As you may have noticed (!?) we did an upgrade last night.
This one was major as it literally doubles the number of features we have. First and foremost is the KU dashboard.
There are a TON of posts at WftW about moving to wide from KU, and it’s the natural progression for the majority of new authors to start at Amazon and work their way to the other platforms. The transition is where many of them stop. Whether it's just fear of the unknown or a reluctance to leave a place they have grown comfortable or any number of other reasons, that transition is a major hurdle for many. We’re hoping to make that transition less painful.
We had many requests from authors currently in KU to make a dashboard for them. Some had no intention of leaving KU; others wanted a tool to make the transition easier. So we came up with what I hope is the best solution for both.
If you are wide, you needn’t worry; all the features you had before are still there plus many more that you’ve been asking for.
If you are a KU author (or have books in both camps), you’ll have a dashboard option that is tailored for you.
Why two dashboards? The two camps value their data differently and making a one-size-fits-all dashboard was not the best option. So now you’ll see a simple toggle at the top of your screen that allows you to switch back and forth at will.
On the KU dashboard, you’ll find the KU status tracker. This feature monitors your books in KU and keeps an eye on that KU checkbox. If its status should change, you will get an alert – both on your dashboard and in the upcoming daily email feature. This should cut down on any surprise re-enrollments from Amazon.
You’ll also find the price-tracking feature. This checks the prices of your books daily and alerts you to any changes. This to counter unexpected price matching and piracy. It's currently Amazon-only, but we’ll be adding it to the other platforms soon.
For the accountants among you, we’ve added an option to the dashboard labeled “Custom”. This option has too many features to list here so I’ll be brief and say it allows you to make just about any kind of spreadsheet you wish. This includes a number of charting options, and you can save your creation and/or export it in your choice of PDF, Excel, or CSV. I’m looking forward to seeing your creations!
To go with the KU dashboard, we made upgrades to the bookshelf. To optimize this, we added Amazon Author Central to the platform list on the settings page. Once you have logged in there, you will see advanced reviews, sorting, and ranking features on that page. You can sort your reviews by Most Recent, Positive to Negative, or vice-versa. We’ll soon be adding sorting by star rating, which will include a word cloud feature to help with Keywords and Genre selection.
The Rank Tracking has several options as well; there’s a summary, Ranks by Book, Ranks by series, and Ranks vs. Sales. You’ll notice there are sections for Hardcovers, Audio, and even Audio CD’s (by request), which are currently in production. This is currently Amazon-only but we’re exploring ways to add other platforms to this.
If you click on a book in your bookshelf, it will take you to the new Book Details page. Every book will have one and it now includes all the data attached to that specific book. There’s a summary, a set of charts, and a spreadsheet. This is in line with our “4 clicks or less” policy of getting you to the data you want. As a bonus, we added a color selection option so you can assign a color to a book or (soon) a series. We’ll be expanding on that when new features arrive.
Last but not least, we’re lowering our prices.
Our new price structure is...
Tier 1: $0 to $1,000 a month = FREE
Tier 2: $1,001 to $2,000 a month = $15/m
Tier 3: $2,000 and up = $20/m
We’re also offering a yearly subscription at $185/yr, with discounts for current subscribers. (Check your subscription page!)
And that, is the new ScribeCount. There’s a lot more that I haven’t touched on here so please click around and explore a bit. There’s also some features that didn’t make the deadline so watch for those to happen over the next few weeks. (*cough* Pre-orders! *cough cough*) Since this is a lot of new code, we expect a few bumps and glitches to show up. If you should find one, please let us know. We welcome any and all feedback. If you have an idea on how we might improve on something, please drop us a ticket. Stab that support button – we want to hear from you!
Thanks to all who helped us build this! Without your help, we’d be months behind on our goals.
Appreciate you all!
Randall & Philippa
