Your Ideas
Most reviews are boring blah, blah. Well, this site doesn’t want to do the boring blah, blah.
You’ve seen the visual of the book with the stickies.
You’ve seen the visual of the five-stickie rating system.
You’ve seen the paper-bag with the mind maps on it.
So what can you suggest that will make this site better?
What would you like to see in terms of how a book is reviewed?
Aside from fiction (and not always that), people read to gain data/information/knowledge/wisdom. I have a list of about 20 or so categories and would be glad to provide them. But they really boil down to three: Money/Personal Life/Power.
My suggestion is that you have a “tick list” to where publications are mapped against these categories to a “sticky” value.
Incidentally, I always append tho categories to any list: “General” at the front, and “Miscellaneous” at the back.
Cheers,
-David
Bellevue, WA (USA, not Western Australia)
Dear Sean;
In all humility I suggest you….explain your sticky system at the top of your blog because it
would help orient the reader….explain why there are only 2 books recommended (ie. are you just starting this? very picky?)…….what is your criteria as to why only a few books are “sticky”?
In other words, the reviews feel as if I don’t know the context of the review.
I get your emails about marketing and admire your
skill, tone and attitude.
Best wishes,
Bob Beverley, author of The Secret Behind the Secret Law of Attraction (with Kevin Hogan, Blair Warren and Dave Lakhani) and How to Be a Christian and Still Be Sane. And you can visit my website, Find WisdomNow.com, and I’m sure you will see lots of ways I could improve..so that’s why I started my letter with humility.
Nice - very nice! You write beautifully, and your reviews set out to do just what you’ve planned them to. I’ll look forward to seeing more.
Sean:
Assuming those Mind Maps weren’t actually done on paper bags, I would love to see the originals…to be able to print without worrying about contrast.
Thanks.
They were done on paper bags. Maybe I’ll put them in a PDF as well
David from WA (not Western Australia :))–Can you explain what you mean by this?: “My suggestion is that you have a “tick list” to where publications are mapped against these categories to a “sticky” value.”
And Bob: Yes, I will explain my sticky system at the top of the blog. Was just getting the blog moving at 70%. I’ll be back to fix the 20% later.
Sean,
First off, I would have navigation at the top of each page so I can jump down to a book review (instead of scrolling endlessly to find it) - it would also let me see your index of books, so I IMMEDIATELY know what may interest me and how to get to it. You may also want to categorize according to release date.
That brings me to my Second suggestion: if you have been reading so many books that are not interesting beyond the cover, why not list them in their own category. It would help to know someone else has read them, and would open a forum as to what make a book great, and where it fails (most of the people on your list are probably involved with writing in one form or another). This list probably goes back pretty far, so date headings (with links from an alphabetical index) would be very user-friendly.
Good luck,
Geof
Hey Sean!
Love it. Need it. Glad you’re doing it!
Silly little thing… I think your graphics (ah, yes, I’m making a suggestion to the cartoon guy) need a little better solution. I like how you have the number of “stickies” next to each category, only they look like rectangles, not stickies. Know you hate stock photos but there are some great solutions for you at istockphoto.com - search on stickies!
Will also suggest another book…
Thanks,
Becky
Oh, I don’t hate stock photos at all.
I use them a lot. I did look up stickies in istockphoto.com at the point of creating this blog. But I will take another look.
Thanks for the suggestion (and reminder)
How about listing the author and publisher of these books right there in the blog? I know you’ve given us a link to Amazon.com, but if I want to buy it at my local book store, I have to go to Amazon to get the info I need.
And if I want to buy it next week, when my Amazon.com gift certificate comes in, rather than now, when I’m looking at the blog, I can’t jot
down the information without going out to Amazon now, which I don’t want to do.
Love the way you rate the books!
(Suggestion by Michelle Hakala via email)
Geoff Wrote:
Sean,
Assuming you are writing this in the format of a blog (not standard web page) - on the right side (Sticky, Stickier - which does not mean much, you
could sue a ** system), start a running vertical list - I would suggest beginning with the most recent at the top.
Since the blog will run at least 1-2 page folds long, you should not run out of room. If you are worried about an endless list, limit it to the books of the current year (or last 12 months) - I doubt you will have TOO MANY books that meet your ranking requirements.
For books beyond that, simply link to a different page that gives the complete list, broken into years, or list alphabetically (or both).
About not so good books, I was immediately curious to compare my list to yours - and I would hope to see a few bullets on each as to why the book is
below expectations.
Good luck
Geof
I have changed the rating to ‘one/two/three/four/five sticky’ ratings. And as the books that warrant those ratings come up, you’ll see them in the relevant categories. I’ll also sort books by year, so you can then see what I reviewed in which year.
(if that makes any sense)
Yup it’s me, from Bellevue, WA, USA.
Well, there can be lots of reasons why something is sticky; why they’re worth remembering, essentially.
One problem is: “Where do I remember it from?”
The Kingdom of Heaven may “be as a mustard seed”, but my brain is more like a dandelion seed in full bloom, covered with cobwebs. I’ve gone from data overload, to information overload, to knowledge overload; although I’m still quite short of wisdom overload-ask my spouse.
What I’m suggesting is just one approach I’ve found useful as a classification scheme for categorizing what you discover; essentially weighting the book reviewed in consistent categories.
My suggestion was just that, ideas for flagging how a particular book (how about other media?) would fall into a category of interest to your audience.
This also suggests an audience review system to perhaps vote on categories or keywords.
And, the implication derived from that concept implies audience contributions to you, so you don’t have to do all the work yourself. Simply make it a requirement to send in a pic of a flagged book (such as you do), along with validating commentary.
You’ve a great idea, but it appears to be in its formative stages. I’ve no problem with that, and want to contribute to your success.
Cheers!
Brown bag, hmmm? Artsy idea, but not very useful to the reader. It’s too small to really read on screen, and not large enough (resolution-wise) to print. Yet, it is potentially the best and most useful part of the review.
Okay, you liked the book, you marked a lot of places, you read it 77 times, it had a nice beat, you couldn’t put it down - what to these things tell me about the book? Zilch.
The meat is in the mind map - that’s the hot idea! I haven’t seen anybody mindmapping contemporary business books. That is really useful both in deciding if I want to spend time and money on the book and perhaps in actually previewing the big ideas to assist in comprehension. Maybe I would only have to read it 76 times.
Now, if it were interactive so other readers could play with it too as they read - sort of a mindmap wiki, that would be something. I could make it mine. Better yet, we could make it ours. Yeah, now we’re talking - with each other!
Sean, you are broadcasting. Very self centered as it turns out. It’s a one-way deal. Think about communities where ideas build on each other. The feedback thing is a start. After all, you got to hear from me. But, I can’t interact well with the substance of your work - the mindmap. That’s what Web 2.0 (or 3.0, if you like) is about. We have the technology. Just have it built and monetize it.
why dont you review the book called the diamond cutter - by michael roach - an obscure gem of a book….