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 ]
News tagged with:
#swimming pool
#jeff bezos
#steve jobs
#pricing model
#golden age
#david zax
Publishers Scholastic and Bloomsbury are re-releasing the series with full-color illustrations.Between author J.K. Rowling's fan hub experience Pottermore and a slew of fans bringing elements of Harry Potter's world to life (Marauder's Map, a seven-book saga in one), the boy who lived lives on,... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2015-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#harry potter
#publishers scholastic
I’m worried it will cost too much and don’t know what cover price to chargeEvery week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question Continue reading... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#good idea
#ve written
#cover price
Novelists Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes and Deborah Moggach and the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion are among the signatories to a letter calling on the next government to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-12-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#julian barnes
#deborah moggach
#letter calling
Most great hip-hop collaborations involve an MC and a producer. For 36 Seasons, Pretty Toney turned elsewhere.Last year, comic artist Matthew Rosenberg, a lifelong Wu-Tang Clan fan, sent off pitches to several rappers with ideas for album stories. When he got the call that rapper Ghostface... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Julian Barnes, and others expressed delight when a high court in the United Kingdom struck down a ban on sending books to prisoners. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#sending books
#philip pullman
#julian barnes
#expressed delight
#high court
The retail colossus is aiming to recruit fan fiction writers with their own ambitions to sell, but Wattpad is winning users who want to shareIt’s a cheerful orange giant stuffed with fan fiction and smileys which can garner a billion reads for an erotic One Direction story – scoring 25-year-old... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#harper collins
#social reading
#writing platform
A book about animals illustrated with infographics has won the 2014 Educational Writers’ Award. The £2,000 prize was presented to Jon Richards and Ed Simkins for The World in Infographics: Animal Kingdom (Wayland) by Tristram Hunt, shadow secretary of state for education, at a ceremony... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#shadow secretary
Alice Lee was a key figure in Marja Mills's recent bestseller 'The Mockingbird Next Door.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-11-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#key figure
#marja mills
Four “outstanding examples of non-fiction books” make up the shortlist for the 2014 Educational Writers’ Award. The award, run by the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and the Society of Authors (SoA), celebrates educational writing that “inspires creativity and encourages... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#authors licensing
#authors soa
Novelist Jerry Jenkins has shuttered the Christian Writers Guild, a writers education group he owns. Former CWG employees are gearing up to fill the void with a new company. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-11-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Crowdfunding publisher Unbound has launched Women in Print, a campaign to encourage more female writers to submit their ideas for books. Unbound has published 43 books, two magazines and a box set of photos to date, of which 32 were by male authors, 12 by female authors, and two by male and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#male authors
#women writers
#female writers
#female authors
Michael Bond has taken legal advice on how to stop other authors writing about Paddington Bear after his death, according to the Times. In an interview published in the newspaper on Saturday 1st November , Bond said he has already consulted a lawyer over how to protect his creation and that... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#paddington bear
#michael bond
#interview published
Author support site The Writing Platform is encouraging writers and technologists to work together, with bursaries to fund new collaborative projects. Two bursaries of £4,000 each will be awarded to teams made up of one writer and one technologist, to fund a three month project. Teams can... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bring writers
#writing platform
The PEN American Center is putting 75 one-of-a-kind first editions, annotated by America's most famous authors and poets, on the block. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-10-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#famous authors
Debut novelist Amy Mason, who dropped out of school at 16 and took up writing at 25, wins the Dundee International Book Prize. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2014-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
In a year in which four publishers closed, paused, or slimmed down their fiction lists, members of the American Christian Fiction Writers held their annual conference Sept. 25-27 in St. Louis to honor their best, talk shop, and see who was still standing, though all agreed there are still... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#talk shop
#hybrid authors
#traditional means
First Braintree, and now PayPal. Ebay's popular online payment system recently announced that merchants selling digital goods can opt to start accepting Bitcoin payments via PayPal's payment portal, if they're based in North America. That means you may soon be able to pay for non-physical goods... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2014-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#payment method
Not That Kind of Girl is a reminder of the publishing obsession with women divulging their private livesA week or so ago, I went to LA to interview a ridiculously talented young woman. Despite being only in her 20s, she has achieved the kind of success that most people multiple times her age... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book publishers
For every 15 titles that Italian publishers import from the U.S., American publishers import one from Italy; a new program aims to change that. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Author John Curran discusses Christie's writing approach and her never-ending appeal. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#agatha christie