BookLikes

Today's Thursday Release brings two new features. We’re bringing online badges for official profiles  on BookLikes, mainly for authors, publishers, bookstores, libraries and people from publishing branch.

That’s not all. If you have Facebook Page, you can add Facebook plugin to your webpage and show stream from your Facebook Page also on your BookLikes webpage.

Official profile is a profile with a green badge. Badges can be received by book authors, publishers, bookstores, libraries and other individuals from publishing branch. Badges are visible on Blog, Dashboard, Explore page and in search results:

We use verification process to check authenticity of people and companies on BookLikes. All information how to get verified and receive official profile badge, can be found on our FAQ site. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Second feature is Facebook widget from your Facebook Page. If you have Facebook Page you can add Facebook widget to your BookLikes webpage. Facebook plugin enables users to like your Facebook Page and view its stream directly from your BookLikes webpage. To add Facebook widget go to Settings/Blog and paste link to your Facebook Page in Social Networks spot.

We've got news about notifications for you. We've moved Dashboard notifications to a new spot and gave them sexy icon ;)

Now all you notifications are gathered in one place, just look at the upper navigation bar and new notification icon. When you get a message on BookLikes, you’ll see that on notification bubble - the number will represent the amount of new notes waiting for you.

To see who left you a note, click green notification bubble. Then you’ll be able to move to a given person’s blog and re-follow or re-like his/her posts. You’ll also get an information when someone comments on your post so you can get involved into discussion straight away. If you're importing books, you'll get import progress notes with a link to your Import Page.

All blog names, post titles and Import Page are links so you can easily go to a given blog entry, new follower and site. To look through your past notifications, click see more notifications  and you'll be moved to Notifications Page.

Updates:

• Following your requests we've added new 'sort by' function to your Shelf - now you can sort your books by Read Date.
• We have changed number of books that can be connected with a given post/review - now you can add up to 10 books to your heading in post edit view. 

Add Pinterest to your BookLikes page, show your book collection on boards and Pin all your books :-)

Now you can easily create beautiful boards with books you love, reviews you found interestng and cool, inspirational bookish images.

Each book on BookLikes received Pin it button in a book window thanks to which you can easily share books shelved on your BookLikes Shelf. 

You can also add Pin it button to your posts and share book reviews and bookish photos and posts.

To add you Pinterest profile link to your BookLikes page, go to Settings/Blog and fill up box in Your Social Profiles spot. You can also add Pin it button to your posts, just tick “add Pin it” in Social Networks (also in Settings/Blog).

You can also find BookLikes on Pinterest where we share book reviews, quotes, bookish photos and BookLikes updates :-)

It’s Batch Edit time on BookLikes Shelves.

Use batch edit to make the same edits to many books at the same time. Now you can update reading status, change shelves and remove from your Shelf multiple books at one go.

The entrance to new admin view of your book collection is on admin Shelf page (click upper navigation bar). Once you press Table view, you’ll be moved to your table-organized book collection where you can select several books or all of them and move them to particular shelves, add review, date or change reading status in two seconds. You can also use multi remove option. 

To keep your books organized you can create thematic shelves and keep a single book on many shelves. This helps in organizing your book collection, especially when it’s big and diverse. You can also add missing book covers to green books which lack images as well as add books manually when you don’t find them is a book search box.

We’re happy to welcome so many new book lovers on BookLikes. We hope you’ll feel at home here. To make reading more social activity we recommend visiting Explore page which presents other avid readers and book blogs adjusted to your language version of service. You can also Invite your friends via email or Facebook.

If you still don’t know who to follow, this may be a tip :-) We would like to present you a glimpse into BookLikes community.

Impressive collection of book reviews can be found on numerous blog in various languages, you can see all of them on Explore page and here are several that we’ve picked. You can easily find great book recommendations and fill up your shelf with new reads. 

But you can also find other interesting bookish things on BookLikes, like inspiring quotes and interesting pictures.

They can be found for example here:

Book-love, 

Book Geek, 

Bookish Quotes, 

Books Direct. 

And on many other blogs on BookLikes :-)

We’re also happy to welcome book writers on BookLikes. If you’re an author, please let us know and we’ll switch on Author Feature for you. We’ll be releasing more features dedicated for authors soon so if you have any ideas or request, let us know.

