How it works
The machinery behind the booklists and reviews, and the members area that was announced but never fully opened.
Basic information. The Writers' Desk will be open to all writers of romance in 2003. Other members will review and rate works submitted to the Writers' Desk. There will be a monthly subscription fee of $10. The Writing Desk will be a beta version, meaning that any bugs or error finding will be part of the member process. The fee is used to support the writing forum database and hosting fees.
To join, you will need to provide a valid e-mail address that we can verify. Your personal details can be made public or private and you may modify your information at any time.
Because of the adult content found in most romances, no one under 18 may join. If you are submitting erotica you must clearly state that the material is graphic in the submission comments. We do not censor works submitted to the forum but do reserve the right to delete any submission that is offensive in nature.
The same page carried a sign-up box for an alert when the Desk launched. No archived capture shows it open to members.
the listing
Everything started with a book record. Each one had a title, author, ISBN, publisher and month of publication, a description, and a set of tags: heroine, hero, character type, subject or setting, series. Authors and volunteers added books through an "add a book" form, and authors through "add an author".
Those tags are what made the site useful. They fed the browse pages in the left-hand column, "by heroine", "by hero", "by character type", "by series", "by new release", "by ISBN", and they decided which sister communities a book showed up in. A Regency with a ghost could sit in the Regency and the Paranormal communities at once.
the review
Registered reviewers scored books on three counts. The overall rating ran from 1 to 10 everywhere except the Young Adult community, which used 1 to 5. A second rating depended on the community, a history rating on the historical site, a paranormal rating on the paranormal one. The third was sensuality, and the guidelines spent more words on it than on the other two together. You can read them in full on the reviewer guidelines page.
Reviews posted on a sister site were excerpted on this hub's front page with the score and the reviewer's name, and a link through to the full text. Those excerpts are what we were able to collect for the reader reviews page. If you want to write in the same spirit today, our desk article on writing a romance review picks up where the guidelines stop.
the extras
Over the years the site added a reader bookshelf ("add to my romance bookshelf"), polls, puzzles, downloadable extras, e-postcards, a newsletter and contests. Authors could pay for a spotlight or a featured-book slot; the October 2005 selection survives on the featured books page. In 2003 and 2004 each genre community also ran a book club.
None of the interactive parts work in the restored archive. They needed the live database, and we have not rebuilt it; the about page lists what was restored and what was left out.
Questions readers ask
How were books scored?
Reviewers gave an overall rating from 1 to 10, a second rating specific to the sub-genre, such as a history or paranormal rating, and a sensuality rating. The Young Adult community used a 1 to 5 scale instead.
What was the Writers' Desk?
A planned members area, announced for 2003, where romance writers could submit work for other members to review and rate. It was described as a beta with a $10 monthly subscription and was limited to adults.
Did reviewers have to post regularly?
Yes. Registered reviewers were asked to submit at least one review a month. Anyone who stopped was moved to inactive status until they posted again.
How did the indexes work?
Every listed book carried tags for heroine, hero, character type, subject, series and publisher. The browse pages were built from those tags, which is why you could search for a heroine whose book title you had forgotten.