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Software for Keeping Track of Reviewers
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Posted by tightbeam
Jun 25, 2014 at 12:39 PM
I run a small press and typically send out dozens of review copies (books) each month.
I’ve been keeping track of who gets what, when they get it, whether they actually write and post a review, etc., in a very bloated text file. The system has become cumbersome. Really cumbersome.
I’ve tried the usual suspects as replacements: OneNote, EverNote, MyInfo, ListPro, and so forth. None of them do what I want them to do, simply and efficiently. And I’m not a big Excel fan.
Maybe what I need is a cut-down database? (Don’t want to go the full-blown database route - overkill.)
Recommendations, please?
Posted by Hugh
Jun 25, 2014 at 01:12 PM
I’ll probably appear obtuse, but notwithstanding your lack of enthusiasm for Excel, Excel is certainly what I’d recommend - especially if you have some idea of how to use it in the first place, and therefore won’t have to learn a new application from scratch. For me, the problem with designating an application for a database is that you never quite know at the beginning what you’ll want to add to the database or the app’s functionality later. The feature-set of Excel is likely to avoid that problem. Otherwise, there’ve been databases in the past that were designed to hold records of freelance author’s submissions - perhaps one of those could be adapted for your purposes? (But I’m assuming you’re on Windows - I’m not up-to-date with recent lightweight database applications on that platform. Bento on the Mac would have been very applicable, but that has died the death. Tap Forms - http://www.tapforms.com - seems to be generally regarded as an adequate replacement - but again, only for the Mac.)
Posted by Dr Andus
Jun 25, 2014 at 01:21 PM
Hugh wrote:
I’ll probably appear obtuse, but notwithstanding your lack of enthusiasm
>for Excel, Excel is certainly what I’d recommend
alternatively, Google Sheets, if you happen to have a Google account already. A lot lighter to use than full-on Excel in my experience.
There is also Snap DB (but might be a bit too simple for this task?):
http://skwire.dcmembers.com/fp/?page=snap-db
Posted by tightbeam
Jun 25, 2014 at 01:25 PM
You know my dirty secret: I’m not familiar with Excel. If there’s nothing else out there adequate for my needs, I’ll just have to bite the bullet and learn what I need to learn. But is there an “Excel-lite”, maybe a languishing open source project?
All I need is functionality to:
1) Enter reviewer’s name (email and mailing addresses not essential, though if they can be included without cluttering up the data, great)
2) Which book(s) were sent - maybe select from available titles in a drop-down list?
3) Date on which the book was sent
4) Results: did he post a review?
5) Free-form notes field at the end for catching anything else
The tricky part is handling reviewers who get copies of different books. I imagine I’d need a separate line for each?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 25, 2014 at 01:30 PM
I set up a FileMaker database for exactly this purpose, but I never use it, because it is, as you say, “overkill.” Instead, I’ve been using TheBrain. As long as you don’t want to print out reports, this is a good option. But, if you do need to print reports, you’ll need another app.
With TheBrain, I set it up this way:
You have a Thought for each reviewer… these can be under a single parent Thought called “Reviewers.” Or you can put them under different industries, or whatever. In the notes section, keep the contact information (but beware that you can’t print mailing labels from TheBrain).
You have a Thought for each title in your catalog. You could then create a child relationship from the book Thought to the reviewer Thoughts you send the review copies to. You can use the notes window to record dates, or add the date to the link itself. However, I would add an additional layer, which is to create a separate Thought to represent the interaction of the book with the reviewer. This way you can use tags to designate status and result.
Here’s a screen capture of a simple example:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/155244/Example-Book-Reviewer-Database.png
Just a suggestion.
Steve Z.