And now meet some of BookLikes Authors who share their latest book news, for example: David P. Elliot reveals cover of his upcoming books and Libby Hellmann invites you to read and review her newest book and you can even receive a PDF book copy!

OK, so if you have met the authors, now it's time for books.

Those who are addicted book buyers will be happy to visit our Daily Deals page where we present great books in good prices. Daily Deals are adjusted to your country and updated daily.

You can also find information about book promotions on BookLikes blogs. Bookworm Dreams writes about Kindle  Freebies every Friday and today we can also find interesting Free on Amazon post on I'm lost in the moment blog. 

And now it's high time to get lost in a good book or a good book blog :-)

Enjoy!

One of the most requested features from you was comment boxes on Dashboard. Oh yes, it’s ready and online now! Get ready for book talk. We have a new commentary system on BookLikes.

Now you can comment on a given review, post, photo, video - simply any writing directly on Dashboard! We’ve prepared a new commentary system, independent and dedicated for BookLikes and BookLikes Community. You can switch it of/off in your Settings/Blog.

New comment boxes are visible under each piece of writing here on Dashboard and on your public blog. Just click on "Comment" under the post and write what you think about a given writing. Next to your comment a photo with a link to your blogwill appear - that helps in following your readers and finding new book friends.

To start a vivid discussion start following interesting blogs and other avid readers and reviewers. You can find BookLikes Community on Explore Page where we present blogs adjusted to your language version of BookLikes.

All comment options are available in your Blog Settings. You can choose from three available systems, pick one or all of them:

• BookLikes comment system,
• Disqus,
• Facebook comment box.

Select those whoch suits you best and if you have any remarks or requests, please let us know.

What do you think? Please leave a comment :-)

3...2...1 We're ready for public premiere - BookLikes goes live! For the time being BookLikes has been in beta phase with invites only but TODAY we’re moving on with full public release!  We know that there's still a lot to be done but we think it’s high time for public opening. We couldn’t have done it without you - thank you for creating BookLikes with us! We appreciate all your help and would like to ask you a huge favor: Help us spread the word :-) 

Recent several months were very busy and engaging for us. We were creating BookLikes from scratch, developing and improving service along with your suggestions. Thanks to your help we managed to set up an awesome place for book bloggers, reviewers, writers, avid readers - simply for all book lover from all over the world.

Now we have to make the nosie. Help us make the buzz and make everyone hear about BookLikes :-)

We’ll be going online, loud and clear and reaching various media: press, online, they will hear about us even on the Moon but we’ll be gratefull for your help as well.

If you know a place on the Web that would be interested in BookLikes, where we could knock and present ourselves,  send press release and info about BookLikes, please let us know in comments or at contact@booklikes.com. If you know a person, a site or service interested in books, book reviews, authors or publishers give us a tip where we can write and introduce BookLikes or to whom we can say "Hi". And if you know other book lovers, simply invite them to share their reading life. 

We know we ask a lot and if you prefer to stay a viewer and reader instead of speaker, it’s all fine too. But if you agree to help us we’ll be more than grateful :-)

All BookLikes Team would like to say warm and loud Thank you! for all your help and support. We listened and applied your suggestions and we all hope that you love the outcome. We appreciate all the feedback and take into consideration every remark. We’re not stopping here - we still have many ideas to show up and many of your wishes to fulfill :-)

Two "Add" functions are available on BookLikes from today:  add books manually and add book covers.

From now on it doesn’t matter if you want to shelve unpublished books or self-published or from a local bookstore, now you can put on your Shelf all books ever existed. It’s called manual book adding. We have it online!

If you don’t find a desirable book in a search box you can easily ‘create’ a book from the scratch.

Click on “Add new book” after no results were found and fill up the necessary information of Book Title, Book Author, Book Cover, Book Description and ISBN. Click “Add Book” and add it to you bookshelf or create a post.

Second “add” function is about missing book covers. If some books on your Shelf lack covers, you can add them manually too. Click on a green book (no cover) and ‘Add cover' underneath it. Then choose image from your computer and voila. The book looks perfect with cover of your choice!

So what book will you add first?

Welkom! BookLikes welcomes first Dutch book source - it's AKO!

