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 ]
Jeff Bezos has already transformed one traditional print business -- books -- into a digital one. The experience provides a blueprint for how the billionaire technology executive is now poised to overhaul newspapers following his $250 million acquisi ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jeff Bezos, in the U.K. to launch the Kindle Paperwhite and Amazon's Lending Library service, has told the BBC that his firm makes no money on its Kindles. "We make money from when people use our devices, not when people buy our devices," he told technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. "That... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Aurum Press has won a five-way auction for a non-fiction title about the Golden Age of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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De mortuis nihil nisi bonum: Of the dead say nothing unless it is kind. This is a good rule of thumb. Despite the temptation, it would be mean-spirited to object to the barrage of shallow Facebook postings about Steve Jobs, gratuitous to gripe that Nora Ephron, though a terrifically talented... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2012-08-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By the time Apple released the iPad in April of 2010, just four months after Steve Jobs first announced his "magical and revolutionary" new machines in San Francisco, traditional publishers had been overtaken by a collective delusion. They be ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-05-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Data gathered by Nielsen BookScan for The Daily Beast show many of the same titles are popular in American cities – but exceptions include 'Heaven Is For Real' and 'The Great Gatsby.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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.... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2012-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Before his death in October of last year, one of Steve Jobs' last big moves was Apple's foray into electronic books. The company announced the platform in March 2010, but the method in which Apple handled its deals with publishers has caught the eye of regulators. The Justice Department plans to... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2012-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BuzzFeed, the meme-centric social news site known for its reserves of offbeat content and silly cat photos, is stockpiling journalists—serious ones. Last week, it announced the hire of award-winning Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings, adding to an impressive roster of reporters that include... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2012-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A few days after Amazon announced that the Steve Jobs biography was its top-selling book of 2011 (combined print and ebook sales), the book debuted on bestseller charts around the world, including the three countries highlighted this month. Steve Jobs was #3 in France and the Netherlands, and... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-12-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Wed, 02/11/2011 - 08:27 Walter Isaacsons biography of the late Steve Jobs has become one of the fastest-selling hardback non-fiction books since records began. Brought forward from its original publication date of 24th November following the Apple... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Fri, 07/10/2011 - 08:25 Little, Brown is to be bring forward publication of Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson, publishing now on 24th October. The biography was written by Isaacson based on conversations with Apple-founder... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Industry experts said the biography of Steve Jobs could easily sell millions of copies in print, audio and ebook editions. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Steve Jobs's death has prompted Simon & Schuster to move up the publication date for his much-anticipated biography by Walter Issacson. The CBS-owned publishing unit has moved up the release date for "Steve Jobs" from Nov. 21 to Oct. 24. Not surprisingly, preorders for the book are... Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-10-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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"All About Steve: The Story of Steve Jobs and Apple from the Pages of Fortune" has been released on Amazon as a Kindle book. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-10-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 26/09/2011 - 08:50 Amazon c.e.o. Jeff Bezos has been named as the most powerful man in books in a Guardian and Observer "power list" of the 100 key people in the trade. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Thu, 25/08/2011 - 07:10 Apple c.e.o. Steve Jobs' authorised biography, which is published by Little, Brown this November, is set to include the story of Jobs' shock resignation from the technology company on Wednesday night. The book, written by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Steve Jobs was wrong. People love to read on the iPad. Lets hope newspaper publishers dont ruin it for everyone. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-08-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 13/07/2011 - 15:32 Amazon.com has dropped the price of its advertising-heavy Amazon 3G Kindle to $139 (£86.91). Telecoms company AT&T is sponsoring the Kindle with Special Offers, which will include campaigns for customers and sponsored... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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PCWorld managed to snag previews of some of the pages, although they are a work-in-progress as the pages have not yet been colored or had speech bubbles put in. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-06-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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