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Software for Keeping Track of Reviewers
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Posted by tightbeam
Jun 25, 2014 at 04:41 PM
Thanks for all the excellent advice. I’m going to give The Brain a shot, swayed by Steve’s screenshot of what-can-be. I hope - for my modest needs - the learning curve won’t make my nose bleed.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 25, 2014 at 05:18 PM
bobmclain wrote:
Thanks for all the excellent advice. I’m going to give The Brain a shot,
>swayed by Steve’s screenshot of what-can-be. I hope - for my modest
>needs - the learning curve won’t make my nose bleed.
>
One of the many good things about TheBrain is that the developer has a ton of tutorial videos on their website. Watch a few of those and you shouldn’t have any trouble.
I should warn you, if you’re not aware, that TheBrain isn’t cheap. But they do offer a trial period, so I hope you can determine how it will work for you before you invest in it.
Steve Z.
Posted by Ken
Jun 25, 2014 at 07:50 PM
If The Brain proves to be too expensive and/or complicated, I really think that you should give Trello (or possibly Asana) a look. These programs are frequently used for product tracking and marketing, and they easily lend themselves to this type of task with minimal set up (and cost). Trello can be learned in almost no time. Always nice to have a Plan B.
—Ken
Posted by tightbeam
Jun 26, 2014 at 01:42 AM
Thanks, Ken. I’ve been using Trello for quite a few months now, primarily as a means to keep track (at a very high, at-a-glance level) of where books are in the acquisition/production/publication process. I just drag them from column to column as they move from submission to publication. Fast, easy, and gives me a nice overview of the company. I can see Trello scaling to a few hundred books, since all I’m doing is moving “title cards”, but I don’t think it could handle records for hundreds of reviewers.
One thing I want to do - and that I think I’ll be able to do with The Brain - is click the title of a book and see which reviewers have been assigned to it, and their statuses; or click the name of a reviewer and see which books I’ve sent him and whether anything has come of it (and whether I should keep sending him free copies of other books). For example, Joe Reviewer asks me for a copy of Book “C”. His name rings a bell, sort of. I want to click his name in The Brain (or whatever program I end up using) and be able to see, right away, that he hasn’t written any reviews of Books “A” and “B”, which I also sent him.
Posted by Ken
Jun 26, 2014 at 02:33 AM
That does sound like it would stretch Trello a bit. If you ever used Ecco, it might be a good tool to reconsider. Let us know how things go for you.
Good luck,
—Ken