If you're from Netherlands or simply like searching books from Dutch bookstore, now you can do it on BookLikes. AKO is a bookstore with long tradition as it was founded in 1878 and impressive book data base of 180 000 Dutch and English books to choose from.

To start searching on AKO go to Settings Search, mark it, save and start shelving :-)

This week’s Thursday release brings  two features on BookLikes: one for authors (if you’re one, let us know), and a social gadget that you can add to your blog - widget with your Twitter timeline.

Authors' books

We’ve received many messages from writers with author dedicated feature requests. We'll happy to present you the first chapter :-) (we have much more on our mind, next chapters will be relesed soon). Here's how it works:

After author's request (if you’re a book author please mail kate@booklikes.com) and our confirmation a new tab will appear in your Settings titled Author.

This new tab lets you select books written by you - then the books will receive a special marker in book window and book search result with a link to your webpage on BookLikes and your photo. You can add all your titles, all editions from all bookstores where your books are available, then a link to your profile will appear in each search book result and in each book window. Then your readers will be able to easily find you on BookLikes, connect with you and start following you.

Note that you can select books that are already published and/or available in book sources that we partnership with.

Twitter timeline Widget

We have also a new social gadget for all 140 character message addicts :-)  Now you can easily add Twitter timeline widget to your Blog. Go to Widget tab in your Twitter Settings, create one, copy code and paste it into your Settings Blog in Social networks section.

Twitter timeline widget will pop on your blog - then your readers, viewers and blog guest can easily follow your Tweets and find you on Twitter.

P.S. We'll have one more news for you this week. Stay tuned :-)

We’re extremely happy to welcome Barnes & Noble on BookLikes.

Barnes & Noble is the leading bookstore in US with the largest selection of books on the Web. Now B&N book collection, so desirable by BookLikers, is also available for BookLikes community.

Barnes & Noble is 29th book source available on BookLikes. At the moment we’re in the course of expanding this section and opening partnerships with bookstores from other countries. New book sources from new destinations will be revealed any day now.

To add Barnes & Noble to your search box and shelve books from B&N go to your Settings/Search, mark it and Save. The B&N icon will appear in your search box. To find desirable book please write "Book Title and Author" in search box for the best fitted book result.

We're happy to welcome new book source on BookLikes - it's Swedish Bokia!

Bokia is one of the most popular bookstore chains in Sweden and now also available on BookLikes. So if you’re from Sweden, reading or want to read books in Swedish now you can shelve them on your virtual bookshelf on BL :-)

To add Bokia to your book search box go to Settings/Search, mark and Save. And then start shelving books in Swedish :-)

We're still developing and bringing new book sources online. Wait for more new book partners from various destinations.

Do you have any request which countries should we add next? Let us know in comments! :-)

It’s time to finish up this week with some great news. As always we present you several new functions on BookLikes. Let’s see what we’ve got here this time.

This Thursday brings multi shelves, fast way to follow and invite your Facebook friends, social share buttons on your blog posts and "back to top" on Dashboard.

Putting books on many shelves was very desirable function and we’re happy to make it available :-) So now book collecting can be easier and even better arranged. How to put books on many shelves? Just create  shelves of your choice on your virtual Shelf and then pick appropriate ones while editing your books.

From now on you can also easily Follow and Invite your Facebook friends. 

Just connect your Fb account in Settings and your friends will be visible on Dashboard. Then you can start following them or if they aren’t already on BookLikes, invite them via Facebook.

You can also find other avid readers and your friends on Explore page where you see BookLikes community adjusted to your language version and on Find Friends page where you can search people via their names, usernames, blog names or email. Or Invite friends by inserting e-mail in Invite box (Dashboard, on the left). 

Your writing will also get additional social component: share buttons that can be added to your posts and reviews on your blog. Then your guests and blog visitors can easily spread the word and share your writing. Share buttons are optional, you can decide whether you want to add them or not. To switch them on go to your Settings/Blog and tick options in Social networks spot. Share and Like buttons will appear next to your blog posts. 

Last but not least point today is a tip: how to reach the top the fastest way? Just click “back to top” on Dashboard :)

More thrilling updates will be revealed soon :-)

It’s Thursday Today! What does it mean? Well, it means that there are new features on BookLikes! Today we introduce “Sort by” function on Shelf, possibilities of adding your social media links to your blogs and new page to preview blog design themes.

