Ian D Moore

Greetings readers, writers, lyricists, scribes and ebayers (incidentally, if you are an ebayer stick around, there’s some great ‘buy now’ options!!)

I bring technical updates on the wind to make your viewing and interactive experience of this site that much more pleasurable, like you needed any more…

Speaking of the mighty auction site, you’ll have noticed that by clicking the captions below each title that say ‘Read A Sample of’ that this triggers an amazing application that I have managed to apply to every listed book. Yes, indeed, I give you the try before you buy option, you can’t do that on ebay 🙂 Originally suggested by the lovely Susan Darlene Faw way back when, and implemented throughout the site by yours truly. You would think that after writing ‘Read A Sample of’ 374 times that I’d be good at it by now, wouldn’t you? Kelly (my editor queen) I need therapy! Anyway, this improvement makes us one of the few indie author sites currently on the net with the 15% preview facility. Don’t you just love the IASD?

What does it do?

This application, much like the Amazon preview app, allows readers to read roughly 15% of any given title in a stand alone window. Some of the titles are paperback only, in this case, it is not possible to use this feature, likewise with Kindle Worlds titles.

In other advancements, work has begin on smartUrl Universal Links upgrades to each title. What is a Universal Link?

Imagine you’re viewing a book written by a UK author, only you’re in Australia – well, this little link gizmo thingy will direct you to amazon.com.au instead of you getting that annoying message that tells you that you need to search for the title or indeed, that you cannot buy it because it isn’t available where you are. Neat huh? It directs international users to the Amazon site in THEIR country, so making the readers life a LOT less complicated when they stumble upon a title that really gets the juices flowing, probably after reading the sample… hint, hint. Now, currently, this process is being done on a voluntary basis as some authors already have their own Universal Links set up which I’ve simply added to their works. For authors who would still like the Universal Links, I will do that by request using the smartURL system – which is the easiest way to cover so many titles.

The uni-link upgrade work will be an ongoing project for me in the coming weeks, whereby all books will be upgraded one way or the other.

Going forward….

I have plans in the offing to spotlight some of our helpful members, the editors, proof readers, cover design guru’s and the like, so that both readers and fellow writers can get a feel of the standards that we aim to achieve here in the IASD. That will be kicking off shortly. As ever, we the admin team, are open to any suggestions from readers or writers that would improve your experience of this site, so please, don’t be afraid to leave a comment below – we’ll be listening.

That’s all from me for now. In the meantime, happy reading – some great stories within this blog site just waiting to be read and some equally great authors just waiting to be discovered… by you.