PayPal, You've Met Your Match: Erotica Writers

Mark Coker of Smashwords became the leader of indie ebook writers--including some with dirty minds--in a fight against censorship and PayPal. He also has strong feelings about the DOJ's ebook pricing lawsuit.Mark Coker is the CEO of Smashwords, an ebook publishing and distribution platform. Coker recently won a highly publicized battle against PayPal, which briefly refused to work with Smashwords unless Coker removed certain naughty titles from the site. Fast Company caught up with Coker and learned, among other things, that writers of incest erotica can be very articulate.FAST COMPANY: What is Smashwords?MARK COKER: We’re probably the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks and ebooks from small independent presses. We were founded in 2008. A writer comes to Smashwords, uploads a Word document, which we instantly convert into multiple formats to be read on a Kindle or other device. Those are then available for sale at Smashwords.com at a price set by the author. 85% of all proceeds go to the author, so we flipped the compensation model upside-down. In traditional publishing, in the best case, an author earns 17.5% off an ebook’s list price. In 2008, we had 140 titles; in 2009, we had 6,000 titles; today we have just over 115,000.You recently came to prominence by picking a fight with PayPal, which threatened to stop working with you if you failed to remove some smutty titles from your store.On a Saturday, I received an email from PayPal notifying me I had... Continue reading at 'Fast Company'

[ Fast Company | 2012-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]

Other news stories related to: "PayPal, You've Met Your Match: Erotica Writers"

Washington Post cartoonist resigns over paper’s refusal to publish cartoon critical of Jeff Bezos

Pulitzer prize winner Ann Telnaes had drawn a cartoon of the paper’s owner kneeling before Donald TrumpThe Washington Post’s Pulitzer prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from her position at the newspaper after its refusal to publish a satirical cartoon depicting the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2025-01-04 15:23:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Publishers Are Increasingly Irked at Perplexity Bots Circumventing Blocks

Publisher frustration is mounting at AI search startup Perplexity, which is backed by Jeff Bezos and other tech titans, for circumventing attempts to block its crawlers from accessing and serving up media content, potentially cutting publishers out of billions in ad... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2024-06-21 17:04:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this

The Morning After: Preparing for Summer Games Fest 2024

I hope you had a quiet Memorial Day. It was a quiet one tech-wise, and I briefly fought the urge to copy and paste yesterday’s TMA into today’s newsletter hopper. There were a few teases and glimpses of gaming news, with E3 successor Summer Games Fest kicking off in just over a week. SGF’s game... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2024-05-28 11:15:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Sebastian Barry: ‘When you get past 60, you do feel a licence to write fearlessly’

The Irish novelist and playwright on the positives of ageing, his struggles with depression and a golden age of Irish writingSebastian Barry, 68, is the author of 11 novels and 15 plays. Five of his books have been long- or shortlisted for the Booker prize, and his novels have won numerous... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2024-02-10 18:00:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this

The Morning After: Is Call of Duty losing its grip on gamers?

A Call of Duty game sells. That’s what it does. And it usually tops the sales charts, almost every year since 2009. However, last year was a bit different: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III landed in second place. To convey the gravitational pull of CoD, when Microsoft was fighting to buy... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2024-01-19 12:15:26 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Amazon hardware VP Dave Limp set to retire after almost 14 years

Dave Limp, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, has announced his pending retirement from the company. Limp has been with the company for nearly 14 years and, as his title suggests, oversaw Amazon’s transition into dedicated hardware devices like Kindle e-readers,... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-08-15 18:23:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Book Review: ‘Thunderclap,’ by Laura Cumming

In her memoir “Thunderclap,” the British art critic Laura Cumming explores her passion for the virtuosic images of everyday life by painters from Dutch art’s golden age. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2023-07-09 09:00:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this

The Steve Jobs Archive releases e-book chronicling the Apple co-founder's life in his own words

Populated with photographs, emails, speeches and interviews, "Make Something Wonderful" is a chronological exploration of the life of Steve Jobs. Continue reading at Silicon Valley Business Journal

[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2023-04-12 22:11:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the first great war for your thumbs

The author of the forthcoming book ‘Shift Happens’ looks at some brilliant, idiosyncratic—and often ill-fated—gambits to transform computer input. We all know the story of the Thumb Wars of the 2000s: the skirmish between BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android over the control of the newest and most... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2023-03-06 09:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

This is definitive proof that Jeff Bezos is building an army of robot ants.

It’s a tale as old as time: a Brazilian writer sets her Kindle aside for a few weeks to work on her own novel, and when she goes back to get a little reading done, finds that the device has been infested with a horde of tiny white ants. “My virtual library had become a […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-04 13:07:23 UTC ]
More news stories like this

The dynamo and the dreamer: Two men behind Apple’s recent boom

Author Tripp Mickle believes that to grasp Apple’s success after Steve Jobs, one must understand the chemistry — and tension — between Tim Cook and Jony Ive. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-06-03 12:00:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this

We Are in a Golden Age of Historical Fiction for People of Color

“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” I’ve always found these words by E.L. Doctorow a compelling argument for the unique power of fiction to enliven the past. Yet when thinking about the lives of people of color in America, you can’t count on... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-04-29 08:49:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Leonard Kessler, Colorful Children’s Book Author, Dies at 101

He crafted tales of everyday life for early readers. His “Mr. Pine’s Purple House,” first published in 1965, later inspired a new publishing company — and Jeff Bezos. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-02-24 23:32:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this

The Best Story Arcs From Manga’s Golden Age

The ’80s and ’90s were great time to be a manga fan. For your retro-reading pleasure, here are the best story arcs from manga’s golden age, including the Martial Arts Figure Skating Arc from Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2021-10-25 10:33:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Balancing on the Edge of Fashion and Art: A Conversation with Amber Ambrose Aurèle, by Margaret Larmuth

Culture Photo by Deborah Vaia Amber Ambrose Aurèle is a shoe designer, teacher, and art historicist. In 2012 she graduated as one of the first-generation Master Shoe Design at ArtEZ Fashion Masters. She searches for the boundaries between fashion... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2021-09-03 14:43:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Jeff Bezos to Step Down as Amazon CEO in Q3

After 27 years, Jeff Bezos, the entrepreneur who turned an online bookstore into one of the most powerful companies in the world, announced his plans to step down as Amazon CEO. In an email to employees on Tuesday, Bezos said the transition will come in Q3, at which point he will become... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2021-02-02 21:43:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this

As Revenue Tops $380 Billion, Bezos to Step Down as Amazon CEO

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, will hand over the CEO duties to Andy Jassy, head of Amazon Web Services, this summer. The company reported that sales in the year jumped 38% over 2019, to $386.1 million, and earnings skyrocketed 84%. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-02-02 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Jeff Bezos’s thoughts on Big Business, outer space and The Washington Post

An anthology of writings provides a glimpse into the mind of the Amazon founder. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-20 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

A grandfather ponders the best books to keep children — and their adults — entertained

The 1980s and ‘90s were a golden age for children’s literature. The best of the bunch feel as fresh as ever. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-26 13:17:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this

When the world was too much with me, here’s what I read for some R&R

Mysteries from the Golden Age, Arthur Conan Doyle and a helluva good book about a Texas book dealer. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-05-06 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this