently:
• A bug that prevented some users' Profile pages from appearing has been fixed.
• The search feature has been partially re-written. Author and Book searches should be moderately faster.
• The algorithm that picks the top six authors for the front page (and sub-front pages) has been tweaked to mix authors more.
• The title of venue pages has been adjusted to differentiate more clearly between stores of the same name.

Feature Update 8/15/07

New today:
• It's no longer possible for a non-logged in user to see no events if their IP address can't be matched to a physical location.
• All Prometheus' authors' tour dates have been added.
• A new widget is available that mirrors the list of authors on the front page. Click the
• The Master List page is now much easier to navigate, with a list of features on the left.

Feature Update 8/14/07

New today:
• The ugly borders around widgets have been eliminated. Finally, they look respectable on sites with non-white backgrounds!
• All upcoming Borders events have been added.

Feature Update 8/13/07

The past few days have brought these improvements:
• The nearby events listings on the front page load faster.
• The front page (and sub-front pages) load faster.
• The FAQ has been updated.
• The wording of author request emails has been changed to indicate that it's possible to get in touch with the requester by replying.
• A bug that briefly prevented authors from adding books has been fixed.

Feature Update 8/8/07

New today:
• A bug that caused about 10 minutes worth of downtime (and error pages) related to our genre back-end transition has been fixed.
• The Business subsection now includes a broader cross-section of business authors.
• The front page now loads faster.

Feature Update 8/7/07

Today brings a complete rewrite of the site's book genre back-end (again). As a result, the following features are now faster:
• The homepage (or RSS feed) for subcategories (approx. 10x speed improvement)
• The Library page and pages linked to from it (approx. 3x speed improvement)
• Author pages that include category listings (approx 20% speed improvement)
The rewrite also makes future speed improvements much easier.

Feature Update 8/6/07

New today:
• The advertising page has been updated to reflect the authors who've previously been featured on the front page.
• The email sent to authors upon signup has been tweaked.
• The All Authors page now links properly to individual authors.
• Auto-location guessing for non-logged-in users has been improved.
• A Home link has been added to the footer.
• A bug that prevented a couple author requests from going through has been fixed.
• For British authors, if a book is not listed on Amazon.com, information is now also looked up on Amazon.co.uk.
• By popular request, referral links now go straight to the main page, rather than taking first-time visitors to the signup page.
• Australians can now sign up for the site.

Feature Update 8/5/07

Today brings several big features. First, the auto-location-guessing has been improved noticeably for many suburban locations.

Second, the genres an author has written in now appear on his or her author page, right below the name.

Finally, and most importantly, the site is now open to British authors and readers!

Feature Update 8/4/07

New today:
• A bug that caused the wrong featured book to appear next to an author on the Newest Authors page has been fixed.
• A link to the Newest Authors page has been added from the Master Feature List.
• A link to the All Authors list has been added via a More button from the Newest Authors list.

Feature Update 8/3/07

New today:
• A bug that mistakenly allowed readers to contact authors whose email addresses were nonexistent has been fixed.
• The links to track authors and venues have been moved to the top of their pages.
• A bug that prevented authors whose books don't have cover images on our site from rearranging their books has been fixed.
• A bug that broke some media links on author editing pages has been fixed.
• A typo in the Master Feature List has been fixed.
• The Add Event page has been updated with information for authors who have already signed up.
• A list of all authors on the site has been added. It's available through the "Browse our new features" button on the front page.

Feature Update 8/2/07

A bunch of cool stuff today:
• Authors can now easily format their biographies. Bold, italics, and links can be added with a single click.
• The front-page algorithm has been tweaked to change authors more often.
• A display bug that caused pop-up menus to appear on strange parts of author editing pages in Safari has been fixed.
• Authors can now drag-and-drop their books into the order they want them to appear. In addition, the book at the top of their list becomes their "featured book."
• Weekly emails have been updated with unsubscribe links. Sorry, this should have been added a long time ago.
• Dates on the site now no longer appear with a preceding 0 if they don't have to. For example, "September 09, 2007" has become "September 9, 2007."
• RSS feeds and widgets have been added to venue pages.
• The Master Feature List has been updated.

Feature Update 8/1/07

New today:
• The FAQ has been updated.
• The buttons on the front page have been tweaked to be more general.
• There's a new master feature list at http://booktour.com/events/master_list.
• A bug that caused the "Currently in your area" subheading to appear twice on sub-BookTours has been fixed.
• On Profile pages, information about Amazon account access is now contextual based on whether it's been used before.

