For the next giveaway we are asking you to help us with suggestions.
What is it that you would like to see featured on Love Bytes?
For example, would you like to see anthology reads like ones that we did in the past, or would you like to see an author featured… and if so how would that look? Should we do it with reviews or posts?
Feel free to leave any suggestions and for one of you there will be a randomly selected $25 dollar store credit for Less Than Three Press waiting 🙂
I would like authors featured. If they have books in series you could mention all these books with the blurb and the connection between the books.
I always love an interview with questions like writing process, characterization, inspiration, cover design. And also some tidbits of their personal lives, like favorite books, movies, hobbies, when and why they became an author, why MM, have they a motto they live by.
I would love to see “Authors Interviewing Authors” feature 🙂
I like author spotlights as well, but I would also like an index by author of some sort so that I could go back and look at reviews or spotlights that I was particularly interested in. I follow by e-mail, and am sometimes overwhelmed by the mailbox, so I might make a mental note to go back and read a review when I have time, but when I come to the blog I have to hunt and hunt for it, which gets a little time-consuming. I know that might be easier said than done, so just a suggestion. You guys have a wonderful blog and I have enjoyed reading the reviews. Happy Anniversary!
I agree. I would also like more author columns. I really enjoy the current ones, especially Lou’s. An easy search in toolbar with “Interviews” or “Authors’s Posts” would be nice too.
Thanks for the giveaways and the question-posts. I love that!
Featured authors would be so cool. I also like author’s posts a lot, and I would love if there could be some sort of follow up on some characters, like Codas, or glimpses at how they are doing now…
I love your blog. Great job you are doing here!
Author posts are awesome – either interviews or guest posts – that aren’t just a part of a blog tour. I love reading authors talking about everyday stuff. Anthology reviews are good because I may shy away from a bunch of stories by new to me authors
I think it would be a great idea to do features of Anthologies because often only some of the stories are read and it would be great to focus on all the stories in the book. Author interview are great it would also interesting to have Publishers interview too.
I love the anthology review idea. I am generally hesitant to get anthologies unless I am familiar with the authors in it because the story quality can vary so widely. I also would like highlighting an author per month or week because that helps me learn about new-to-me authors or learn new tidbits about authors I love. Or if any authors were interested in writing a serial story with reader participation – those are fun.
I love the Book of the week poll but mostly i didn’t get a chance to read (some of) the books that are on it (because they are often new releases), so i’m not voting for them because i haven’t read them (yet).
When i read them later i often wish i could vote for them because i loved the book. So maybe it would be an idea to get all the books that didn’t make the 1-2 place in the Original polls together in a last poll of the year and you could maybe nominate the numbers 1-2-3 to be in the book of the year poll also?
Anthology reviews would be helpful, and every once in a while recs for LGBT movies or shows would be great (so many are poorly scripted or just plain depressing)!
I have this thing when anything listed as “best books ever” are less than a month old. So “Treasures from the Vault” goes a long way in highlighting where we have come from and authors who broke new ground for us.
I like it when ‘established’ authors recommend ‘new’ authors they’ve discovered. Their opinions carry a lot of weight!
Featured authors would be interesting. Perhaps with an interview of the author and reviews of some of their books. It would be a great way to get to know some authors!
Thanks for the question. I guess one thing I’ve found as I’ve gotten more into LoveBytes is that there seems to be a lot m/m rom but not much diversity beyond that. For example, when I looked at the Lammy winners and noms, there were a lot of books I didn’t recognize because the sites I visit focus more on m/m. Maybe a feature that looks at winners and noms from various awards that aren’t just focused on m/m.
I’d really like well established authors to have a weekly or monthly post regarding their latest favorite reads or update on their WIPs. ^_^
I do like seeing anthology reviews, I don’t think reviews for anthologies are done enough and gone into detail for each story. I also wouldn’t mind you doing like an author feature (or just a new author feature) maybe once a month at least with one review and mention of the author’s backlist titles (if any) and possibly even a recommended starter book for the author.
As many have posted before, I’d also like to see more guestposts. Authors usually tell us something about themselves or their writing process while on a blog tour. But I think that is often rather isolated. I really like these more general posts, where authors promote a cause, they are invested in (e.g. the recent autism awareness auction post) or talk about this and that (e.g. who would have thought). Really enjoy reading those posts.
Further, and I don’t know if others might be interested, you sort book reviews by rating and reviewer. I’d love to see an option where it is sorted by publisher. With those books that are self-published sorted separately by year and/or month, since more and more authors choose to publish their works that way.
My reasoning behind it is that I like to by from the publisher directly to keep the chain of distribution short. I usually wait until I have at least 4-5 books I would like to read from a certain publisher, before I make my purchase. Searching by publisher would make it easier to find older reviews for more books I might be interested in.
I love when authors visit and give us insight to their writing ideas, how they come up with character’s names etc. I would like to see where an author is announced then we the readers can submit questions for that author to answer. Also I would like to see more throwbacks as I have missed many books i’m sure that I would be interested in reading.
I have a two suggestions to add:
I’d like to see a book, especially a new release, reviewed by two or more reviewers. Everybody has a different opinion and it’d be interesting to compare them, especially if one reviewer loves a book and another really didn’t. (Could be for the same reason!) Also, I have favorite reviewers who seem to share my taste I and often think, “I wonder what (reviewer name) would’ve thought about this book?” This could be a feature when LoveBytes receives an ARC, for example, because it’s a free book that could be shared by a few of the staff and each review could be posted on release day.
My second suggestion is for more detailed search options on the site. I’d like to be able to search by title or author or date (in case I miss email notifications, or didn’t have time on a particular day).
We see a lot from authors & it’s wonderful! I love reading the author posts. I’d also love to see more from other people in the industry, maybe more posts from editors, artists, publishers. Any other professionals who help the authors get the books from manuscript to us.
Something about book covers would be nice.
Oh…great question. I actually really like the way you all do anthologies. But a buddy read would also be fun.