[6]BookSense.com recently announced its first group of new features for 2006, as well as other important news:

BookSense.com stores now have instant access to daily traffic reports for their websites, right from the administrative page. Booksellers can choose to look at any month from the past 12 months (the default is the current month).

The report is updated nightly and shows information such as the total number of page views, total number of unique visitors, busiest hours of the day, most frequently visited pages, and much more. (Self-authored sites will need to run their own traffic reports, however.)

Now, in addition to uploading JPG and GIF images, BookSense.com participants can upload PDF files. This is especially helpful for posting newsletters to the website. PDFs can be uploaded to any content area where images can be uploaded; the exception is for the store logo, which still must be an image.

Images can now be added to a store's main events page. Booksellers can add images for as many events as they want, but the images will only display for the three most current events. As each new event becomes current and moves into the top three, the image will automatically appear.

BookSense.com has changed copy on the site in two places:

1. The inventory status "Special Order" is now "Special Order -- Subject to Availability"

2. Language has been added to the Gift Card page reminding consumers that Book Sense Gift Cards never expire and never decrease in value.

The BookSense.com tech team has made a few behind the scenes changes to prepare the system for a new and improved search, which is expected to roll out later this month. This new search will be smarter and faster and will sort results based on years of Book Sense Bestseller sales data.

BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos is encouraging booksellers planning to attend The Winter Institute [7], ABA's two-day education symposium being held in Long Beach, California, later this month, to put the session "Getting the Most Out of Your Website" on their schedule.

"It's only an hour long, but we're going to cover key material on how to effectively use your website as a marketing tool, and equally important, how to market your website," said Vlahos.

The session is from 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, January 26.