The Page 99 Test

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by lance@page99test

and it's a lot of fun when you read a page and realize it's from a book you've already read.

Lance

Yes, I was surprised when the first page 99 I came to was from Anne of Green Gables.

[MacEachaidh]

Grrr ... hate websites where you have to create an account and give away private information just to access them ... grrr ... maybe I'm being unreasonable or irrational, but I still say grrr ...

[joycedb]

Originally Posted by lance@page99test

Joyce, we're trying to get that preview feature working perfectly, but there are still a few bugs. If you don't mind, what browser and operating system do you use?

Hi Lance. I have IE Windows XP. Does that make a difference?

Joyce

[bthrowsnaill]

Anyone notice a trend that ratings given on the weekend are more positive than those given during the week? Just curious, because my ratings seem to be following that trend so far.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by lance@page99test

Hope that helps!
Lance

Mate, thanks very much for your reply. That was quite courteous and friendly and really clarified your position. Thank you.

Apologies it's taken me a couple of days to reply. I didn't get a notification of your post.

Anyway, thanks for your website. I'll register and start reading.
dùrachdan,
Bran

[joycedb]

Okay, I said I would post my results and here they are. Right now I'm running 71% positive. Only one comment and it was about the darn formatting that didn't go through correctly. I was going to post another p. 99 from another book, but unless I can get it to the preview page as I wrote it, I may not bother.

Joyce

[James_Wilde]

Personally, I think this is one of the best pre-publishing feedback systems around. Some of the comments suck in the sense that they are obviously coming from a false starting point*, but if one ignores them, the others can be a useful guide. Let's face it, if page 99 makes people want to turn the page, then there is reason to believe that pages 98 and 100 and all the others would, too.

Personally I'm running at a meagre 57% who would turn the page, and 33% who would very likely or slightly likely buy the book, and that'll do for me.

* I'm talking here about the comments from, say, US authors who don't approve of UK spelling, grammar and other standards.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by lance@page99test

What we need to do is build traffic to the site so that writers get feedback on their work quickly.

We'd sincerely appreciate any mentions (honest feedback -- good or bad) on this or any other forums where you frequent.

Thanks again,
Lance

Well, I clicked on the Facebook button and posted a message about the site on my page. Admittedly I'm one of those restrictive people who has about ten friends, so the word might not get that far, I'm afraid.

[altworld]

Just some quick thoughts...

Posting a page is fine, works okay.

Unable to direct traffic straight to my page 99 excerpt making it useless as a promo tool as I couldn't post a link to it from my blog (unless I missed something). I tried all different ways to find the excerpt link and it just wouldn't turn up. Yes, I would drive traffic to your website, but I want it to go to my page first! (Kind of selfish like that.)

Don't like having to sign in to view pages, sign in to leave a rating yes, but to view? That will just drive people away, no one is that free with their information anymore.

Interesting as a writing tool as a mistake was picked up, I got kicked around a lot on it because my page 99 dumps you into a middle of a transition conversation, and doesn't say anything about the book. Giving me a lot of false start critic, which didn't feel all that helpful so I've yanked the page now. Perhaps I should just lie and post a chapter page from an action scene?

What was maddening was getting voted down by people saying it wasn't their genre, even when its clearly marked as Paranormal. This makes me question the use of the feedback rating at all. Not sure how useful interesting page not my genre so I am voting it down comments are to an Author.

Sorry, just giving feedback. A direct link and open page viewing would do wonders to bring more traffic to your website.
Arigato,
Nick D

[ASparrow]

One thing that would help critiquers get a handle on what they are reading would be a short text field where the the author, in a few sentences could set the stage for their excerpt, tell the reader whether these were major or minor characters, whether this is an action scene or the calm between events, back story or front story. Some of my reviewers seem to be very misguided by what they read, understandably.

[bthrowsnaill]

Another brutal Monday for me on Page 99. I'm thinking of pulling my page on Mondays from now on. My page turn average went from around 80% to around 50%.

[M T McGuire]

Originally Posted by ASparrow

One thing that would help critiquers get a handle on what they are reading would be a short text field where the the author, in a few sentences could set the stage for their excerpt, tell the reader whether these were major or minor characters, whether this is an action scene or the calm between events, back story or front story. Some of my reviewers seem to be very misguided by what they read, understandably.

I think that's a great idea. Currently page 99 of Few Are Chosen is running at 22% pf readers somewhat likely or likely to buy the book 58% would read on and 21% are unlikely to buy it. I'm pretty chuffed with that as the average for my genre is 49%. My page 99 is part of a key scene in the book which sets up the premise of the whole trilogy. It's about 10 pages of conversation, an island of calm in the middle of a sea of full-on action!

Cheers

MTM

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by M T McGuire

I think that's a great idea. Currently page 99 of Few Are Chosen is running at 22% pf readers somewhat likely or likely to buy the book 58% would read on and 21% are unlikely to buy it. I'm pretty chuffed with that as the average for my genre is 49%. My page 99 is part of a key scene in the book which sets up the premise of the whole trilogy. It's about 10 pages of conversation, an island of calm in the middle of a sea of full-on action!
MTM

That sums it up, MT. By choosing page 99, you can really strike it rich or strike out. I think Lance's idea is that one chooses a random page, and I don't think it really matters if it's actually page 99 or 98, 100 or even 90, just as long as it's not page 1, 2 or 3.

In my case, it really was page 99, but I had an advantage. The site only allows 2200 characters (I think that was the figure) and my page 99 was about 2800 so I was forced to clip. I clipped a meaningless hangover from the previous page, rather more than just widow lines, so that the sample started with a paragraph, and I ended with a question in the dialogue, even though I could probably just about have got the answer into the field, but nobody wants a half-finished sentence. I don't think that kind of minimal editing is contrary to the idea that the site is intended for.

I originally thought to complain about the small area, cos as I have said elsewhere, books nowadays, both in hc and paper, usually have very close to 400 words per page, and a "word" in the printing world has traditionally been 6 letters, or 7 with the space, or totally 2800 characters. However, the necessity to curtail the page, with the consequent opportunity to choose where the sample begins and ends, persuaded me to keep mum.

The principal value of this site is the comments on one's writing style, plus the fact that comments mostly come from people within the genre you are writing.

[joycedb]

Was it 2200 characters. I thought it was less than that. Anyway I don't know if you're supposed to move lines from one page to another. If you picked up a print book, you'd read only what's printed on that page. You could, of course, turn the page though.

Joyce

[lance@page99test]

Originally Posted by ASparrow

One thing that would help critiquers get a handle on what they are reading would be a short text field where the the author, in a few sentences could set the stage for their excerpt, tell the reader whether these were major or minor characters, whether this is an action scene or the calm between events, back story or front story. Some of my reviewers seem to be very misguided by what they read, understandably.

Fantastic idea! It could be a brief synopsis (like on the back cover of a book... or what you'd submit to a lit agent) or a brief set-up for the page 99 itself. I've added this to our top priorities list.

Thanks for all the feedback, folks -- it is being heard and acted on.

Lance