Sunday, October 20, 2013

Finding without Searching

This week's post over at Tungsten Hippo is about how sometimes searching for something is not the best way to find it, and gives links to a few sites I've found useful for browsing for short ebooks.

I have been asked why I don't give ratings to the books I put on Tungsten Hippo. One reason is that I am only posting books I like, so ratings seem a bit redundant. I also want to put any ratings I do create in the place where they'll do the authors the most good, which is on Amazon. So this weekend, I set up my Tungsten Hippo Amazon profile, and have started writing reviews using it. I am working my way backwards through the books I've posted at Tungsten Hippo, posting reviews on Amazon. I will also try to create reviews for the new books I post as I go forward. Since I only post books I like at Tungsten Hippo, my reviews will primarily be 4 and 5 star reviews. I haven't decided yet what to do about the short ebooks I don't like- and there have been plenty of those. I have even stopped reading some part way through.

I am also undecided about whether I will create reviews on Kobo and Barnes and Noble. I am not convinced that the potential impact is worth the effort. If anyone has any opinions on that, feel free to tell me about them in the comments.

Between the question about ratings and questions about the source of the name... maybe it is time to create an FAQ over on the Tungsten Hippo site. Maybe I'll get to that this week. But first, I have a regular Wandering Scientist post I've been meaning to write since I got back from our New Zealand vacation. I think I'll work on that next.

I've picked up quite a few new Twitter followers recently. If any of you have clicked through and are wondering about the back story of Tungsten Hippo, it is here.

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