#31 - Sooo, how did it go?!

An average of 6.5 minutes on the site — not bad!

                            January 6, 2020

                #31 - Sooo, how did it go?!

                        An update on how the beta re-launch went, Rob's exciting, new project, and the fun reading challenge we developed in collaboration with an Editor!

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How did the launch go?

Why, it went very well! Thank you for asking. 😊

Over the last week we had just over 100 new people visit the site, with 50 new accounts being created, 3-5 of whom are likely to join the paid programme.

We also got a handful of new subscribers to this newsletter — welcome. 👋🏾

An average of 6.5 minutes on the site — not bad!

The Goodreads import seems to be a big selling point, there was an uptick in people talking about us on Instagram, and we got a bunch of messages that went something along the lines of: "My friend was raving about you! How do I get involved?" 😍

It's still all early days, but it was a promising start to the year for us.

Getting (more) personal

Since personal recommendations are going to be the only thing that users pay for, we need to make them consistently excellent.

So Rob has moved onto a new challenge.

Given a reader's preferences — things like their five-star reads and books they've marked as "please don't show me this again" —  and criteria for what they're looking for in their next read — however specific or broad that may be — can we get a computer to suggest a handful of books that would fit that criteria? 🤔

Even if the book is not loaded onto The StoryGraph? 🤯

How Editors currently request a personal recommendation.

The interface may change depending on the direction Rob's project takes.

Last week

Right now, developing the onboarding flow for a new user isn’t a priority.

However, we do want everyone to be aware of all of the features we have on offer.

Editor and Librarian, Tam, came up with the genius idea of developing a reading challenge to help people explore the site:

Want to try TSG this year? This is a great way to get stuck in!

Two other helpful new features:

See whether you are on track or not for your reading goal
See exactly which books you have read in any given year

Phew! 😅

This week

Beyond fixing some small bugs that surfaced last week, it would be great if users could 'like' news feed items.

Social features aren't for everyone and can also spoil the vibe of a site depending on how they're implemented, so I'll be proceeding with caution.

I love going on the News Feed and not knowing who or what I'll see

What I'm reading right now 

I've just finished Saga, Vol. 3!

Rather than sharing what I'm going to pick up next, I thought I'd show you my latest blog post:

Please have a read and let me know if you read any of the same books I did.

Have a great week,

Nadia

P.S. If you know a friend who's an avid mood reader or would enjoy following along with this journey, please do forward this email to them! Thank you. :-)

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