Feature Update 7/31/07

To wrap up the month, we've got two really cool features. First, you no longer have to sign up to see events near you—all you have to do is visit our homepage.

Second, we've created a sweet mashup for Google Earth. Check it out here.

Other news:
• Above the nearby events listing on the front page, the site now shows where it thinks you are. It's an old feature that's been in hiding for several weeks.
• A typo has been fixed on Profile pages.
• A bug that prevented some users from seeing the link to their Amazon account access page has been fixed.
• A bug that caused some Amazon account accesses to fail has been fixed.

Feature Update 7/30/07

Today brings an especially cool feature. From the bottom of your profile page, you can now automatically subscribe to notifications for every author whose books you've previously purchased from Amazon.com. (This feature is in its infancy, so be sure to use the feedback form if you run into any weirdness.)

Feature Update 7/29/07

Today's news: by popular request, an Erotica subsection has been added at http://booktour.com/erotica. It's also available from the Library section of the front page.

Feature Update 7/28/07

Continuing with the customizability theme from yesterday, it's now possible to specify the maximum number of nearby authors to display on the front page.

Feature Update 7/27/07

New today:
• The FAQ has been updated.
• In your profile, it's now possible to customize the distance to search for nearby events on the front page.

Feature Update 7/26/07

News:
• http://booktour.com/blog now points directly to our blog.
• A bug that prevented publicists from adding media to their authors' pages has been fixed.
• A new subsection of the site has been added: http://booktour.com/humor.

Feature Update 7/25/07

New today:
• The emails authors receive when they sign up now contain referral links to pass on to other authors.
• The layout of the front page has been tweaked.
• New sub-BookTours have been added for business, romance, women, kids, health, literature, technology, sports, and religion. RSS feeds are also available. Also, all sub-BookTours are now linked to from the front-page Library.
• Venue pages now load faster.
• The weekly email has been redesigned. Events by the same author are now grouped together, and there is also a brief update on the last week's site news.

Feature Update 7/24/07

Today's big news: we have a new homepage just for Canada! Have a look at http://booktour.com/canada.

Feature Update 7/23/07

Lots today:
• A bug that prevented certain location searches by Canadian postal codes has been fixed.
• A bug that caused incorrect text to sometimes appear on the front page has been fixed.
• A brief bug that prevented some US zip codes from signing up has been fixed.
• The link to advertise in the Featured Author box has been moved below it.
• An "Advertise on BookTour" link has been added to the page footer.
• A new sub-front page has been added: booktour.com/politics. The Library has been updated to reflect the change.
• A bug that caused the list of authors on the Advertising page to link to invalid pages has been fixed.
• On sub-BookTours (like /mystery and /politics), the layout of the top bar has been tweaked.
• Venue pages now list all the events scheduled there, not just the first 10.
• The FAQ has been updated.

Feature Update 7/22/07

Lots of news today:
• Loading the front page and sub-front pages (like booktour.com/mystery) is noticeably faster.
• A bug that would sometimes show the same author and book more than once simultaneously on the Mystery page has been fixed.
• An Advertising information page has been added to the site. It's now linked to from the front page, all sub-front pages, and the FAQ.
• When filling out the feedback form, your email address if automatically filled in if you're logged in.
• Each week, the author who refers the most other authors to the site will get the "featured author" spot on our front page for a day. If you're an author, you can find your customized referral link on your author editing page, or in the email that was sent to you today.
• Canadian users can now join the site.

Feature Update 07/21/07

There are no visible changes to the site today, but a number of major changes have been made to the database so it will run faster with more events and zip codes.

Feature Update 07/20/07

New today:
• The front-page author algorithm has been tweaked.
• A bug that sometimes caused an author to appear multiple times on the front page has been fixed.
• A bug that caused some venue pages to redirect to error pages has been fixed.
• The Mystery page now has its own featured author.

Features Update 7/19/07

Today's updates:
• The wording of email notifications has been tweaked.
• A bug that prevented some author RSS feeds from working has been fixed.
• A bug that caused the Random Author link to sometimes go to an error page has been fixed.
• Author biographies now support limited HTML formatting. In addition, line breaks typed into author bios now appear on finished author pages as well. (The FAQs have been updated with details.)
• When clicking a link that opens in a new window (like a link to purchase a book online), the new window now opens properly as a tab when it should.
• More explanation has been added to the event-editing form.

