YWS: Apollo Updates Thread

Does it work on those who aren't in that category?

Hmm.. Iggy
Iggy
Iggy
Iggy

THIS IS AWESOME.

The new newsletter format is proving to be a great success. The first two have led to big increases in overall site activity, with the second one already surpassing the first one in gains. Quite pleased with that, and it means that the newsletter will continue going out every week.

So if you have something you'd like to see in the newsletter, please let me know. I'm looking primarily for stuff that is of general interest to young writers and overlooked gems in the literary area.

I would like to see these sites. I have very little idea about what you are talking about, but I am excited to hear the growth.

One thing I think would be cool, not important, but still cool would be more specification in the 'User X has posted a new literary work titled 'Y'

I think it would be nice if it was like 'User X has posted a new work in poetry-Narrative/romantic- titled 'Y'

It would be nice to know what user X posted, and in what category.

This would mess with your 'tags' plan though.

Sorry @TheMessenger, I was imprecise about what I said! I meant not that there were two sites, but that the second newsletter is currently leading to bigger gains here on YWS than the first newsletter did (if you haven't received the newsletter, check your spam mail or if you have Gmail, check inside the promotions tab).

Measuring those gains exactly is a little difficult, but I can kind of do so by tracking the unique visitors number as that stays very consistent day to day at a little below 900. Last week, on the day after the newsletter went out, unique visitors jumped to above 1,000. Yesterday it jumped again to 977, and it looks set to hit 1,000+ today as well.

@HighTop ->> Sounds like a good idea to me! I probably won't get into genres as that gets a bit verbose, but replacing "literary work" with the appropriate type does sound more helpful.

Oh, Ok then I have been receiving it:D

@Nate, I actually have to say that the newsletter looks great I'm getting similar ones from tumblr now which actually do make me log on when I ordinarily might not. Obviously I am personally going to come online anyway (and tbh I only checked the newsletter this time because you said Girls & Science was in it- I have a specific YWS email account I don't check regularly, just use for workshops etc [/tangent]) but I just wanted to say that I think it's a good format to drag other people in!

(One thing though- why does it say YWS Draft at the top? That did throw me off.)

But yeah mainly I think it's really pretty great! Nice work

Thanks Stella!

The "YWS Draft" is just the name of the newsletter, although I guess I could probably highlight that more. It's sort of named after one of my favorite email newsletters, NextDraft, which is a tech-focused daily email.

So, experimented with a full image background for YWS the other day. Some people liked it, some didn't. Ultimately, @Meshugenah reminded me about the custom backgrounds featured I added some months ago, and how the full image background was interfering with that. Thus, off it went! Plus, it was over a megabyte in size, which is problematic for those accessing the site over mobile.

However, I am sticking with the new logo change. Like the other logo, it was designed by @Bobo in 2009, and I call it the shield logo since it replaced this one:

I've found that I'm having real problems with the Publishing Centre, getting it to keep my formatting and everything. Even when I upload it from Word, or OpenOffice and click on the 'preserve whitespace', it doesn't work... If there's something like a tutorial would be nice...

@Auxiira, can you send me the document at nate@youngwriterssociety.com? It'll help me to determine what's causing the issue. Thanks!

Just finished putting together a better mobile skin for the new chat. It should look and work much better on mobile devices now.

Not quite finished yet though. To make it look better, the user list currently won't show up on mobile. When I'm more rested, what I'll do is add in a button so that you can toggle it on and off.

One quick note: the Green Room has been permanently changed to show all works with less than 2 reviews from the past 365 days.

Even with this change, though, the oldest work is only a few days old.

Starting on January 27, 2014 (GMT), or as soon as Review Day ends, the cost to post a new literary work will drop from 250 to 200.

This change is being made because of the big increase in reviewing activity that began in early December! So with more people reviewing, it seems like we need more literary works to review as well.

Yay!!!!!