Toward a shared storefront . . . or two! & a DIY Flickr group!
I'm a little behind. If you've sent me an announcement to post in the last week or so, I promise to get it up soon. I got slammed after my vacation and haven't quite caught up.
However . . . I've been working on the shared storefront at Lulu a bit, and Amazon has just introduced a feature that will work as a shared storefront there too.
There are still problems/limitations in each environment. In the Amazon aStore, right now I can only display 9 Featured Books and 1 Featured Press (because of the way their category page works--messy, inaccuate keyword searches, this is the best I can do at the moment). I'll rotate those, I guess. At Lulu, I can add whatever I like by content ID number, but the byline (author name) doesn't show up, and I can't categorize the contents of the store except in a strictly heirarchical fashion (by page-rank numbers I assign; I'll go alpha by author name or press. There is a search function, and I can use the group blog to highlight new releases, etc. . . . once I have time to hack the templates.) Both stores are still beta-test versions, so I'm supplying feedback to both Amazon & Lulu, asking for the improvements we'd like to see.
Anyway, these are now officially coming along. So if you've got micropress or self-published poetry books available through either Amazon or Lulu,* let me know. (Content IDs for Lulu and ISBNS for Amazon would be most helpful. Ideally Amazon books should have cover art uploaded. See their help pages for how to do that--"customer-uploaded images" won't display. And in Lulu, consider filling out your book descriptions. Otherwise not much beyond the cover art shows up on the main page.)
Once they're cleaned up and built a little better, I can work out a way to make them display here in popup windows or inline frames or something equally fancy. For right now, I've added a DIY Storefront section to the right sidebar. Click & be merry.
Yr suggestions, product lists, etc. more than welcome.
Update: Jessica set up a group Flickr pool. Cool.
Another update: There's a forum devoted to discussing the beta version of the Amazon aStores (if yer interested). Lots of people asking for about the ability to choose specific items by ISBN or product ID (instead of clumsy too-inclusive keyword searches). I tried a couple of workarounds that didn't really workaround. Anyway, lots of folks asking means that they'll probably implement it . . . eventually. For now I will just have to rotate 9 featured items and one featured press (each month, I guess?). I can still make a list of things tho, to put in when they get this sorted out, so hit me.
* I know: these stores leave out everybody who isn't already on Lulu or Amazon, but they're better than nothing, & so far they're free to build. Does Etsy have a similar Group or Community function? That could be a way to include more DIYers. I haven't used Etsy yet. Keep thinking!
Tags: shared storefront, Amazon, Lulu
However . . . I've been working on the shared storefront at Lulu a bit, and Amazon has just introduced a feature that will work as a shared storefront there too.
There are still problems/limitations in each environment. In the Amazon aStore, right now I can only display 9 Featured Books and 1 Featured Press (because of the way their category page works--messy, inaccuate keyword searches, this is the best I can do at the moment). I'll rotate those, I guess. At Lulu, I can add whatever I like by content ID number, but the byline (author name) doesn't show up, and I can't categorize the contents of the store except in a strictly heirarchical fashion (by page-rank numbers I assign; I'll go alpha by author name or press. There is a search function, and I can use the group blog to highlight new releases, etc. . . . once I have time to hack the templates.) Both stores are still beta-test versions, so I'm supplying feedback to both Amazon & Lulu, asking for the improvements we'd like to see.
Anyway, these are now officially coming along. So if you've got micropress or self-published poetry books available through either Amazon or Lulu,* let me know. (Content IDs for Lulu and ISBNS for Amazon would be most helpful. Ideally Amazon books should have cover art uploaded. See their help pages for how to do that--"customer-uploaded images" won't display. And in Lulu, consider filling out your book descriptions. Otherwise not much beyond the cover art shows up on the main page.)
Once they're cleaned up and built a little better, I can work out a way to make them display here in popup windows or inline frames or something equally fancy. For right now, I've added a DIY Storefront section to the right sidebar. Click & be merry.
Yr suggestions, product lists, etc. more than welcome.
Update: Jessica set up a group Flickr pool. Cool.
Another update: There's a forum devoted to discussing the beta version of the Amazon aStores (if yer interested). Lots of people asking for about the ability to choose specific items by ISBN or product ID (instead of clumsy too-inclusive keyword searches). I tried a couple of workarounds that didn't really workaround. Anyway, lots of folks asking means that they'll probably implement it . . . eventually. For now I will just have to rotate 9 featured items and one featured press (each month, I guess?). I can still make a list of things tho, to put in when they get this sorted out, so hit me.
* I know: these stores leave out everybody who isn't already on Lulu or Amazon, but they're better than nothing, & so far they're free to build. Does Etsy have a similar Group or Community function? That could be a way to include more DIYers. I haven't used Etsy yet. Keep thinking!
Tags: shared storefront, Amazon, Lulu
Labels: Lulu, shared storefronts
posted by shanna at
11:17 AM
4 Comments:
just want to comment here too and say THANKS SHANNA!!!
By
DUSIE, at 11:38 AM
This is great -- No Tell Books will have more books in Oct.
Thanks.
By
RL, at 12:49 PM
Cool. The Amazon store is a little slicker, but I actually have less space to maneuver in. I can only put 9 books on the featured products page (just have 6 there now). There's a way to add a Books category page but it pulls books from all of Amazon by keyword. "Poetry" pulls up WAY too many, obviously, and tags (which I could add) don't get picked up in the sorts. Sigh. It'd be better for our purposes if they'd let me select specific books by ISBN. I've asked 'em. (It's a beta function, so they're asking for feedback. You know I got some.) Anyway, at least it's something.
By
shanna, at 3:29 PM
Ack, that comment was confusing. What I mean is, beyond the 9 on the "featured product" first page, I can add books to the "More books" category page of the Amazon aStore. But I can't choose the books. I'm at the mercy, for the moment anyway, of the Keyword Search function. It's not a very precise tool. Every keyword I've tried has pulled up tons of stuff, mostly inappropriate for our focus.
Hopefully they'll build in an add-by-ISBN function for category pages, to let associates customize their stores. That's what they've given us as Lulu, where I can add individual books by ID number. (A problem at Lulu is that the author names don't show up on the storefront. I've asked about too.)
Now, get your lists in peoples. :)
By
shanna, at 3:34 PM
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