Features Update 7/18/07

Lots of news today:
• The front page has been tweaked with smaller text. As a result, we can now squeeze more authors onto the front page at once.
• The "new authors" algorithm for the front page has been tweaked again to turn over authors more quickly.
• A "Random Author" link has been added to the bottom of every page. A great time-waster.
• The front page no longer mistakenly shows "Thanks for signing up" messages for people who haven't actually signed up.
• Author pages are no longer stale. Some people reported that the site would show author pages that listed "Today" as a day that had already passed. This is no longer the case.
• The front page (and the Mystery page) now have RSS feeds of the newest authors to join the site.
• On the page of an author who can be requested, you can now hold your mouse over the Request button to see how many requests the author has already received.
• In the weekly email notification, author events are now accompanied by the title of the author's book.
• The subject line of the email authors receive when they've been requested to speak has been tweaked.

Features Update 7/17/07

Today's fix is that certain publicists who were previously unable to add author events are now able to.

Features Update 7/16/07

The past few days have brought this news:
• A bug that prevented some subject results from appearing has been fixed.
• The first sub-BookTour section has been added at http://booktour.com/mystery.
• A bug that prevented some people from seeing local results on their front page has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented authors who had designated publicists from adding new books to their author pages has been fixed.

Features Update 7/13/07

New today:
• There's a new algorithm for the authors on the left side of the front page.
• Every author on the front page is now on tour.
• On any page, the upper-right corner of the page now has links to sign up or log in if you're not logged in already.

Features Update 7/12/07

Today was "make the site more self-explanatory" day. To that effect, there's now a brief explanation of the site when you first visit the home page if you're not logged in. In addition, there's a new FAQ linked to from the site footer.

Features Update 7/11/07

New today:
• A bug that showed an error on the front page for about 7 minutes has been fixed.
• First-time registration emails now links straight to the login page.
• Barnes and Noble is now listed as a store to purchase books from.
• When clicking to purchase a book through an online store, the store will now always open in a new window.
• The front page now loads about 30% faster for logged-in readers.
• Advanced Search results now load about 40% faster.
• There's now a shorter delay before new authors appear on the front page.
• Browsing the library for authors in your favorite subjects is now about twice as fast.

Features Update 7/10/07

New today:
• A bug that prevented authors from adding radio events has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented non-logged-in readers from seeing certain venue pages has been fixed.
• The Library page now loads much, much faster.
• It's now possible to sign up for weekly emails upon signing up for the site.
• Only books with cover images now appear on the front page.

Pre-Launch Feature Bonanza

Wow are there a lot of new features today.

Speed improvements:
• Search results now load about twice as fast.
• The front page loads incredibly fast.

Email notifications:
• You can now sign up for email notifications for any author you want. In addition, any time you request an author come to your town, you'll automatically receive notifications if he or she adds an event in your area. (This has been applied retroactively to people who have previously requested authors.)
• In your profile page, you can now sign up for weekly updates about the events in your area. Strongly recommended.
• A bug that caused request-an-author messages to go to the author and the requestor (rather than the author and his or her publicist) has been fixed.

Author features:
• It's now possible to indicate that you don't know what time of day an event will be. It'll appear in listings as "Time TBD." You can always go back and edit it once you've settled on a time. (This feature works for submitting events through the Excel spreadsheet, too.)
• When an author signs up, the site now redirects to the author editing page so he or she can add events, rather than to the homepage.
• The ability to show HTML in author biographies has been temporarily suspended. Once we find a way to allow the good stuff without the bad (cross-site scripting attacks) we'll turn this feature back on. In the meantime, you're welcome to enter HTML tags in your author biography; they just won't show up on your author page.

Display bugs:
• A Firefox-specific display bug on author editing pages has been fixed.
• A bug that would make long event descriptions flow off the side of the page in More Info panes has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented More Info-style panes from appearing on author editing pages has been fixed.
• A bug that caused Advanced Search results to come back looking strange has been fixed.
• A bug that caused authors' pages to load incorrectly if they didn't have any tour dates scheduled has been fixed.

