I’ve just completed moving the site over to the newer, faster servers and everything appears to be working fine. There was no downtime that I was aware of and everything went really smoothly. I’ve not done any concrete testing of the speed yet, but the site seems to be functioning a lot faster now. I’ve still got a few optimizations to make in the code to take advantage of some new features.

The site is fairly complicated, so there is a chance that I missed something. I’ll be keeping a close eye on some log files over the next couple days, but if you see anything strange, please let me know about it so that I can make sure that it is running correctly.

For anybody that is interested in the technical details, the new servers run CentOS 6 which includes updates to many applications. I was specifically looking for some of the latest MySQL and PHP features that weren’t available in the CentOS 5 standard repository. The physical servers are also much more powerful and have more memory and faster/bigger disks as well. They are hosted with RimuHosting.com in a very well-connected data center in Dallas TX.

I know the site has been having some issues lately and for the past week or more have been working on installing some new servers. I’m ready to move the site over to the new servers this evening. I’ll begin working on it around 9pm EST and it will probably take a few hours. I don’t expect there to be any down time, but wanted to give a heads-up just in case their becomes any issues.

After the upgrades have been completed, I’ll be able to optimize a few more processes. It may take me another day or two to get that completed, so hopefully everything is running perfectly on Monday. I’ve specifically chosen to make the changes on a Friday night and over the weekend to try and minimize the possible disruption.

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts

I recently did another interview on the eCom-Connections radio show hosted by Kat and Karen. We talked about most of the popular aspects of BookScouter.com in some detail. We also talked about the BookScouter Deals app in some amount of detail. You can listen to the whole show over at TalkShoe

I’ve had a pretty good response to the offerings with BookScouter Pro and am happy to announce that it is now free for non-profit organizations to use. To get that set up, make sure that you have a Free BookScouter.com account, and then Contact Us so that we can work on setting up the free Pro account. We’ll need a copy of a document that verifies your non-profit status.

Last week I was able to take place in a 30-minute radio interview for the “Ask Janelle” show on wsRadio.com. We talked about some of the basic BookScouter usage and how eBay and Amazon book sellers can use it to sell some of their books. We also talked about some of the “Pro” features suited toward larger users. You can listen to here show over at wsRadio.com . The individual MP3 segments for each part of the show are available Here and here.

I first met Janelle at the Amazon Sellers Conference (SCOE) in Seattle in July. She is a popular and well respected radio host, and runs a bunch of classes and training programs to help sellers optimize their online sales through eBay, Amazon, and on the Internet in general. She is also behind the OSI Rock Stars program and training material.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is regarding how to find the value of books that don’t have an ISBN. I don’t know of any websites that buy these types of books back directly. Often-times, however, the ISBN just isn’t easily found, or may not be on the book at all.

I’ve just put together a tool that will allow users to search for books by Author, Title, and the published year. This should allow casual users to find the ISBN and hopefully find a good place to sell their books to somewhere. In the event, that nobody is buying the book, it will also display prices from Amazon marketplace and an estimate of how long it may take to sell.

The tool is now available at http://bookscouter.com/pre-isbn

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts
BookScouter.com

After several months of intense development, I’m happy to finally announce some of the most significant changes to BookScouter ever. These new features are developed for professional book resellers who have a lot of books for sale on sites like Amazon. You sellers are likely already using BookScouter for a small portion of your inventory, but these new features will allow you to more easily integrate selling to buyback companies into your existing day-to-day operations.

• Bulk Price Lookups – Instead of looking up books individually, you can upload a list and view all of the pricing information on one screen. Learn More
• Notifications – Upload a list of ISBNs and minimum prices, or use an Amazon-based report, and receive email notifications when a buyback company is purchasing your book for the price that you specify. Learn More
• Buyback Tracking – Instead of tracking buyback transactions manually via spreadsheets and manual methods, you can tie in your email account and have BookScouter read all of the transaction information into a central location. Automatically track orders and when they were created, received, and paid Learn More

I’ve been using these features myself over the past few months and am excited to make them available now to other people. You can view screenshots and read more information about these features at http://bookscouter.com/pro. All of these new features will be available for a monthly subscription of $29.99, and you’ll have one month free to try them out.

As always, I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback and comments. I believe that everything should be working well, but as with any new feature, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the site and paying attention to try and identify any bugs or errors that might pop up when others start using them.

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts
BookScouter.com

BookScouter has launched a bookmark design contest over at 99Designs.com. If you are a graphic designer or know of one, please send them over to create a design. The winner will receive a $200 reward and will have their design distributed across the country!