As of a few minutes ago, the big blue “BETA” is gone from our banner. But that’s not the only thing that’s been changed. We’ve done some polishing up of the site top to bottom, responding to your early comments as well as finally launching things we’ve been thinking about and working on since last summer.

Some new things to watch out for:

1. A more streamlined design. You’ll notice this all over, from our main page all the way to our blog pages, but the place it’s probably most obvious is on our individual essay pages (see today’s essay, for example).

2. Improved comments. Let’s start with the blog. Comments on posts are now a heck of a lot more attractive and, I think, easier to read. If you have an avatar associated with your WordPress log-in, that will now show up. Jennifer and my responses are easier to spot; our comments will show up with a blue rather than dark gray background. And comments are now threaded, to make replying to specific comments easier and following conversations easier.

3. More ways to talk about your favorite tv and book series and films. We like to think of every Smart Pop essay as an invitation to a conversation, whether you’re reading that essay in a book at home or here online. Accordingly, we’ve added the ability to comment on individual essays, so you can respond to our authors’ words . . . and our authors (as well as fellow readers) can, if so moved, respond back.

We’ve also added a ShareThis icon, to help make it easy to take the conversation to your own blog or Livejournal or share with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter—or even, if you’re feeling old-fashioned, via email.

4. An easy way to tell us what you like. You can also now show your appreciation for specific essays directly, by clicking the “LIKE” button located at the top of the essay. This does a couple of key things:

• First, it gives us a chance to get your feedback on the content of our books. Sometimes it feels like book publishing happens in a vacuum: we know when our books do well, but we don’t always know why. Telling us you like an essay lets us do a better job of putting together books you want to read.
• Second, it lets other readers, browsing the site, know what essays they shouldn’t miss.

5. Bright yellow buy buttons . . . and more buy options. If you do want to buy one of our books, we’ve made it easier—the button is now bright yellow, and located beneath the cover image. We’ve also added, in many cases, more options. Bookshelves too packed? Buy the e-book edition. Just interested in a single essay by a favorite author from one of our anthologies? Just buy that essay. (We have nearly 600 available now, and are still working through our backlist to add to that number.) Speaking of which—

6. The launch of direct digital sales. Many of our Smart Pop titles are available for sale through Amazon, for the Kindle, and through other e-book vendors, for the Sony Reader, the Nook, etc. But we’ve also chosen to offer direct digital downloads of our books and essays, in PDF format, DRM-free. Which means you can send them to be read on your favorite e-reader or read them on whatever computer you have handy—and, like you would with a regular book, you can also share those files with a friend.

Does this increase the chance our books will end up being pirated and end up on file-sharing sites? Maybe. But we believe that the trade-off—easier usability for our readers, and not feeling like Big Brother—is worth it.

I also, personally, believe that the market, and the way content creators/publishers and audiences relate to (and compensate) one another, is changing. As past Smart Pop contributor Cory Doctorow has pointed out, honest users are going to stay honest users whether we use DRM or not . . . and I believe that, if you’re reading this right now, you are an honest user. You have a relationship with us, through this site and this blog, and you know that piracy (uploading content to file sharing sites) can hurt us and the writers we work with.

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There are definitely more upgrades and changes we’re looking at for the future. (One commenter, for example, pointed out how helpful it would be if we linked the footnotes in our essay for easy toggling back and forth, something I’d very much like us to do but just haven’t had time to implement yet.) If you have any suggestions as you check out our new look, definitely let us know.

Thanks for being here!

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