I thought about titling this "Making Andy's Life Easier Is Everybody's Job," but decided for something more utilitarian.

First, a reminder:

The book request form is here: http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/88104

Magazines can be requested here: http://app.formassembly.com/forms/view/88116


Now the brass tacks:

I've been churning through the slush of several dozen SAP requests (Suggest-A-Product: the tool we use to add items to the database) and a few pieces of advice have occurred to me.

Things to do to brighten my day:

1. Search epinions thoroughly for the book you want before requesting a SAP. Also perform a google search to be sure (enter the following in google: "book I want to find" site:epinions.com).

2. Spell things correctly and capitalize appropriately. It's a lot easier when we can copy and paste.

3. Provide a link to a cover image. We need one. It cannot be a modified image, like the Amazon images with with "search inside" arrows arrows. To get the link, right-click on an image, go to properties, and copy the address.

4. If your book has an author, complete that field. Date, ISBN, illustrator, number of pages, complete every relevant field you can. Yes, I am perfectly capable of getting these things from Amazon or the publisher's website. But so are you, and the more information you supply, the faster this gets completed.

5. Be aware that if you submit a huge pile of requests all at once I might decide only to do several of them before moving on to other peoples' requests. I'll get to the rest of yours eventually, I just don't think other people should have to wait while you try to write a dozen reviews in one day.

6. Do not request SAPs for books published by vanity presses or self-published books. If you feel the book you want to review should be an exception to this rule email myself or one of the other CLs directly to make your case (how you came across the book, why it deserves to be on epinions, why it should be taken more seriously than the erotica my pastor's grandmother self-publishes, etc.).

7. Do not request SAPs for books you have a vested interest in. Our opinion of you will fall through the floor if you request a SAP for a book that you, your wife, your best friend, your second cousin, or your dog have written, illustrated, marketed, or been involved with in any other way.

8. Remember that no matter who you are or how much we might love you we may not be able to process your SAP requests for 2 or 3 weeks (actually, it's more like 2-3 days lately). Request well in advance of when you'd like to actually publish your review.

9. Do not request a SAP unless you're absolutely sure you will publish a review. If you fail to do so I will bite the pinkies off the rudimentary voodoo doll I'm fashioning out of cardstock and safety scissors right now. Can you feel my fingers wrapped around you?


Grumpy, aren't I? But if I'm going to take time away from my own writing, reading, rating, and from my obligation as a CL to keep in touch with what's happening in the Books category, please don't make me slog through sloppily filled out request forms.

-cont.-

/rant

I hope I haven't scared anyone off. In real life I'm actually a congenial, sometimes even shy person. With the sad state of the epinions database, SAP is an obviously necessary tool. I've benefitted from it often enough myself and I'm happy to enable you to review the books you want. So don't hesitate to request away. And to the majority of you who are always conscientious in your requests, thank you!

-Andy

First, allow me to state that I can completely understand the need for SAP requests to be complete, accurate, and undemanding. I now wonder, however, as to the nature of SAP requests for certain books. Twice this month, I performed a search for books that I had clearly seen in the database only a few months ago. The books no longer seem to be present in any form. I am aware that the search engine is experiencing difficulty, so I am left with the question of how to handle this. Should I submit SAP requests for these books, or should I wait a few weeks? Will the books quietly resurface on their own, or have they been deleted from the database? Thank you so much, and I look forward to hearing feedback from the Epinions community.

Nicole

If the database has lost your book, feel free to SAP it. Try a google search first, and if you're not finished with the book or ready to review it, wait just in case it does magically reappear.

But if you're ready to review it, don't let the database stop you. Request a SAP. And draft your review in Word or something, in case it takes a couple weeks for us to get to your request.

-Andy

Bumping for info.

We've overhauled the SAP forms. The first post in this thread has been updated with the new links. Please update your bookmarks.

-Andy

Thanks for the update. Hopefully you're not as stressed as you seemed in the original April 2008 post.

patsy

Certain members have either gotten the message or jumped ship since that post, so yes, stress levels are way down.