'Sort by' function on Shelf is available in both views, in administrative - visible only to you (once you click Blog on upper navigation bar) and in public allowing all curious people visiting your Shelf to choose the best book overview. We’ve chosen four criteria for sorting: date of shelving, title, author and rating to make book search, book managing and book presentation as easy and functional as it can be.

Next new feature is adding your social links to your profile in fast and easy way - no HTML knowledge needed. In Settings/Blog you’ll discover new spot for Your Social Profiles where you can insert links to your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, G+, YouTube, Goodreads and site of your choice. Links and icons will pop up on your Blog so viewers and guests of your Blog can easily find you on social media.

We’re also working hard to make BookLikes even more beautiful :-) We’re already preparing new blog themes (if you have some ideas, let us know) and today we release new page for choosing a blog design where you can preview how your webpage will looks like with particular design. What’s more you can preview all crucial subpages, like Blog, Shelf, Timeline and Following and choose design that suits you best :-) To try out all blog themes go to Settings/Blog and click “Change” theme.

How do you like this week's news? Let us know. Oh, and we promise we have much more to show soon so stay tuned and wait for Thursday :-)

3...2...1 We're ready for public premiere - BookLikes goes live! For the time being BookLikes has been in beta phase with invites only but TODAY we’re moving on with full public release!  We know that there's still a lot to be done but we think it’s high time for public opening. We couldn’t have done it without you - thank you for creating BookLikes with us! We appreciate all your help and would like to ask you a huge favor: Help us spread the word :-) 

Recent several months were very busy and engaging for us. We were creating BookLikes from scratch, developing and improving service along with your suggestions. Thanks to your help we managed to set up an awesome place for book bloggers, reviewers, writers, avid readers - simply for all book lover from all over the world.

Now we have to make the nosie. Help us make the buzz and make everyone hear about BookLikes :-)

We’ll be going online, loud and clear and reaching various media: press, online, they will hear about us even on the Moon but we’ll be gratefull for your help as well.

If you know a place on the Web that would be interested in BookLikes, where we could knock and present ourselves,  send press release and info about BookLikes, please let us know in comments or at contact@booklikes.com. If you know a person, a site or service interested in books, book reviews, authors or publishers give us a tip where we can write and introduce BookLikes or to whom we can say "Hi". And if you know other book lovers, simply invite them to share their reading life. 

We know we ask a lot and if you prefer to stay a viewer and reader instead of speaker, it’s all fine too. But if you agree to help us we’ll be more than grateful :-)

All BookLikes Team would like to say warm and loud Thank you! for all your help and support. We listened and applied your suggestions and we all hope that you love the outcome. We appreciate all the feedback and take into consideration every remark. We’re not stopping here - we still have many ideas to show up and many of your wishes to fulfill :-)

We have new things for your on BookLikes :) Let us present you two brand new features and one improvement that we’ve released today. We linked your Shelf with your Blog, let you search tags and easily remove books from your Shelf.

We received many requests to link books on your Shelf with reviews on your blog. Now when you click on a book that was reviewed by you you’ll see “Review” status in a book pop up that will transfer you or anyone who visits your Shelf to review on your Blog. To make it even easier and faster we added “Reviewed” status on your Shelf where all your reviewed books are shelved.

We recommend to shelve and review the same book edition to make this bond. The easiest way to do that is to create a post by clicking on a book directly from your Shelf. Then you’ll be sure that a book will be linked with your review and automatically get status Reviewed.

We also made it easier to remove book from your shelf. We re-positioned the “Remove” button and moved it to more visible place. Now all book option are available in a book pop up, including removing books from Shelf (we hope though that you won’t overexploit this function :) ).

Another cool new feature is tag search. You requested ability of searching posts and reviews. Now it’s ready! Tag search box is on Dashboard on the right. 

Insert tag, author or book title in Tags Search Box and you’ll find all posts with a particular book title or tag, e.g. Hunger Games. We take into consideration book titles, book authors and tags that you add to you writing.

Enjoy new features, let us know what you think and prepare yourself for more :-)

We release new functions at the end of every week so stay tuned!