A site for authors with an paid online digital download feature

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   relacheposted 8 years ago

   Your space on HubPages is "your account."  And it's just part of HubPages, it's not separate.
   
   When you say you can't find Print On Demand book companies, yet you keep naming specific industry notables, obviously you are finding POD companies.
   
   Unless you can explain clearly what you are seeking, AND how the businesses you have investigated are not meeting those needs, no one but you will be able to solve your problem.

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   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   So what's wrong with Blurb http://www.blurb.co.uk/ or Lulu https://www.lulu.com/ or CreateSpace https://www.createspace.com/?
   
   What specifically is it that you're looking for that they don't provide?
   
   Doesn't it depend on how you use your account?
   
   What's wrong with a blog linked to a self-publishing account?
   
   Or do you mean you like being part of a community and want to be on a site with lots and lots of other authors so you can get some competition?

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   Austinstarposted 8 years ago

   Obviously, you need to set up an author site with the ability to sell 'subscriptions" to your work - ie: access to read your stories online via your own published content.
   It's fairly easy to do, any competent webmaster should be able to set that up for you. There should be a college or university near you that has webmaster classes or classes in information technology.
   You could find a webmaster student who could work with you to set up a website that would work for you for a reasonable fee. The students need projects, and you need a website.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You don't even need a webmaster, you just need to use eJunkie.

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      TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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         Austinstarposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Ok, I would love to put this together for myself! If it works out, I'll be happy to set one up for you too. Thanks for the link to Jane Friedman's list! Is that a complete list of what you are looking for? or is there more?

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            TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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               C.V.Rajanposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Good idea. If it is really a revenue making idea, somebody would have done already! I don't know whether any author makes any worthy money by selling e-books. Such a website owner would need subscription fees for running the show; I don't know how many authors would pay it and then hope to sell their e-books and get more money to offset the expenditure.

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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                     Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     I misunderstood you about profit.  Most small website owners don't draw a fixed salary at all, they just draw money from the site's profit to make ends meet.  I was talking in that context.

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                        TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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                           Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           I know exactly what you mean about doing a business case before embarking.   I obviously haven't done a full business case but my initial top-of-the-head sums led me to believe that the proposed site would not earn enough to make a surplus, even assuming the owner did not take a salary, unless it was either a subscription-based operation OR the commission was comparable to other publishers.
                           
                           I do understand your frustration with the excessive profit motive current in today's business.  I've been exposed to it while working in big corporations, where they've closed down perfectly profitable operations simply because they were not profitable ENOUGH.    The greed is astonishing.

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               psycheskinnerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               How does this differ from the author central feature for Amazon?  I have one there where I post my blog, twitter, have my books listed, and do indeed make a nice income.

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         relacheposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Why?
         
         There's nothing inherent to the business model which guarantees revenue.
         
         By the way, here is my analysis of online subscription writing site Channillo, and the earnings potential around subscriber/readers.
         
         http://hubpages.com/community/forum/135 … ost2794510

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            TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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               makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               That's because reputable authors who actually generate traffic wouldn't use a site like this. They'd have their own websites and maximise their income direct to them (ie minimise expenses paid direct to others - unless the return on investment warranted it).
               
               Why on earth would they want to share their traffic with competitors?
               
               What you are then left with is wannabe authors who want a platform for accessing an audience - but without putting the effort into marketing. This is typically a subscription model type site which makes money for the owners but rarely brings subscribers what they aspire to have.
               
               Those wanting to compete with the open market and retain more of their earnings have to "do the business" for themselves.
               
               In other words there's a reason why there is no site. If there was money in it somebody would have invented it by now.

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                  relacheposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                  The tl;dr of this thread.

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                     makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Huh?

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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                     makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     First things first.
                     * If you want to make a suggestion to HubPages put it in an email and send it to them.
                     * If you don't want a suggestions discussed don't post it in the forum!  
                     The point of the forum and having scope to suggest new suggestions is that HubPages get to reflect in the comments as well as the suggestions.
                     
                     Given the popularity of writing, if your proposal was a goer don't you think somebody would have started a site by now? I'm sure other people will have had this idea.
                     
                     You make a number of assumptions:
                     "As soon as a site gains enormous traffic, recognized authors will use it."
                     So explain what strategy you or HubPages would use to GET enormous traffic? As we all know big content sites with big traffic are now a thing of the past. People are bailing out of them - including HubPages. 
                     
