Database

  • Record number – (can this be automatically generated by the system?)
  • Book Title
  • Author Last Name
  • Author First Name
  • ISBN # (which would generate an amazon.com link; only variant is on books that are out of print, so I’d need to be able to delete the link and simply leave the ISBN #)
  • Cost
  • Page Count
  • Pub Date (For the most part we generally only provide the year UNLESS it’s a series title OR we’ve posted it in advance of the book going on sale. I know Teresa suggests one field, but unless it’s formatted like this “__/____” than I’d prefer two fields, one for month and one for year. )
  • Copyright Date (If this could default to the pub date that would handle MOST books, but where either books are reissued or re-released in paperback after having been published in hardcover, that would change. I’d only want it to “show” if the two dates were different. And in those instances I’d update the ISBN, the cost, page count, and pub date.)
  • Publisher (this would be as simple as Berkley, Brava, Silhouette, or SIM #420 – some Harlequin and Silhouette titles are single titles and not series titles)
  • Review Date (day/month/year is really easiest for me in terms of data entry and is what Americans expect in terms of what they see as standard)
  • Submitted by: AAR reviewerReaderAuthor (this gets into the whole AAR/non-AAR Review discussion, see DIK/grade section below for my solution)
  • First Reviewer’s Name (built into the database would be links to each reviewer’s bio page; could the reviewer name show as a hyperlink so that people could click it and get a list of all their reviews? If submitted by author or reader, no link would appear.)
  • Second Reviewer’s Name – quite rare (ditto)
  • Book Type HardcoverTradePaperback (originally thought necessary if going to have possibly two sets of “release” information – ie, a hardcover from 2003 that goes into paperback in 2002. But probably easiest to simply provide most updated information if/when that occurs, although will need to utilize pub date AND copyright date in that case.)
  • GenreRomanceOther FictionNon-FictionOther (If “other,” can I fill manually)

    If Romance, than HistoricalMedievalRenaissanceEuropean HistoricalRegencyAmerican HistoricalContemporaryRomantic SuspenseCategory (what we now call “series”)Alternate Reality/FantasyParanormal/Time Travel

    If Other Fiction, than HistoricalAlternate Reality/Fantasy (the AR/Fant can be separate) Chick LitOtherGeneral Fiction

  • Non-Fiction
  • Other
  • Locale Setting
  • Time Setting
  • Anthology? Yes/No (Yes includes novellas, short stories, or full-length books repackaged into one volume, regardless of how many authors)

    The anthology issue is really holding us up, and given how relatively few there are, I think it’s gotten out of hand. I’d like the entire review to be input in one text field, but for there to be multiple “author” and “sub-title” fields to handle the names of the individual stories. That way people could input the name of the story or the volume and have the volume come up. I think that’s simple and clean. We would need up to ten author and sub-title fields, in which case the number of additional hyperlinks to articles or interviews each might have done at the site would need to be larger too. But I’m getting ahead of myself now.

  • Part of a series? (Y/N)
  • DIK? (Y/N)

    We need to separate out reviews written by staff from those written by non-staff. And so, the easiest way is to designate all staff DIK’s as some level of A (the default will be A- but I can adjust up) BUT for non-staff DIK’s to simply be called DIK’s.) When a reader searches for A’s they’ll get the staff DIK’s but not the reader/author DIK’s. They’d have to search DIK’s for ALL DIK’s. On the page for “new reviews” there would be two tables, and whenever a reader brought up a non-staff review, there would be a reader or writer icon, as we have now.

  • Grade A+AA-B+BB-C+CC-D+DD-Fnone (applies to non-staff DIK’s)
  • Sensuality Rating BurningHotWarmSubtleKissesN/A
  • Did You Know…? hyperlink – the default would be “no,” and if it were left at no, nothing would show on the final page. But if “yes” is chosen, than when the reader brings up the review, they’d see a hyperlink w/this text: “Did you know this author has received DIK status from AAR at least three times in the past?”
  • Spoiler Warning – the default would be “no,”and if it were left at no, nothing would show on the final page. But if “yes” is chosen, than when the reader brings up the review, they’d see this text: “Warning: There may be spoilers in this review”
  • Review Text for Reviewer #1
  • Review Text for Reviewer #2 (this would be rare)
  • Coda Text
  • Other reviews on site for author? (Y/N)
  • Is there a Pandora’s Box column for this volume? (Y/N) Default is “no,” if yes, than provide space for hyperlink
  • Author Interviews or Articles at AAR (Provide series of fields for links – five per author should do, but if a multi-authored book, than multiply – THIS WOULD BE EXTREMELY RARE)
  • There would be original edit with name of editor and date, than final edit w/my name, than preview, and finally, “take live”

    What else would show on the actual review page:

    • Link to Reviews Message Board
    • Search field by title and/or author (title would allow either volume or novella to be accessed and author would bring up other reviews)