General site improvements:
• Text has been reworded around the site to make it clearer and more friendly.
• The front page and More Results pages for local events now list the soonest events at the top.
• BookTour will soon appear in search engines with a specific site description, rather than just excerpts of pages.
• A privacy policy has been added to the site. It's listed in the page footer on the signup and profile page.
• On the front page, gray book titles now link to author pages as well.
• The "More" link on the left side of the front page now points to a totally new page, where you can see a list of the most recent authors to join the site.

Oh yeah, and one last thing: You no longer have to create an account to use the site!

Features Update 7/8/07

New today:
• Authors can add "just visiting" events. These are meant for the times when authors are planning to visit a city but don't have any tour events scheduled.
• The site now automatically scrolls up to show any floating panes. For example, if you're at the bottom of the page and click "More info" for a tour date, the More Info pane won't appear offscreen anymore.
• The various ways of subscribing to an author's tour feed have been integrated on each author's page. Note: The "by email" link doesn't work at the moment.
• The "Okay" button on the author editing page has been removed. It's been replaced by the same ways-to-subscribe links as mentioned above.
• If a publicist is already signed up for the site when one of his or her authors signs up, the publicist will now receive a message that indicates the login URL, rather than the create-an-account URL.
• If a publicist hasn't previously signed up when his or her author signs up, the publicist now receives an email with a URL that points to the publicist-specific signup form.
• When the site sends out emails, they now all appears as coming from "BookTour," rather than something@booktour.com
• ABEBooks and Powells have been added as purchase options. For any book, just click "More Books."
• The More Books pane has been tweaked to read more easily.

Features Update 7/7/07

Several changes have been made to the front page today:
• It now loads approximately 25% faster.
• Only authors with biographies show up in the left-side listing.
• For the five left-side authors, book cover images are shown.
• The Featured Author box has been moved back to the right side.

Several changes to the More Info pane, too:
• Authors can now specify more information about an event. The information will automatically show up in the More Info pane for that event. (This feature was previously only available through the BookTour spreadsheet process.)
• A bug that made certain Google maps appear centered on the wrong location inside the More Info pane has been fixed.
• Related links in the More Info pane now appear on a single line.

Other news:
• The bug (mentioned yesterday) that prevented iCal users from subscribing to author calendars has been fixed.
• On author pages, the names of places now link directly to their pages.
• Spacing has been fixed in widgets.
• The Library page now loads approximately 50% faster.
• Many new authors and events have been added.

Features Update 7/6/07

Cool new stuff today:
• When clicking the link for more information on an event, a Google map now shows up if appropriate.
• From the More Info pane, it's now possible to add the event to your calendar program with one click.
• On every author's page, it's now possible to subscribe to all the author's events in your calendar program. Note: This seems not to work in iCal at the moment.
• More events have been added.

Features Update 7/5/07

New today:
• Spacing issues have been fixed on the author editing page. Spacing has also been tweaked on search pages.
• In search results, it's now possible to go straight to the author-request form if an author has no tour dates scheduled.
• Authors can now list radio and TV appearances. These appearances will show up on their author page, in RSS feeds, and in widgets.
• The default option for searching the site is now authors, not books.
• The link in the footer to add events to BookTour now points to a page with more information on options for doing so.
• Wording has been fixed in the Library browser.
• In the Library browser, clicking a subject now automatically scrolls the window to the top so you can see the results from the beginning.
• For any event, it is now possible to see more information at a click. Note that it's not yet possible to see maps in these pop-ups; that's what the blank space is for.
• More author and event information has been added to the site.

Features Update 7/4/07

One new fix today: the list of authors coming to your area no longer shows several instances of the same author if the authors is speaking in more than one place.

Features Update 7/3/07

Two new much-requested features today:
• It is now possible to reset your password. On the login page, just click the reset link.
• Preliminary time zone support has been added. When adding virtual events, you now can (and must) choose what time zone your time is referring to.

Features Update 7/2/07

New today:
• The front page has been redesigned. The featured author section has been moved to the lower left to make room for more local author listings on the right. The title of the featured author section now links to the author's page.
• The footer has been made larger site-wide. In addition, the header now indicates the fact the site is in beta, in anticipation of our upcoming launch.
• A bug that prevented publicists (and a few authors) from adding new books to their pages has been fixed.
• A bug that had previously been fixed (but then reappeared) that prevented authors from adding media links to their pages has once again been fixed.

