General Chat

We are excited to announce that next week we will be launching the Genes Book Club in partnership with Penguin.

Each month Penguin will kindly be donating 50 books to send to our members in return for a review posted on the Genes boards. They will also be sending over discussion points to really get us all talking!

We will be asking those of you who want to join the book club to get in touch next week. Members may join the book club at any time, but as we only have 50 books to send out each month, we will set up a Book Club member list. The first title will be sent out on a first come first served basis and then over the following months we will work our way down the Book Club member list to make sure everyone receives a free book at some point. For those who don't receive a book in a particular month, we will be uploading the first 50 pages for you to read so that you can see if it is a book you might enjoy.

We will be announcing the first title next week and hope that lots of you will want to be involved in the Book Club. Penguin will be sending the books out to you directly and there will be no charge to receive the books.

If you have any questions please feel free to add to this thread http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/hobbies_crafts/thread/1331109

Thanks

The Book Club Team!

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/hobbies_crafts/thread/1331109.
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What about sorting out the problems all your members have with your site before adding more boards.....

And as Joy has mentioned there are already threads on here dealing with this subject.....

Just how exactly are GR going to provide names and address of members to Penguin or are GR going to send them out ?

Oh dear, another GR bullet straight into their own foot!

Are the T & Cs anywhere? I assume that members applying would have to agree to their personal details being forwarded to the publisher for delivery unless GR are taking responsibility for postage themselves.

I presume that when you join this book club GR will have to get all the addresses from members as that is not required when joining this site.

Have they really thought this through properley

Personally, I am a 'book tart', lol so whoever wishes to send me a free book will be welcome to have my address ;-) The library is shut till the new building is finished so I am in deep decline ;-)

Apologies for the rogue full stop in our earlier link and thank you KenSE for re-posting.

In answer to the questions above, we will be posting Terms of Use for the Genes Book Club when it launches next week so that everything is clear.

Penguin have volunteered to be responsible for the distribution of the books, which does mean we will pass addresses on to them. However, these will be treated with the strictest confidence and used for no purpose other than posting your book to you. Your address will not be used for marketing purposes or shared with any third parties.

DazedConfused, we take your point on board, but the team who deal with site functionality, features and bugs are separate to the marketing team who have organised the Genes Book Club. Setting up the book club has required no dev work at all and has not distracted any member of the dev team from their continuous effort to improve the site.

We hope you will all be giving Genes Book Club a go. We thought it would be a great partnership, not only will we be able to send you frequent free books, we hope it will instigate some lively literary debates, especially when Penguin send over discussion points.

Thanks

What about those of us who live abroad.
Will we be excluded as usual, bearing in mind the cost of postage?

Having acknowledged that you made an error in putting a superfluous full stop in the link in the opening post, how about removing the full stop? - then one could click on the link to, hopefully, the relevant thread.

Also, please confirm that it is a worldwide book club.

Thank you.

would be happy to join as long as no unrequested mailings can be guaranteed. I used to review books a few years ago for a magazine and miss it now

is this another "plus for all members" that disenfranchises the overseas members?


If so ....................... I think it is another reason why it is a terrible idea.



I fear this is another "good idea from marketing" .................. which does not take into account what really is a "good idea for members"


Quite apart from probably being disenfranchised from being a member of your Book Club by virtue of living overseas .................... I object most strenuously to having to give you my home address so that you can pass it on to another company.

I do not believe you when you say that our names and addresses will not be used for any other purpose. It may well become too attractive for Penguin's marketing people to ignore a free address list like this!

Any of us who have dealings with big companies, marketing departments, fund raisers, development offices, etc, know just how attractive an address list is, even if labelled as "top secret", "not to be approached under any circumstance"


Not for me, thank you very much.

Genes, why can't you stick to your knitting..

Your job is to provide a site that does not have error messages at every turn.

I have taken to after submitting my post to opening a new tab and this one generally shows me it has posted.. and the one I have submitted on whirrs around and around and then states problem loading page.

Your other job is to provide trees that people can manage and enter family history without returning to find that all they have added and saved is not there. I see this complaint time and time again.

Get the basics right first.

You are a genealogy site not a book club.

Persie

And there are fare more publishers than Penguin.

So by joining you will be only supplied books being promoted by them

As I now read all my fiction via my Kindle, I read books by many and varied authors, many of whom self publish.

Wonders - how much is Penguin paying for this 'freebie'

Agree with you Persie, I have already mentioned the fact that the company I work for has blocked GR from it's employee's as it considers it to be a SOCIAL Networking site, not a serious Family History site, I can get the 2 other well known FH sites at work, but not the likes of Facebook, twitter etc

If GR sorted the order of the boards out so that all the chit chat is at the bottom and the family history boards are at the top it may be a start. something I have also mentioned to GR. And take out the word 'chat' too

And now they are adding a book club..........

I presume that I will be exclueded as well will books be on cd as I can not read normal size print as I have sight problems

this is wrong for many reasons

please I would like an answer

sally w <3

I hav'nt read a book for over 4 years now as I couldn't hold a book for more than a few minutes nor turn the pages.

Genes keep adding new boards - all that means to me is more boards I'm not interested in.

I joined Genes to do my family history not to discuss knitting, quizzes, books etc.

Edit: goodness me I sound boring - but I would go elsewhere for those things just doesn't seem right on here.

namelessone

you're quite right!


I didn't join GR for "chatty" threads .............. I joined to do my own research, morphed into helping others more than doing my own ...............

now I spend more time on "chatty threads" because there is so little going on on the serious family history threads, and there are at least people around on the "chatty" ones.


Wish it was different, and more like it was only 2 or 3 years ago!

Will all the books be fiction ?