Last May TIPM reported that Pronoun (formerly Vook) intended to launch a digital book publishing platform. Well, today that publishing platform went live. Vook originally launched in 2009 as a digital content creation platform for e-books. Over the past year Vook has acquired boutique e-publisher Byliner and e-book data analysis engine Booklr. Rebranded as Pronoun,…
Author Solutions and Alliant University Launch Academic Press
Author Solutions, fresh from having two recent lawsuits against it dismissed, has this week continued its long-term strategy of partnership agreements with the announcement of Alliant Press. The new imprint is in partnership with Alliant International University and will be operated by Author Solutions’ iUniverse imprint. Alliant is a private, independent university offering graduate study in psychology,…
Second Class Action Lawsuit Against Author Solutions is Dismissed
The second class action lawsuit against Author Solutions, a self publishing service provider, was voluntarily dismissed yesterday, September 14th, in the state of Indiana. The news comes after last month’s decision by Judge Denise Cote to ‘discontinue without prejudice’ a similar case filed by two authors in the Southern District Court in New York. Both parties agreed to end litigation…
Self-Publishing Review (SPR) Launches Hybrid Publishing Service
The Self-Publishing Review (SPR) has launched what it describes as a ‘hybrid publishing house’ this week. And what exactly is that you might ask? ‘A traditional on-demand publishing model without the gatekeepers,’ says Henry and Cate Baum of SPR. Kwill Publishing House is targeted at authors who want to focus on writing and leave book production and marketing to the…
Reedsy Launches Global Author Survey
Reedsy provides an online marketplace to help connect authors with freelance publishing service professionals. It launched in 2014 as a new startup and opened its marketplace to authors that November. This week Reedsy founder Ricardo Fayet contacted TIPM to tell us about a new global survey it has designed, coded and launched. Fayet explains: The idea is to shed a bit…
Kobo Begins Development of Expanded Publishing Services
Kobo e-book retailer is currently developing new expanded author services for its self-publishing platform Kobo Writing Life (KWL). In a posting on the KWL blog on Monday, the e-book retailer explained a new feature that had appeared for authors on their account dashboards: Many of you have noticed a new “Author Services” tab popped up in…
Author Solutions Lawsuit is Discontinued & Settlement Reached
Judge Denise Cote has ordered the lawsuit filed by two authors (originally three) in April 2013 ‘discontinued without prejudice’ when she was informed earlier this month that both parties had reached a settlement. This follows on from Judge Cote’s decision in July to deny class action status to the plaintiffs because certification requirements had not been met and that…
PubSlush Acquired by Colborne Communications
We reported on Monday that crowdfunding platform PubSlush had announced its closure on August 23rd. Well, the platform has had an eleventh hour reprieve with news via a press release that Colborne Communications has acquired PubSlush as of August 24th. Colborne is a publishing services provider and the good news for authors is that it will ‘continue to take submissions…
Book Design Templates Announces Agreement with Ingram Content Group
A couple of years ago Joel Friedlander of The Book Designer website launched Book Design Templates, a service dedicated to providing professionally designed book templates for indie authors and small publishers who prefer to use MS Word. Friedlander and his team set out to push the everyday word processing application to its limit in an effort to…
Crowdfunding Platform PubSlush Set to Close This Month
PubSlush is a global pre-publication platform that offers crowdfunding and pre-order options for authors and publishers. Founded in 2011 by mother and daughter entrepreneurs, Hellen and Amanda Barbara, PubSlush originally began as a crowdfunding publisher (think Unbound in the UK) and later developed into a platform created to connect writers with readers. Primarily it hosted a dedicated crowdfunding system much like Kickstarter,…