New semester and another year - 2010

Its the start of another academic year for most universities in the UK. Welcome back to all of you returning for yet more punishment and fun in equal measures. For those of you who are long gone, we hope you had a good summer even if you did have to work (hee hee...)

With the start of the new semester, theBookPond.com has undergone a little facelift. The site is more user friendly and brighter than ever before. Soon we will also be providing the facility for you to make your own theBookPond listings poster that you can print out and pin on your university notice board for extra exposure for your books, and for us too!

Soon we will reach a milestone on the site - we have almost 100 books listed - which doesn't sound a lot, but considering we are a new site and are trying not to spend too much of our hard earned cash on publicity, will be a proud acheivement. We are looking forward to the next 100.

Anyway, what have we been up to over the summer? Well between trips to London and abroad, and making improvements to the site, not a lot really - where did the time go? Roll on Christmas................

Think summer has arrived

Last month we had a successful online campaign and now have more users as well as more books listed on the site. There are now books listed in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

This week, Durham University's Ustinov College ran an article about Joanne (who studies there) and the bookpond. It was in the June edition of 'The Ustinovian'. A big thank you to Matthew of Ustinov College for helping out with this and liking the site enough to want to give some time to writing the article.

We are now settling in for the summer and will be running more online campaigns to get more users on board and more books before the start of the next academic year.

The University of Hull - May 2010

Yesterday, theBookPond team took to the streets of Hull to spread the word of the benefits of selling textbooks directly to other students. We caught the students before the madness of exams kicks in and they all go off back home for the summer. It was a fantastic day, the sun was shining, we had sweets and we talked to lots of people about the website. We are hopeful that this will help generate more visitors to the site and more books listed for others to buy.

We had some negative comments off some people, but I'm glad to say we had more positive interest than negative. Overall, I think we had a good day. Good stuff.

Easter term campaign

I am very pleased with our new posters and leaflets which turned up this week. We have designed separate posters - a 'sell books' campaign will be done this term to encourage current students to get their books listed on our site. A 'buy books' campaign will be targeted at freshers after the summer break. We hope that by targeting our audience in this way, it will encourage more people to use the site, and it will increase the chance of getting the listings sold and converted into cash. Look out for the 'Sell books' posters around your university town. If you want a poster or two to put in your window and help us spread the word, then get in touch.
Personally, the team are working hard with their own study projects. Joanne is attending a postgraduate conference in Durham next week, presenting a poster about her latest research topic. Graeme is working as hard an an undergraduate can in the Easter term, we hope! :-)
Big hello to BenSEO stuck in Asia right now on an unintentionally extended holiday. We hope to see you safe and well back in the UK very soon, volcanos permitting.

Impressed with the team

I just wanted to point out what a fantastic team of people we have working on theBookPond.com! I was running some tests in google a day or two ago using some search terms and seeing how near the top of the search results we get. Do you know what? We are really high up on a lot of the most popular phrases for searching for used university textbooks in the UK. I am very impressed, and a very big mention must go to Graeme (the tech developer) and to Ben (our SEO consultant) for making this happen. Without them the site would take a lot more effort to market offline and would mean the site would be too costly to operate. So big thumbs up all round.

Also, I am getting a craving for Creme Eggs. It must be getting to that time of year again........TTFN.

Popping the blogging cherry.

I have decided to create this blog to keep you informed of developments on the often fragmented and slightly disturbed planet of theBookPond.com. Our site launched in October 2009 after a few delays and set backs but we are now firmly on the map for students buying and selling used textbooks in the UK. I'd like to thank all those students and graduates who have already registered with us and supported us through our launch period.It would be good to hear from as many of you as possible, we want your success stories as well as any problems you have come across while using the site.

We send out regular email bulletins to our registered users and are due to do another one soon. If you want us to feature anything in these which may be of interest to our users, then get in touch. You can contact us through the contact email address posted on theBookPond.com website.

So what have we been up to? Well, we have been slowly contacting the right people in universities across the UK and have already got a few more users. Universities like our site and are working with us to get the site publicised to their students.Our new publicity campaign is due - look out for the leaflets and posters through your door or round campus. A 6' duck may also be around your campus handing out freebies very soon. If you see him, come and say hello.

We have also been talking to some sponsors for our site who like the idea and the look of it - we kind of agree with them on this one. We hope that having sponsorship will ensure that the site remains free to use for everybody for as long as possible. We are attracting attention from people who want to create a good impression with the graduates of tomorrow, especially the savvy ones like our users. Good-o!

So, what can I say, get using the site as we are moving up the search rankings, and the more books are on the site the more useful it becomes and the further we move up. It's like a big circle of life, or something like that.