Might I suggest you remove the rant? I had a publicist ask me today to NOT review a book here because of that.

Sigh. Your post, Tom, is another example why some publicists don't want things reviewed here.

I was asked to suggest it and did so. While I, for the most part totally ignore the message boards, others do not and have made their feelings known to me before about some of the stuff that goes on here. It wasn't the first time that I was asked not to review a book here and agreed.

If Epinions wants to be taken seriously as a shopping site, the image put forward to consumers has to be more professional. Granted, because I write for a number of sites and do editing work Epinions is not my priority that it is for others. Which is why I never was raised to Advisor status or Cl because I wouldn't write exclusively for here.

The fact that you don't approve of or understand the point, Tom,does not diminish the validity of what I wrote. You can make fun of it all you want to. But, just like revenge raters, your actions say a lot about you when you choose to do so. It really is too bad you aren't the same helpful guy you were when I first came here before you lost your status and went bitter.

"If I had known the reviews I've written for professional and academic journals would disqualify me from holding a title at epinions I'd have been stuck with the difficult decision of either writing reviews for pennies here or continuing to write reviews at my day job. If you all promise not to tell the powers that be I think I'll try to keep living my double life a little longer."

Hey, I am not telling. I was told, specifically, more than once, by various powers that be here that the sole reason I could not move up was becuase of my outside review work both in print and online. I figure that was their loss.

My current employer expressly forbids us to join groups such as MYSPACE and FACEBOOK. We sign contracts that name them by name and agree not to be a member of either at any time. (Before somebody argues the legality of that, the Supreme Court has ruled that an employer MAY FORBID such activity even at the employees home. Baltimore school system enacted the rule, fought the case, and won and it has been affirmed on every level in various other circuits that handled such cases as well.) Yet, despite the contracts, many of my fellow employees are on both and have encouraged me to do so in hopes of spreading the word about my anthology and other projects. I figure it isn't worth taking the chance on.

No, the publicists in this case, and the other folks who have mentioned it in the past which includes a couple of other publicists, marketing folks for major houses, a couple of authors, etc. were not bringing up Amazon. Amazon is pretty much a known commodity as are the folks cited. And no, I don't approve of them either. Not that anyone is asking. lol

It was specifically about this site (the reputation it has which is worse than AMazon in some circles), the rant (which I hadn't heard word one about since last summer and declined to say anything about the issue at that time) and some other stuff that really isn't under our control. I just brought it up from the standpoint of appearance sake.

I didn't realize it would cause such angst with some folks or I never would have said a word.

POD is being done by everyone these days and from a term standpoint still often used incorrectly. I do, occasionally, read a self published book that is worthy of being reviewed here and worthy of publication by traditional means. I would like to see the standard relaxed, a little, for reviewers that have a body of work, been around a long time, or some other agreeable method of deterring the validity of the reviewer. That will be my last suggestion on how anything is done here.

Just for the record---none of my grandparents are alive at this point and not one of them ever wrote erotica.

The publicists involved have all been folks with very successful companies and well known to me for years now. I understand their concerns while not always sharing them. I mentioned what their impression was, as well now as a four or five folks from this site who have written me privately about the issue, in the hopes that it would only be seen as constructive help. My intention was not to cause a huge uproar.

Apparently, I did the exact opposite. I apologize and will go back to doing what I do best here. Keeping my mouth shut, rating some reviews, writing reviews and staying off the boards.

Forgive my brevity. I'm on my phone and not a computer. Not easy to quote from here.

I read Andy's "rant" and hardly think it qualifies as such. It's more an instruction list on how to request SAPs. Which I wish were followed all the time.

Kevin, maybe you could point said publicist to Andy, Patsy and I? We'd love the chance to talk and improve relations. Heck, we've been talking about reaching out to more publishing houses for review opportunities. Besides, a rant here is perfectly acceptable I think. Not so much in a review where I expect a certain level of professionalism.

~Stef