                     You need an evaluation technique as to who can actually write and who can't."
                     Personally I thought that was the role of the marketplace. You can set tests for standards of the English Language but where are the funds to pay the people to do the assessment?
                     
                     I do know a bit about writing sites. I've been published internationally (by a "proper publisher" and associated others in various countries) and currently write articles for a leading magazine in the UK. I also have a friend who's been writing for a few years and has consistently been in the New York Times Best Seller lists.  Bottom line I do understand something of the changes that have taken place in the publishing industry.
                     
                     What generates traffic is a NICHE INTEREST - a very precisely defined market who can be found on social media with a very particular interest. So, for example, if it was a niche writing site dedicated to one of the categories on the New York Times Best Seller list (eg "Young Adult Paperback") then you might just have an "idea with legs".  However if it was a site which was generic and trying to cover all authors and all angles then it's not going to have an identity and is unlikely to get traction with any of the niche interest groups
                     
                     What generates a lot of interest from investors is something that fills a gap, provides benefits to a lot of people, has a properly costed cashflow forecast and P&L account and cannot be copied by other people.
                     
                     The other issues is that a generic writing site which is only going to pick up would-be authors and serious amateurs and semi-professionals doesn't have the identity, or the backing or any hope of the clout of serious traffic. Besides which such a site is very much targeted at writers and not readers - and they are very different audiences!
                     (Just think for a minute why Good Reads gets such high traffic!)
                     
                     So you are back to the subscription model and, like I said, there are an awful lot of sites out there where the business model "stinks" from the consumer perspective.
                     
                     I'm still inundated on a regular basis by people who want me to review their newly set-up sites for people to post art to sell. They think they've come up with a brand new idea. As opposed to people who have watched the market and realise that all these sites arrive and disappear in pretty short order. I refuse point blank to even take a look at them for review purposes until they have survived a minimum of six months. I'm not greatly troubled by many sites to look after that period of time. They sink without a trace.
                     
                     For any site to work it has to have somebody behind it who is fanatical about making it work, who has the time and the access to the necessary funds to get it off the ground and who has the contacts to get it set up so it works fast and efficiently and effectively. It's not cheap - in either time, effort of financial investment.
                     
                     You might well have a kernel of an idea.
                     
                     However from my perspective (I used to write business cases - and more importantly critique them for a living for organisations putting in serious funds ) it needs a lot more work and testing of assumptions before it's worth presenting and selling as something worth investing in.
                     
                     If you are that 'fanatical person' who believes in their idea have a go. But you need to do more work on the idea and how it could be made a reality.  Plus identify what are the risks and how would these be minimised or eliminated. Show them how the numbers work....

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                        TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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                           makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                           Oh - I see what you mean. I can well understand why you'd be dischuffed if that was you thought you were doing.
                           
                           If you look at the other threads in that particular sub-forum you'll see they're split between ones which didn't merit any comments at all and ones which attracted quite a few.

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   Marisa Wrightposted 8 years ago

   Tessa, you say "I would really like a formula in the hubpages tradition where every author has their own site". 
   
   I'm sure you know that we don't have our own sites on HubPages. We did have our own sites when we had sub-domains.  Now, we do not.  As far as Google and our readers are concerned, all our Hubs are thrown in together on the main site (and on the new sites).   Yes, it is possible to see all your Hubs together on your Account page, but that's mainly so you can manage them - very few readers will ever look at your profile, only other members generally do that.
   
   I do see what you mean, however, but I wonder whether anyone could make money from the kind of site you're proposing.  They would have to charge the authors to use the site, because commissions from sales would be far too small and too hard to manage.  What would you pay as an annual fee to have such a site?

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      makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You know what that sort of site reminds me of? The myriad number of so called art gallery websites where people pay a subscription to display their art hoping to make a sale because now it is "online" - not realising that getting it online is just the beginning and now you have to market it and drive traffic to the site
      
      The vast majority are a scam because their business model is actually about selling subscriptions to people who don't know how to market their own art on their own account. It's actually got nothing to do with selling art.

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         MakingaMark, I'm pretty sure those art sites are pretty much what Tessa has in mind. 
         
         Basically, each author would have a profile and their own mini-website on the site, where they could post stories, serials, download links etc.   The front page would then advertise all the works by category and also have an author index etc. 
         
         I think the idea is that each author would have their own website, but it would gain more visibility than a standalone site due to the fact that the main site would become known as a place to find good stories and novels.   
         
         I could see how that could be done on multi-user Wordpress, though getting serials to show in the right order would be tricky.
         
