We have a few new site updates to deal with coming up, so we thought we’d give people some warning. We’ve already made a few changes you might notice:

Long Term Free ebooks are now checked when they drop out of Free. If they return to it inside a week, they’ll be listed on the site again automatically. On the technical side, there have some backend changes that have made the site faster, e,g. reducing database calls and overheads. As a test we’ve also put up a messageboard on proboards: http://bookangel.boards.net/ so users who want to chat about books can do it there. If there’s enough interest we’ll bring it inhouse.

The changes coming up are more extensive:
Due to the number of subscribers, we’re moving our emails to a dedicated third party who can provide an end-to-end service which should cut the costs of emails by a third. We are also going to add an option for authors to sign up to a newslist for promo opportunities etc. These messages would not be sent out frequently, but could be useful.

The genre pages are being reviewed to see if we can make them match the categories, reducing size and allowing us to display numbers available at any time.

We’re looking at moving away from Riot ads to a custom system that allows authors to put their book covers in the sidebar. It would load faster, and we’ve had complaints about video and noise from readers. $5 for 4 weeks is the current suggested amount, with a 1 week free option available only if there are no paying users.

And we are looking for more reviewers, as we are getting in quite a few books right now. We’re swamped! So if you are interested, get in touch. There’s no pay, just a lot of free ebooks and a chance to share your views – and talk to other pithy book readers.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween and have a great Bonfire Night! Stay safe.