Can you help me design a new ebookstore?

[Hellmark]

One thing you need to make sure about is the formats. If you support different ebook formats, make sure all books you sell are available in those supported formats. If I have a Kindle, and a book I want from you is only in ePub, I'm not going to buy it. If I want one for my Sony and you offer it in Mobi, and PDF, and I want it in ePub, I won't get it. Plus be clear on DRM status.

[ballyc27]

Hi everyone,

massive thanks for all the feedback and for thoes who filled out the survey.
The feedback was very honest and constructive...I have lots of work to do on the store.
I've summarized in the attached, the main points you guys mentioned and also I've outlines my plan of action.
Of course, further comments are very welcome.

I will bounce a further post when the store is updated to get your thoughts on the changes made.

All the best for now,
Richie.

[justapuppy]

Hi Richie,
It's been a long time and still not received my voucher... Any news on this?

[carpetmojo]

It seems to me that opening a new estore is miles harder than a physbook store.

You have a lot more factors under your control when opening a new store for anything, such as ambience, design, surroundings,chairs or not, free coffee or not, class 3 or 1 trading positions, advertising way easier, really helpful and knowlegable service, etc.....

And you are up against monoliths on line, which have truly global competition in a global market, whereas you can get away with a good rep in a smallish area for a "proper" store in the real world.

I know of two that have done just that, and survive happily.

[ballyc27]

Originally Posted by justapuppy

Hi Richie,
It's been a long time and still not received my voucher... Any news on this?

Justapuppy...many apologies for the delay...I haven't forgotten about the voucher.
We're almost there...about 3 weeks from launch.
Before we launch, I would love for you to take a quick look at the store. We've taken all the great feedback from the survey and tried to implement all/most of the features requested. It took a while but I'm happy with the way it's turned out.
You may take a look now at leisureebooks.com but the final catalog import is due next week and some info pages are yet to be finalized.
Of course, please let me know your thoughts...there's always room for more improvement.
Many thanks,
Richie.

p.s. it may be a little slow to load (we still have to rev up the cloud yet).

[ballyc27]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

It seems to me that opening a new estore is miles harder than a physbook store.

You have a lot more factors under your control when opening a new store for anything, such as ambience, design, surroundings,chairs or not, free coffee or not, class 3 or 1 trading positions, advertising way easier, really helpful and knowlegable service, etc.....

And you are up against monoliths on line, which have truly global competition in a global market, whereas you can get away with a good rep in a smallish area for a "proper" store in the real world.

I know of two that have done just that, and survive happily.

I hear you Carpetmojo...valid points you make.
I'd be happy to hear any advice you may have to help leisureebooks succeed.
Cheers,
Richie.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ballyc27

You may take a look now at leisureebooks.com but the final catalog import is due next week and some info pages are yet to be finalized.
Of course, please let me know your thoughts...there's always room for

I like the header line with genres that expand on mouseover; I think that's a wonderful compromise between an entirely static display and the distraction of constantly-changing bookcovers.

The individual book listings look strange--there's a large empty space next to the book where I'd expect the description text to go, instead of below it in the "synopsis" box.

If you have filesize info, that should be added to the Details box. (And probably shouldn't be hidden away in a second tab; that info should be visible without hunting for it--my first thought was "they don't tell you who the publisher is.")

The Reviews box has a link to "Product Details" that just reloads the same page; that shouldn't be there.

Ideally, the author's name under the bookcover should be a link to all of that author's titles, but I'm aware that's harder coding to set up. (The publisher's name should also link to other titles by that publisher, etc.) And if it's part of a series, there should be an easy link to all of them at once--even if that has to be added manually somewhere in the description text, it'd be worth the extra time, because you're more likely to sell others in the series that way.