Features Update 7/1/07

Lots of news today. First off, publicists can now include an author's email address when signing up for him or her; the author will then receive a link to create his or her own account, with the appropriate fields filled in automatically. When the author signs up for the site, his or her information will automatically be merged into the publicist's, so the site maintains only a single copy of the relevant author. (The same only-keep-one now applies when an author signs up after his or her information has already appeared on the site as a result of someone else's entering tour dates.) If a publicist tries to sign up on behalf of someone who has already joined the site, the publicist now sees a message to that effect. Also, publicists can now edit information about authors besides their tour dates, including their headshots, media links, and biographies.

In separate news, the "place" search has been notably improved. It now shows places that don't have upcoming events (but still might be of interest). Spacing issues have been fixed. And finally, searching for common cities (like "Los Angeles") without providing the state now works properly.

Features Update 6/30/07

Continuing with yesterday's theme, today brings a bunch of new features that make it easier to sign up.

First up, the author form has been revised to include a "More info" link, which explains our policy on author signups. It's also now possible to enter multiple ISBN numbers when signing up. (If one ISBN is mis-entered but the rest are fine, the form remembers the valid ones.) If there are several things wrong with your signup form, the site now always shows them all at once. Finally, authors don't have to click an activation link in their email before they can start adding events to the site.

Also new today is the fact that a publicist designation actually means something. If you sign up as a publicist (and authors have designated you their contact), you can see a list of all your authors on your Profile page, with links to edit their tour dates. Moreover, if you're a publicist, you can now add authors to the site. Just go to your Profile page and click the link on the bottom. Once you've added the author, just click the edit link to add their tour dates. (All publicists on the site already have been automatically granted this ability.)

A few features have also been re-added after a brief hiatus:
• Clicking on a button to sign up as an author now brings you to the author signup form, rather than the generic signup form.
• When an author signs up and specifies a publicist address, the link in the publicist's email now points to a page with the publicist's email address already filled in.

Features Update 6/29/07

(TypePad was down last night when I wanted to post this, so here it is.)

Today was the start of a major rewrite of the signup form. New feaures include:
• Persistence. In other words, if there's something invalid with your signup form, all the fields (except the ones that were invalid, and the password fields) stay filled in so you don't have to re-enter your information. In addition, the form automatically redirects you to the right type of form, so if you mis-filled out a book group sign-up form, you'll now go back to a book group sign up form.
• Specific feedback for what's wrong. Rather than a generic error message, you now get a human-readable listing of all the parts of your signup form that were invalid. In addition, the fields that need correcting get highlighted in red.
• Spacing issues have been fixed.
• Display incompatibilities with Internet Explorer for Windows have been fixed.
• A bug that wouldn't automatically log in upon signing up has been fixed.
• A bug that would indicate the form was mis-entered but still create an entry for the author in the database has been fixed.
• The publicist email address field can now be left blank. If it is, the author will be assumed to be their own publicist. (Previously, the author had to re-enter their own email address if they wanted this assumption honored.)

Features Update 6/28/07

Today's updates are all behind the scenes. The site now caches author pages, making them load much faster for all but the first person to see them (and the same speed as before for that person). In addition, the site can now handle more simultaneous connections.

Two other things:
• A security flaw that could have allowed any user to delete an author's profile has been fixed. Nobody ever used the exploit.
• A bug that sometimes prevented authors from editing their pages after changing their names has been fixed.

Features Update 6/27/07

New today:
• A bug that prevented a few users from logging in has been fixed.
• Author biographies now wrap around their headshots.
• Spacing issues on the front page have been fixed.
• The front page now has a "featured author" section. Check back every day or two to see who's featured.

Features Update 6/26/07

Daily update:
• A bug that made some events from the Excel spreadsheet incorrectly show up as beginning at midnight has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented the editing of some existing events has been fixed.
• A bug that essentially prevented the creation of virtual events has been fixed.
• A bug that prevented existing virtual events from showing up has been fixed.
• Virtual events can now have names. The name becomes the link to the virtual event URL on the author's page.
• Events are now sorted by date on the author-editing page.

Features Update 6/25/07

Today's updates:
• A bug that prevented about half a dozen readers from logging in has been fixed.
• The "logged in successfully" message has been eliminated.
• Spacing has been fixed on authors' pages.
• A bug that prevented authors from adding events if they used Internet Explorer for Windows has been fixed.
• A bug that created links to new press releases when an author tried to edit an event has been fixed.
• When editing items on an author page, there is no longer a delay in forms appearing. This should make adding new events noticeably snappier for authors.

