Beta Readers, a Guided Publish, and a New Dress for the House
My dear reader,
It is with no small satisfaction that I take up my pen again so soon, for I find I have a good deal to tell you. The workshop has been busy. Several improvements of consequence have been made since last I wrote, and I mean to walk you through each of them in turn, as one might show a welcome guest the newly arranged rooms of a house.
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Beta Readers Have Arrived
This, my dear reader, is the improvement I have been most eager to announce. A novelist who has lived too long alone with her manuscript is a novelist in danger of losing all perspective on it. The facility for sharing one's draft with real readers before publication is now built into the app, on both sides of the ledger.
If you are a reader: you will find, in your Reader Settings, a toggle inviting you to declare yourself a beta reader. You may specify the genres that interest you — there is a Select All, for those of catholic taste — indicate whether you prefer a finished draft or a work still in progress, choose a display name, and compose a brief note about yourself. This is the portrait a writer sees when considering who ought to read their book.
If you are a writer: your book now has a page entitled "Share with a Select Group." It presents you with a set of cards, one for each beta reader whose taste aligns with your book's genre, and notes which among them are already reading it. You select the persons you wish to invite, and they receive a note informing them that your book awaits. Should the person you have in mind not yet be a member of our little community, "Share with an Email Address" permits you to invite them directly.
I must also explain the matter of rounds, for feedback has a way of growing confused when the twelfth chapter has been revised halfway through a reading. Beta reading therefore proceeds in rounds. When you have made your revisions and wish for fresh eyes upon the new version, you commence a new round yourself by means of the "Start a New Round" button. Nothing advances without your express instruction.
Each round has its own message board, shared between you and your beta readers. You open it with a pinned introductory post; readers reply; conversations may thread one level deep, so that answers remain properly attached to the questions that prompted them. Should something on the board be of no interest to you, you may hide it from your own view without in any way disturbing the experience of others.
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Publishing Is Now a Guided Path
The old publish page, I confess, attempted to accomplish everything on a single screen. It has been entirely rebuilt as a wizard — a word I use in the modern mechanical sense, not the magical one, though I have some sympathy for the confusion. It now walks you through one decision at a time: who may see the book, a quality check, your book description, your author's note, the appropriate age range, the cover, and a final review in which you may satisfy yourself that all is in order before the book goes out into the world. Nothing publishes until you say it does.
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A Fresh Coat of Paint
Unblockifier has a new appearance. The green accent that has accompanied us from the very beginning has given way to blue, across all three themes, and the application now sets its text in two new typefaces: Newsreader for reading and prose, and Hanken Grotesk for the surrounding interface. The ambition was precisely what it has always been: your words are the point, and everything arranged around them ought to be quiet, legible, and modest in its demands upon the eye.
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A Proper Chapters Page
Chapters now have a page of their own, situated in the sidebar where one might reasonably expect to find them. Each chapter appears as a card displaying an excerpt of its actual prose, so that you may recognise a chapter by what it contains rather than by the number assigned to it. Chapter settings remain available when required, tucked into a small disclosure on each card, so that they do not encumber the page when you have no occasion to consult them.
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This Blog, Which You Are at Present Reading
I ought also to mention that this blog is itself a new feature. Posts now reside at clean, shareable addresses — of the form /blog/your-post-title/ — and each post presents a featured image, whether one has been specially provided or whether it falls back graciously to our house artwork.
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Smaller Matters, Not Unworthy of Notice
The single-chapter page no longer displays the synopsis box twice, which I am sure will surprise no one more than it surprised me when I encountered it. A second fault, rather more consequential, which could quietly overwrite a scene's existing summary, has also been corrected. Your summaries will remain precisely as you wrote them.
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As always, my dear reader, if something feels not quite right, or if an idea occurs to you, I should very much like to hear it. I read everything. Until next time, I remain,
Your most faithful correspondent.