Eeep! AFTER looking over the book and description and all that, I was looking at the side links--and *then* noticed there's a mouseover on the cover that blows up into the white space next to the cover. WTF? NOBODY CARES. Nobody buys a book because they can zoom into the cover image and see the fine details. If you want to provide a high-res image, make it a link from the cover image. (I suppose that runs into risks of it being stolen. But book covers are not fine art; nobody is looking for super-zoom options.)

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Eeep! AFTER looking over the book and description and all that, I was looking at the side links--and *then* noticed there's a mouseover on the cover that blows up into the white space next to the cover. WTF? NOBODY CARES. Nobody buys a book because they can zoom into the cover image and see the fine details. If you want to provide a high-res image, make it a link from the cover image. (I suppose that runs into risks of it being stolen. But book covers are not fine art; nobody is looking for super-zoom options.)

I agree. It just seems a waste of white space to use it for cover zooming.

I do sometimes grab a book because the cover catches my eye, but I'm not interested in zooming in on it.

[ballyc27]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

I agree. It just seems a waste of white space to use it for cover zooming.

I do sometimes grab a book because the cover catches my eye, but I'm not interested in zooming in on it.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
The white space beside the cover has a purpose...please see here.
I think video integration is good if the video is very relevant.
What do you guys think?

Also, about the cover zoom feature, the reason I put that is was to zoom in at specific areas that may not be clear. For example, look at the link above again...apart from the title, the other text is hard to read...and the zoom allows you to read it clearly.
Hey, if you guys still think it's poor, I will seriously think about removing the feature.

Again, I really appreciate the feedback. My aim is to provide what people want...and this feedback is helping big-time.
Richie.

[anamardoll]

My thought, as an author, is that I see nothing at the bottom like "For Authors" or "Publish With Us" or anything that tells me if it's even possible to get my book into your store.

ETA: And I completely agree about removing the zoom (she says, on a super-slow tether connection where the zoom adds 5 minutes to page load time), and I say that as someone who cares a LOT about her pretty cover. Most of the big stores limit the cover resolution to 2000 pixels on either side, which means that's the cover that the author is going to have on hand to upload, which means that zooming in to view the pretty details is not really going to offer much to the reader.

Offer the Larger Image link sure, for the cases where text is tiny, but a zoom feature is overkill.

I agree that the white space there is awkward. Videos are going to be a small minority of books, and I think they could go underneath the book description, which would ideally go in that white space to the right.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ballyc27

Thanks for the feedback guys.
The white space beside the cover has a purpose...please see here.
I think video integration is good if the video is very relevant.
What do you guys think?

I think the video could be below the book listing as a special feature; unless you have videos on more than 75% of the books, that's wasted space where people *expect* to find information about the book.

When I look at book listings, I want to see publisher, price, author, page count/filesize, genre, and a snippet of teaser text. I'm not stopping in the middle of browsing to listen to the author pitch the book.

I browse with sound off and flashblock on. I have to be persuaded to even look at videos... "it's next to a book whose cover caught my eye" is not enough. I may be weird in browsing with flashblock, but I know a lot of people who don't use sound while they're browsing. This is especially true of people at work, browsing on their breaks.

Also, about the cover zoom feature, the reason I put that is was to zoom in at specific areas that may not be clear. For example, look at the link above again...apart from the title, the other text is hard to read...and the zoom allows you to read it clearly.

If the publisher can't be bothered to make an ebookcover that looks good at ~160x240 pixels, they're doing it wrong. Most stores that sell ebooks don't have a large-view option. If the cover needs full-size to be worth looking at, they're pitching to the wrong market... people reading on their phones are never going to see it.

If there are unreadable detail words in the cover, either it's badly designed, or that info needs to be in the blurb text. A zoom window that involves scrolling to read is pretty much useless. It's not *entirely* bad... but it's wasted space on both the page and the server, for a feature that's not going to bring extra sales or customer satisfaction.

[wannabee]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

..........When I look at book listings, I want to see publisher, price, author, page count/filesize, genre, and a snippet of teaser text.............

ditto