AdminAuthor's blog

With a new website, not every feature that's planned for the initial launch is able to make it in time. Some are delayed in favor of other features, some just take a little extra time to perfect. This week saw the inclusion of two such features, the first of many enhancements that are currently being planned and developed for AuthorAdvance.

I had a rare free moment as a batch of submissions are being uploaded to the new site, so I decided to use it to update everyone on the status of the data migration.

In short, the process is going well. Users and Titles have been converted and imported successfully. Submissions are underway, and should be completed late tomorrow. We've also made some changes to the fonts and artwork, and will continue to make tweaks right up to the launch date.

The migration of LitMatch to the new AuthorAdvance website has begun! In order to perform the migration, LitMatch will be offline for a period of about one week. Once the data is converted and moved over, the new site will be brought online.

This is a busy and exciting time for me, but I realize that it can be a frustrating time as well for longtime users who have come to depend on LitMatch for research and tracking. I appreciate everyone's patience as we work through this process. I also think you'll be pleased with the results.

See you on the other side!

We are pleased to announce the launch date for AuthorAdvance, the next generation social network and submission tracking system for writers of all interests and experience levels.

AuthorAdvance will launch on Monday, November 9th.

In preparation for the launch, LitMatch will be closed in order to perform user and data migration starting on Monday, November 2nd. The migration process is expected to take about a week to complete, at which point, LitMatch will be replaced by the new AuthorAdvance site.

So, why close the site, and why a week?

In my last preview, I wrote about how you can use AuthorAdvance to accentuate the good. But what happens when you need to bring attention to the bad? The open nature of AuthorAdvance's listings might make it a tempting target to those who wish to unfair advantage of budding talent, but we've put safeguards in place to make it easy for the talent to fight back.

Scenario #2: The Scammer

So far, each of the previews I've posted here on the blog have focused on a single piece of functionality that the new AuthorAdvance site has to offer. With all the new features, it's easy to feel a little lost, and easier still to ask, "How does all this really help me?" The real power of AuthorAdvance lies, not just in the features themselves, but in the way that they all work together.

It's been a while since my last preview. Work on AuthorAdvance has been keeping me busy, but I'm taking advantage of a momentary lull to write a little about one of the most powerful features of the new website: Groups.

Groups are simply collections of user who have united around a specific topic or interest. But beneath this simple concept lies a robust way of interacting with other users and sharing information.

Two years ago, a little website called LitMatch was launched with the goal of helping writers find literary agents, and ultimately, get published. Later this year, LitMatch will relaunch with a new mission that encompasses a wider spectrum of writers and their work. With this new mission comes a new look and a new name!

Now that you have an idea of what your fellow users all about, you might want to get in touch with those users. We've built a few options into the new site that make that possible, and allow each user to have as much or as little contact as he or she chooses...

In my first preview, I wrote about some of the motivations behind the LitMatch redesign. Of those motivations, one of the biggest was wanting to find a way to allow our users to find and connect with each other. It was that desire that led us to decide early on that the new site would go beyond presenting listings and tracking submissions, and become a full-flegded social network.

The next series of previews will focus on some of the social networking features on the new site. Let's start by taking a look at how users can share information about themselves with each other.