Those of you who subscribe to Shelf Awareness for Readers through an indie bookstore noticed a new look in Friday's issue: the e-mail that lands in your inbox gives a lively taste of the complete issue, which is on a custom landing page that readers can click through to and explore at their leisure, focusing on what's of most interest to them. All the features our readers love are still there--reviews of the best books out this week, Book Candy, Writer's Life and Great Reads--and now there are some new features, too:
- Starred reviews are featured prominently, at the top.
- The lead editorial will focus on what is in the issue, and when appropriate, will highlight news items from Shelf Awareness Pro that will be of interest to indie bookstore customers.
- The new, neutral look allows the art of book covers to take center stage.
After testing the new version to our proprietary list for the past few weeks, we've now rolled it out to our more than 200 partner bookstores, to our total audience of more than 630,000. From now on, Shelf Awareness for Readers will appear once a week. (Don't worry, we'll still be reviewing the same amount of books, approximately 25 a week.)
The bookstore version has some new features:
- Bookstores are able to customize even more content. We will choose titles to highlight in each issue, but stores are able to override this in a customizable section and choose which books to feature with headings such as Staff Recommendations, Upcoming Events, Local Authors, etc.
- Through our stats dashboard, partner bookstores are able to log in and see the data about their mailings. This feature is incredibly helpful in helping stores understand what is of interest to their audience, and adjust their stock and titles accordingly.
- Delivery times can be customized. We will normally send the issue on Fridays, but bookstores can choose a different day or time over the weekend.
- Otherwise, all the previous options for bookstores remain intact, including events feeds, the ability to write a custom editorial, etc. If you are an indie bookstore and want to sign up for this free service, contact us via e-mail.
We've received some wonderful feedback about our new look and functionality, and have made some changes because you've helped us see what we could do better. Keep the ideas coming at feedback@shelf-awareness.com.