I don't really like the fact that despite having to pay to use the tools you're not getting all the royalties. Like buying carpenter tools and getting 80% royalties off the table you made.
That's much better– I came to comment on the same thing. The people with fewer titles are the ones who need the royalties much more so than anyone else so the current pricing comes across as a hedge on one small author blowing up rather than developing an ecosystem which benefits all small authors. I imagine down the line there are many more services you could offer in exchange for royalties that would make sense– the analytics are one except they're very helpful at the base level too. Perhaps an additonal layer/finer grained analytics, a featured catalog, other promotional services, etc...
It's really easy to publish an infinite amount of books on the Kindle store; I haven't tried iBookstore but I guess it's not very hard either (and do we need to care about them? What's their market share?)
I'm not ready to pay someone to just sit between me and the Kindle store; and I certainly won't surrender any royalties for this.
There are things in your presentation that do sound interesting, though:
- early feedback as the book is being written (that could maybe result in good word-of-mouth marketing)
- "incredible" sales reports
But in any case, I think the pricing should be more inline with DistroKid ($20 annual flat fee, 100% royalties, infinite amount of titles).
As an author, it's beneficial to at least ask you for it, so that you can be added to an email list and be appraised of new projects and sent other relevant information. Lots of people are happy to sign up for email lists like that as long as the content is mostly informative and not too much of a sales pitch.
Nathan Barry uses Gumroad, as he suggests in his book 'Authority' for the above reasons. It's not really a 'book' publishing platform though, or at least it's not specific to that.
I'm not entirely convinced it's the best thing for most authors, but that's a longer post for another time.
Crowdfunding should be free, pageviews, editor needs to be like penflip, collaboration like social github, dedicated ircs, all billed by dedicated storage standards. Focus on the real service: publishing to multiple bookstores, ISBNs and collaboration.
> Don't worry about tax details or bank approvals. The only thing you need is a PayPal email address!
That is an incredibly bad idea to phrase things that way. In general, unless you're a tax attorney, you should not ever tell somebody not to worry about tax details. In the US, it's almost certainly the case that income from self-publishing is taxable, and there are lots of details that need to be worried about -- enough that a self-publishing site probably can't even get close to worrying about it for you.
There's some encoding issues here. Can't write æøå, which is important letters in the norwegian language.
And it is seriously slow now, might be where it's been deployed, might be that I'm waiting for googleadservices on each page load. Might be the hug of death from hn.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 66.6 ms ] threadMore inline with a blogging service. Thoughts?
It's really easy to publish an infinite amount of books on the Kindle store; I haven't tried iBookstore but I guess it's not very hard either (and do we need to care about them? What's their market share?)
I'm not ready to pay someone to just sit between me and the Kindle store; and I certainly won't surrender any royalties for this.
There are things in your presentation that do sound interesting, though: - early feedback as the book is being written (that could maybe result in good word-of-mouth marketing) - "incredible" sales reports
But in any case, I think the pricing should be more inline with DistroKid ($20 annual flat fee, 100% royalties, infinite amount of titles).
* The ability to sell multiple packages, each with different files
* The ability to capture buyer's emails
* The ability to set my own arbitrary pricing
No publishing site on the internet does this, and I am not about to give up these benefits just so I can have some automated convenience.
why? I just want your book, why do you need my email?
I'm not entirely convinced it's the best thing for most authors, but that's a longer post for another time.
That is an incredibly bad idea to phrase things that way. In general, unless you're a tax attorney, you should not ever tell somebody not to worry about tax details. In the US, it's almost certainly the case that income from self-publishing is taxable, and there are lots of details that need to be worried about -- enough that a self-publishing site probably can't even get close to worrying about it for you.
Hope my drunken pool playing didn't annoy you too much. Things seem to be getting off to a good start with Tablo—good luck!
And it is seriously slow now, might be where it's been deployed, might be that I'm waiting for googleadservices on each page load. Might be the hug of death from hn.