Which is the More Eco-Friendly Choice? Reading just got a whole lot more complicated: Once confined to print materials, today’s readers now have a plethora of devices to choose from to get their literary fix. Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers are transforming the reading landscape. On the surface, this may seem like a good thing—the…
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – Reviewed
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has established itself as the single most recognisable DIY self-publishing platform for authors wanting to publish their books in e-book. Amazon launched Kindle Direct Publishing back in 2007 in beta form and pitched it initially to ‘publishers’ via marketing emails. Amazon had also just launched the first Kindle e-reader hardware—a basic…
Infinite Shades of Grey: The Promise and Peril of Self-Publishing | Tamblyn at FutureBook UK 2013
This is Michael Tamblyn, Kobo’s Chief Operating Officer, delivering his speech at last week’s FutureBook 2013. His speech is titled “Infinite Shades of Grey: The Promise and Peril of Self-Publishing”. Tamblyn reflects on a testing time for the e-book publishing platform when almost overnight all its books were removed from circulation following a news article…
Smashwords – Reviewed
Smashwords is one of the world’s largest distributors of independent and self-published e-books with over 200,000 titles in its retail catalogue worldwide. The company also provides an online publishing platform for authors and publishers. Founded by Mark Coker, and officially launched in 2008, it represents the single most well-known option for author-publishers outside of Amazon’s…
Kobo Suspend Distribution of All Self-Published Titles
Following on from our TIPM Weekly Brief this morning, Kobo, an e-book distributor, has taken the decision to suspend the distribution of all self-published titles from its catalogue. It is understood that this decision only involves its UK online bookstore, and the decision follows a previous move to remove books loaded from the Digital2Draft e-book…
Barnes & Noble Relaunch PubIt as Nook Press with a Little Help from Fastpencil
Barnes & Noble has announced the rebranding of PubIt, its DIY self-publishing platform for authors wanting to publish their books on the Nook. The new platform will be called Nook Press and will have additional features in partnership with another self-publishing provider, Fastpencil. Nook Press still looks more like a rebranding than any real kind…
European Self-Publishing Providers Need to Look Beyond Localisation
Publishing Perspectives this morning reports that German self-publishing platform, epubli, has expanded into the UK and English-speaking market. Epubli was originally founded in 2008 and is owned by the giant Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. The self-publishing platform allows works on a similar model to Lulu, Blurb and CreateSpace, only taking a share in author profits when a book…
Self Publishing Podcast #45 – The Death of Free Book Promotion on Big Blogs?
One of the biggest discussions in self-publishing this week has been the changes Amazon has made to its affiliate program and qualifying criteria for paying a commission to third-party websites advertising free books on Amazon. The recent changes may have a knock-on implication for self-publishing authors opting into the KDP Select program. Johnny B. Traunt…
The Meatgrinder and eBook Publishing
Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords, calls it The Meatgrinder. So much so, he happily—and rightly—refers to Smashwords’ file-crunching e-book conversion application by the same name. It may be the bane of many self-published authors frustrations and late nights, but Coker never meant the process of loading a book file to an online…
Will Gutenberg laugh last? | Rough Type
Have we reached the e-book plateau? “A lot of other data came out during the course of 2012 that also suggests that (a) the growth in e-book sales has slowed substantially and (b) print sales are holding up pretty well. At a conference in March, Bowker released market research showing that, even though just 20…