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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Last April, writer, designer, and literary agent Dede Cummings had a dream that convinced her that she needed to do something to improve the environment. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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More people are buying more books than ever, and more people are making a living by writing them. Why do millionaire authors want to destroy the one company that's made this all possible?As an author of ten novels legacy-published, self-published, and Amazon-published I'm bewildered by the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-06-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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They are railing against the South Carolina politicians who want to strip funding from schools teaching LGBTQ materials in the classroom. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-05-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Leading Syrian writers and artists will tour Britain in June to launch Syria Speaks, an... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author and comedian David Baddiel has written his first children’s novel. The Parent... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Our publishing industry seems to champion just one or two black and Asian authors at a time. Lack of diversity is a real problemMonths back I was trudging through the streets of Dalston when I spotted a copy of Simi Bedford's Yoruba Girl Dancing in a charity shop window. It evoked the same... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Andrew Lownie, recently short-listed for The Bookseller UK literary agent of the year, explains how the agency goes about selling its authors. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2014-03-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Georgina Henry's kind but firm encouragement to go below the line on my pieces has transformed my life as well as my idealsFor a wide-eyed, wannabe writer, being cast into the Cif lions' den induced fear and pride in equal measure. The chance to contribute to such a paradigm-shifting project was... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Novelist Eleanor Catton and her editor Max Porter's alliance shows how much more than wielding a blade goes into this relationshipHenry James called editing "the butchers' trade". But he also said, "I glory in the piling up of complications of every sort," so you can see how the old anglophile... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In Dickens's day, serialized novels were all the rage. Rooster aims to revive that trend, making it easier than ever to find good books (and the time to read them).In the age of abbrevs., sitting down to read a novel can feel like gearing up for a marathon, no matter how much you love books. The... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-03-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How to fit real-life information into your story without sacrificing or slowing down the story. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Past winners include Stephen King, Anne Rice, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ray Bradbury. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Through a deal with PayPal, Deutsche Telekom is letting mobile users purchase digital goods and get billed on their regular mobile phone accounts.Deutsche Telekom has a presence in 14 markets throughout Europe, with some 144 million mobile customers, and is working with PayPal to offer the... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2014-02-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A Little Friendly Orgy and other porn stories have been sold as work by the author of The Eagle Has LandedReaders fancying a journey into the world of the bestselling thriller author Jack Higgins may be getting a different kind of thrill, courtesy of another writer selling erotic novels under... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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WikiLeaks founder a mercurial character who could not bear his own secrets, according to writer Andrew O'HaganThe ghostwriter who collaborated with Julian Assange on his abortive 2011 autobiography has broken his silence to describe his months working with the WikiLeaks founder, which culminated... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-02-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A digital publishing house is conducting a semi-legal, large-scale search for the next great incarcerated author. The reaction from authorities isn't what you'd expect.Jack London, Ken Kesey, William Burroughs, Oscar Wilde, Malcolm X, Voltaire, Cervantes, E.E. Cummings, Martin Luther King, Mark... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2014-02-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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There is no need to turn to the US for great writers, the publisher of one of the Folio Prize-... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-02-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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While authors have appeared in person, via Skype or via telephone at book clubs before, Book the Writer has the clubs pay for the author's appearance. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Advocates for women writers – working to counter what is seen as bias towards males in the literary community – suddenly seem to be everywhere. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The anonymous figure behind the Twitter handle is reported to be releasing a book titled 'Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance and Excess in the World of Investment Banking' this October. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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