We fielded many questions this week! So with the thinking that when one person asks a question, another person is likely wondering the same thing, we’ll repeat those questions, with apologies to those for whom the answers will be old news:
Is there an EDITH vetting process for service providers?
As of right now, we have an open-door policy to becoming a service provider on EDITH, but that may change soon, as the word spreads. Having no barrier to participation made sense in the very beginning because in essence we were still “undiscovered” by design as we worked out some kinks on the site—and frankly we hadn’t told many people we existed yet. There was also the pragmatic business argument that one can let the marketplace sort out quality control issues, e.g. in the way of Airbnb, where you can find entire townhouses renting for $2,500/night (this property happens to be down the street from our office,) and rooms whose main selling point is that they’re close to JFK airport for $70/night, and there’s an expectation of buyer beware, and that reviews will eliminate any bad actors from contention. I’m not saying I find those arguments entirely persuasive given how personal book projects are, or can be, but in summary, our plan is now to move up our date, currently set for March 30, for initiating an invite-only or vetting process for new EDITH service providers.
Can you add more genres to the list of specialties?
Yes, and we will! Big thanks to those who pointed out that our Genres list contained some gaping holes. We’ll also add an N/A or “Prefer not to answer” option for those of you working in areas, such as coaching or mentoring, where genre questions don’t necessarily apply.
Why can’t I add this ISBN to my completed projects listing?
It may be because it’s an Amazon-only, 10-digit ASIN, which our system is not set up to accept. But given that this keeps coming up, we’ll change the system so that those of you with primarily ASINs can properly showcase your work.
Other news? On Wednesday this week we’ll meet with our tech team to talk about what’s next feature-wise. Aside from gift card or promo capabilities, we’re looking at adding the ability to favorite a provider’s page, plus some integrations that will allow us to automate some back-end tasks.
The image this week comes from an online workshop about unfinished projects we conducted late in 2020. The discussion that resulted was so, so rich, and we’d love to do it again. Do you have an unfinished project that haunts you in some way?
Thanks, as always, for reading.