The Writer’s DB Blog

The Tools section of the Writer’s Database site is no longer just an empty placeholder. We’ve published our first tool for use outside of the site proper.

It’s a Google Gadget, a little portable list displaying up to three of your pending submissions–those manuscripts that have gone out into the world and haven’t come back from the markets yet. This can be installed in your Google Personalized Homepage, if you have one. (And if you don’t, it’s free and easy to set one up.) I haven’t yet tested it in Google Desktop, but the documentation seems to indicate that it should work there as well.

The instructions for installation are on the Tools page of the main site. Note that you’ll need to enter your Widget Key (available on that same Tools page), and not your password, into the widget. Since the key allows read-only access to your account, and currently only to the Pending Submissions data, typing that into a third-party site is not so much of a security risk as asking you to give them your account password.

When I rebuilt the Writer’s Database, I tried to make sure I wasn’t losing any existing features while adding the new ones. But sometimes, it takes a fresh pair of eyes to make sure you’ve caught everything.

One of my favorite users* pointed out yesterday that it was no longer possible to sort the list of submissions by your choice of title, market, or date submitted. Oops!

I’ve restored that capability as of tonight. Just click on any of the first three column headers. Thanks, K!

——
* What do you mean, I’m not supposed to have favorites? Some of you contribute lots of good ideas!