Features Update 6/24/07

Today's news is that a hugely annoying bug that prevented venue pages from displaying has been fixed.

Features Update 6/23/07

Two new:
• The upload spreadsheet for new events has been updated with new instructions. Your old forms will continue to work.
• The caption on the upload-headshot form for authors has been updated to reflect which types of image files work best.

Features Update 6/22/07

Today's new feature has been a long time coming (well, a few weeks at least), but it's been our #1 request. So by popular demand:
• It is now possible to batch-upload events to BookTour! It doesn't matter whether you're a bookstore, library, club, author, publicist, or publisher. At the bottom of any BookTour page, just click "Add events to BookTour", and follow the directions in the spreadsheet.

Features Update 6/21/07

Lots of news today:
• If a club or organization provides their homepage address, their BookTour page now links to that address.
• If an organization provides their physical address and events are taking place there, those events now show up on the organization's BookTour page. A map is also displayed on the page.
• Spacing issues have been fixed on a number of venue-related pages.
• A bug that prevented authors from adding new virtual events has been fixed.
• When entering URLs into the site, "http://" is automatically prepended. This fixes a bug that prevented some external links on the site from working. The change was applied retroactively.
• When logging in, an option to "remember me" is now available (and on by default).

Features Update 6/20/07

New today:
• When signing up for the site, groups can provide a physical address. They can also provide a web address and specify what kind of group they are.
• A bug that made some groups' willingness to pay invisible on their pages has been fixed.
• The spacing on the sign-up page has been fixed.
• When adding events, authors now use 12-hour time, rather than 24-hour time. In addition, the menu for adding times has been shrunk from allowing all time intervals to allowing only five-minute intervals (5 minutes after the hour, 10 after the hour, etc.), making it quicker to find the correct time.

Features Update 6/19/07

Great meeting a bunch of you at TOC. A few updates:
• The spacing on author pages now makes them easier to read.
• When you're logged in as an author, an "Edit" link now appears on your page to let you quickly jump to your profile page.
• A number of bugs affecting authors' ability to link to media have been fixed.

Features Update 6/18/07

A pretty slow day with the preparations for TOC. New useful features:
• It's now possible to sign up as a publicist or an organization.
• A formatting bug that affected author editing pages has been fixed.
• It's now possible to jump from an author editing page to see how the page itself will look when saved.

Features Update 6/17/07

New today:
• The speed and accuracy of the book-searching algorithm has been improved
• The search-results page interface has been improved.
• Venue pages are now more evenly spaced.

Features Update 6/16/07

News today:
• The author headshot-uploading feature is fully functional. You can upload a headshot and it will automatically be resized to fit on the website.
• The interface for uploading headshots has been improved.

Features Update 6/15/07

Today was an author-centric day. Here's what's new:
• More authors and events are now listed on the site.
• A bug that prevented Firefox from using certain authors' RSS feeds has been fixed.
• Virtual events now appear in both author RSS feeds and author widgets.
• It is now possible for authors to upload headshots. Note that this feature is currently in testing; if you upload your headshot today or this weekend, check back in a few days to make sure it's still there.

Features Update 6/14/07

Today involved rewriting the author event-management system. The most immediate features to come from this are:
• Authors can now edit events they've already created.
• It is now possible to add "virtual events." If you're going to be interviewed on a podcast, for example, you can now specify the URL that people can visit to tune in.

Although these features have gone through a lot of testing, there may still be some rough edges. Use the feedback form to let me know if you encounter any weird behaviour.

Features Update 6/13/07

New today:

• More authors and tour dates have been added to the site.
• Requesting an author now sends an email to both the author and his or her publicist.
• For authors, the Profile link now points to the same page as the "Announce your tour dates" button. In other words, there are no longer two separate pages for authors to enter their information.

Features Update 6/12/07

Today's new features:
• If you're an author, you can now add more than one of each type of media to you profile. For instance, you can add links to more than one interview. If you do this, readers can see a list of each type of media when they click the appropriate button on your author page.
• The Library on the front page has been revised. There are now broader categories than before.
• The Library page has been completely rewritten. You can now see sub-categories with a single click, and see a list of authors on the side of the page.

Features Update 6/11/07

One major new feature today: authors can now add links to various media (web pages, audio, video, and more) to their author pages. If you're an author, just visit your edit page and start adding links; they'll automatically appear on your author page.