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 ]
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US writer Catherine Nichols has revealed that she received eight times as many responses by sending out her manuscript to agents under a man’s name than when sending it out under her own name. In an essay for Jezebel, Nichols said she sent query letters to 50 agents under her own name,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-08-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Will social media and aggregated preferences sweep away book reviewing and literary culture? There’s nothing new about the death of literatureThe writer Caleb Crain is unhappy about “the intrusion of counting into the life of literature”. He believes that big data and predictive-taste algorithms... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The University of East Anglia is publishing archived private correspondence from novelists such as Doris Lessing, JD Salinger and WG Sebald to inspire today’s students of creative writing“Don’t,” a young Doris Lessing is advised as she tries to find a publisher for her first novel, The Grass is... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Teymour Shahabi found motivation to write by posting videos about self-publishing on YouTube , which gave him both an education and an audience. The post Ready for Your Close-up? What YouTube Can Do for Writers appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Can an online ‘safe space’ be both selective and preoccupied with inclusivity? That’s a question that Binders Full of Women Writers is trying to sort out after a member published an article about the Facebook groupThe first rule of Binders Full of Women Writers is: you do not talk about Binders... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hello, Slate Plus members! I’m writing this on my first day as a Slate senior editor. (Readers of the Slate Book Review might know me from the essays I’ve been writing about children’s books.) I’ve joined the magazine to focus on Slate Plus content—everything from the Slate Academy podcasts... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2015-07-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ed Greenwood, best known as the bearded creator of the Forgotten Realms universe for Dungeons and Dragons, is launching an unconventional publishing group of his own, called The Ed Greenwood Group (TEGG). Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When Tramp Press asked authors submitting manuscripts to name the writers who inspire them, only 22% were female - pointing again to ‘the larger issue in the industry: our habitual dismissal of women’An Irish publisher has stoked the flames of the gender debate currently running in the literary... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Portico, an imprint of Pavilion Books, has bought two books by Sunday Times Style writer Francesca Hornak. Commissioning editor Nicola Newman bought world rights in History of the World in 100 Modern Objects and Worry With Mother from Olivia Guest of Jonathan Clowes Ltd. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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He has only been in graphic storytelling for three years, but already the Czech-born writer has produced several influential series for the biggest publishers – and his latest is set to reinvent crime noirAt 28 years old, Ales Kot is at the forefront of a new generation of writers injecting... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Over the past two years Time Inc., the magazine company, has attempted to position itself as Time Inc., the digital content brand. Core to the push has been video, which Time Inc. has produced in multiple forms. On the Web, its video team, now ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Palin, Bill Bryson and William Dalrymple are just some of the names already nominated for the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Etgar Keret presents his memoir: a series of raw and witty stories that document seven years of a father-son relationship. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2015-07-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Graphic designer Inka Mathew documents the prismatic—and petite—world around her.Two years ago, Inka Mathew was captivated by a vivid blue bloom in her front yard. The hue was so mesmerizing, she resolved to find out exactly what it was. A graphic designer by trade, Mathew headed straight for... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-07-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why must writers from Africa always bear the burden of representing their continent? They should be granted artistic freedom, as other authors areAfrican literature, as it’s called, is enjoying a bit of a moment, with the western media regularly heralding splashes, rebirths, dawns. When I... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors and publishers have just a day left to submit work to the relaunched Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award, which is open to self-published writers this year for the first time. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Julie Crisp has signed up her first author as a literary agent following her departure from Pan Macmillan. Crisp will represent Sam Hawke, an Australian fantasy writer from Canberra, who has written a novel called Proof, described as “intelligent fantasy concentrating on issues of race, gender... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is looking for aspiring writers of children’s films and TV shows for its new writing forum. The competition is part of the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum, a long-running initiative which was created to give a platform to undiscovered... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Short stories are gaining ground in the UK, but authors working within the format are finding it more difficult to break into the public consciousness than novelists, writers have told The Bookseller. Awards that cover all forms of fiction such as The Folio Prize, won in 2014 by George... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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He’s not a thug, he doesn’t trust his celebrity friends, and he’s definitely not a pornographer. Over a cigar delivered on a silver platter, the self-appointed king of Express Newspapers lays into scruffy booksellers and sets the record straightRichard Desmond held a party at Claridge’s in... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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