What it is We wanted Gavagaians to be able to show off their work in addition to their activity on the site. Enter Showcase Profiles—a way to highlight your Stories, Galleries and Announcements so that visitors can get familiar with your work and writing. This is particularly useful for writers who will be offering subscriptions as it gives readers a quick index of what stories you have available. Showcase Profiles feature a more visually enticing presentation of your work with fewer visual distractions. Showcase Profiles also allow for greater control over what visitors see and the order they see it in. Showcase Profiles are a beta feature! Although they are tested thoroughly, there may be bugs. If you encounter any, please let us know with an email to support@gavagai.com, a comment on this post or a submission to the Suggestion Box in the header menu. What do Showcase Profiles show? Showcase profiles show author info, profile picture and cover image. Below that they display all the Stories, Collections, Galleries and Announcements with a prominent feature piece, large cover images and hover-in sample text (when available). Your activity stream is still available on another tab for readers who want to know what's on your mind and what you're writing, reading, listening to and watching. But the work stays front and center on the main tab. Stories Stories are the backbone of the Showcase Profile. Stories are long-form text pieces with an optional cover image, rich formatting, embedded images, and almost anything else you'd need for a fiction or nonfiction text work. Galleries Galleries are just what they sound like: sets of images. Galleries are featured alongside Stories, Announcements and Collections in the Showcase Profile. Announcements Announcements are posts intended to notify visitors of new releases, events, or anything else that might interest them. Collections Collections are groups of related works and may currently contain Stories or Galleries. Think anthologies or chapters in a book. What does the owner see? The profile owner can see everything a visitor sees, as well as controls for managing the profile. For example, the stories that appear here can be arranged and added/removed as desired: What do visitors see? Visitors see your Showcase Profile with the featured Story, Gallery or Announcement displayed prominently and other Stories and Collections below that. If a visitor isn't logged on, clicking "follow" will direct them to the login page, but visitors do not have to be logged in to subscribe to your Author Updates: Visitors can sort your pieces by "free to read" or "subscriber only." They can also search your content. The standard feed content is shown under the "activity tab": Your current bio and activity information is shown under "about": How do I enable and use Showcase Profiles? Navigate to your profile settings, either through your name in the header > Settings or from your profile click on "edit profile." In your profile settings, click on "use phowcase profile": Then just return to your main profile and use "arrange showcase" to customize the look and feel!
New Feature: Showcase Profiles Beta
By Gavagai