New Author Directory On Crimespace

[Daniel Hatadi]

Something I've been wanting to do with Crimespace from the beginning was to make it simple for people to find all the authors on board. Up until now there hasn't been any easy way to do this. So I decided to finally get off my butt (or on it), put my programming hat on and come up with something I hope you'll all like. But it's going to need a little work from members.

If you're a reader, there's nothing for you to do other than click on the Authors tab at the top of the page once all the authors come on board. Here's the link just in case:

https://crimespace.ning.com/authors

If you're an author (ie someone who's had your work published somewhere), click on My Settings in the top right of the screen, and then click on About Me. At the bottom, you'll find a new section labelled 'Author Profile'. Fill in the text area with an author blurb of your own design (easiest way to do this is to copy & paste the text under 'About Me' and tweak to taste).

Feel free to use some basic HTML and add links to books we can buy or stories we can read. Don't worry that it's marked private, it won't show up on your member page but it will show up in the new author section once you hit Save at the bottom.

I've done a fair amount of testing, but there may still be some kinks to iron out. Hopefully it'll all work smoothly and we'll have a nice Christmas present of an author directory on Crimespace. Speaking of which ...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

Cheers,
Daniel

Addendum: Author Directory To-Do List:

• Sorting by last name : This is a fair amount of work. Might take some time.
• Administrators need to be able to remove profiles from the directory: This is important. Not everyone seems to understand that they can't use the directory for promoting their romance or fantasy novels. This is a crime fiction site, folks.
• Search author profiles: This could be useful when you know a book title, but not the author.
• DONE: Fix sorting of names in lower case. Implemented by Ning.
• DONE: Fix numbering at bottom of page: implement Ning standard.
• DONE: Author search.
• DONE: Clearer separation between authors, maybe just a dark dividing line, especially for those with larger profiles.
• DONE: Add total number of authors to heading.

[Patricia Harrington]

Daniel, thanks for your good work on CrimeSpace and for creating the authors' section. It's fun to see how this forum is developing over time. Thanks again and hope the coming new year is a great one for you and all. Pat H.

[Anne Brooke]

Great new feature - I love it! Also agree with Jon's suggestion re an alphabetical last name list. That would be useful too. Happy Christmas to all!

:))

A
xxx

[I. J. Parker]

Well, I guess I'm going to have to do that. Great feature. Thanks, Daniel. Yes, alphabetizing would be great. Will get around to it later.

[Daniel Hatadi]

You're welcome guys. I'm pretty excited about this thing I've cooked up. I'll keep track of possible improvements in the post above, so we don't end up with duplicate suggestions.

Glad you all like it, and I'm amazed how quickly so many of you have filled it in.

Or maybe not amazed. ;)

[Naomi Hirahara]

Happy holidays, Daniel!

[Anne Frasier]

wow, daniel. that's amazing! thanks so much!

[Newt Love]

Mr. Hatadi, Daniel,
Now that we have the nice Author section you built for folks and fans to find us, are you going to create a Reader section, so authors desperate for sales can corral them and plaster their comment wall with marketing campaigns and flyers full of blatant self promotion? J U S T _ K I D D I N G !
newt

[Daniel Hatadi]

He he. You know, I actually went through that whole thought process already. :)

[Newt Love]

It;s best how you have it... "Write the stories. They will come."
If they don;t, beating them over the head with it won;t make them read the stories. It will probably only make them mad.