Ed: There’s a discount code for purchases at BookBaby at the end of this article. Wouldn’t want you to miss it.
The world of books has been in flux for some time, and now the move to e-books is pushing the changes in reading, publishing, writing and distribution at an even faster pace.
The last couple of years has seen the amazing debut of Kindle, iPad, Smashwords, Nook, Pubit!, tablet computing, iPhone, Android and almost all the other pillars of the current e-book universe.
Many e-book retailers, converters and publishers have sprung up in recent months, a bit like mushrooms after a heavy rain. There are many companies thriving in this new environment, although others will fall away.
The biggest impact for self-publishers has been the opening of Kindle to all indie authors, where we can simply upload a file and be on sale in the world’s largest online bookstore on an equal footing with the e-books from all other publishers.
Mark Coker’s Smashwords has been the best friend for writers who want to get into the e-book business for the astonishing cost of absolutely nothing. All writers should be grateful to Mark, and his success has been tremendous. Smashwords will publish 75,000 books this year.
New Player on the Block
Into this space marches BookBaby, an offshoot of CDBaby, the largest online distributor of independent music. When I found out that BookBaby was coming into the market specifically to distribute e-books by indie authors, I was quite interested.
The growth of e-books as a business is going to see a lot more firms come into this arena, and the sheer volume of self-published books will draw a lot of them to working with indie authors.
I wanted to get the real story on BookBaby and their unusual pricing model, so I sat down a few days ago with Brian Felsen, the president of BookBaby to ask him about how the service works, and a lot of other questions.
Here’s my interview with Brian. I know you’re going to find it interesting. Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you have trouble seeing the video, please reload or refresh the page.
In This Video Interview
- How the iPad was the catalyst for Brian’s move from music and audio books into e-book distribution
- CDBaby distributes over 3,500,000 songs by over 250,000 to more than 60 partners, paying out almost $200,000,000 in royalties to its artists
- HostBaby provides web hosting for almost 14,000 musicians and will soon host authors as well
- What discounts authors can expect from the major retail partners through BookBaby
- How BookBaby deals with e-book conversion, formatting and metadata
- What you get for your $99 per book fee
- Which retailer sells the most for BookBaby authors
- Preferred way BookBaby likes to receive your content
- What kinds of books may run into extra formatting costs
- Blockbuster announcement about BookBaby expansion plans
Quotes:
“Everything that we do will be non-predatory and will be a benefit for independent authors.”
“If you have a story you want to tell the world, we want to help you get it out there to the world, make it easy to get on all the major platforms.”
Links and Resources
BookBaby website
Discount Coupon Code: Brian has generously extended a discount throughout the rest of the year to readers of TheBookDesigner. Just use the coupon code when you go to checkout and you’ll receive a 10% discount.