         However I do think it would have to be a subscription-based service because it would not be worth the cost of development if income was just commission on downloadable books. Books are now being sold at such low prices, the commission would be laughable.   I think Tessa is looking for a site that would do all that for commission only.

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            makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            The thing is I used to track the stats for those sites - which is possible - and was NOT surprised when I found that they generally had a relatively low levels of visits for the site - all of which had to be shared between all the sites on the 'big' site.  I fact the conclusion I came too was that the traffic was so low that most of it had to be site owners checking their sites and visiting the forum which always on the same domain URL - and hence boosted numbers.
            
            Hardly surprising since the people who used to take out subscriptions generally hadn't got a clue about to get people to visit them.
            
            In the end I started advising people against using them because I became more and more convinced that they may have been started with good intentions - but in the end they kept going because they represented a nice business model for the owners (all those subscriptions). 
            
            It's the online equivalent of a vanity gallery.

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   makingamarkposted 8 years ago

   I'm afraid I still don't get it.
   
   So you set up your own website (not difficult) or blog (again not difficult)
   
   Then you look at (say) Blurb ebook - see http://www.blurb.co.uk/ebook and decide how to make your ebook
   
   or Lulu - see http://www.lulu.com/create/ebooks
   
   Then you look at (say) Blurb's retail channels and distribute via (say) iBooks http://www.blurb.co.uk/apple-ibooks-store or Blurb's own retail channels (see http://www.blurb.co.uk/sell-through-blurb) which allows an embed on your website for links to where you can buy an ebook
   
   or if you're an Apple person use iBooks Author http://www.apple.com/uk/ibooks-author/ and use blog or website to sell via Apple iBooks Store
   
   I'm thinking maybe you haven't visited any of these sites in a while?
   
   PS Guess what Danielle Steele does when selling ebooks - she refers people to the Apple iBooks store via her website - see https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-ap … 3310?mt=11

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      TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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         Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Tessa - but the reason the bookstores take "too large" a commission is because they need that amount to be financially viable.  If I were going to design such a site,  I'd need to charge much the same commission to pay for my site development, hosting and advertising/marketing. 
         
         While a lot of what you propose could be set up by someone like myself, some of the more sophisticated features would require an experienced programmer who would charge a very high hourly rate so it would be an expensive endeavour. And the site name you're proposing would cost over $800 just to buy.
         
         You say someone "needs" to create such a site, but I'm afraid someone only needs to create such a site if it has a prospect of making money.

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            TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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               Marisa Wrightposted 8 years agoin reply to this

               Wordpress doesn't charge for its Wordpress.com free sites because it has a huge section of the business which DOES charge.  Offering the free sites and free software is a carrot to lure people into using their paid services.
               
               Blogger is the same - at one time it was a major part of Google promoting its other services. Nowadays, Google has stopped developing Blogger and has moved on to other things,and I think has only left Blogger live because there would be such an outcry if they closed it down. 
               
               You may not approve of profit BUT if no one makes a profit, what does the website owner live on?  I am not interested in making a fortune, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a website owner to expect the site to contribute something meaningful to their living expenses, especially if they're going to spend thousands of dollars in creating it.
               
               I don't think it would cost as much as that - but let's say the site did cost $50,000.   Things change very quickly on the internet nowadays, so you wouldn't want to rely on the site lasting longer than, say, 5 years.  That means you'd need it to make over $10,000 a year - otherwise you'd be better off putting the money in the bank and living on it.  And at 30 or 40 cents per book, that means you'd have to sell 25,000 books a year. 
               
               Considering that most ebooks are lucky to sell even a few hundred copies, that means you'd need a few hundred authors on the site to even break even. And why do all that work just to break even?

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                  TessSchlesingerposted 8 years agoin reply to this

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                     makingamarkposted 8 years agoin reply to this

                     Exactly. Their business is in making money via subscriptions from people who don't know how to market themselves.
                     
                     The people who make the money are the owners.

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   Austinstarposted 8 years ago

   From what I can gather, yes, each author will have to have their own website. The only other way to do this would be to "guest blog" on someone's blogging site and link to the author's content for sale.
   Sites like HubPages are going to go away.
   The reason? Because HP staff can't please everyone when everyone wants something different. The only way to control your own content is to control your own web site.
   So, you might as well just buy your domain name from TuCows or Whois and then get someone to show you how to set everything up the way you want it. Usually for authors, that will mean learning how to install and edit WordPress for domains.
   And yes, you will still have to market your own website or hire someone to do it for you.
   Fivr.com might be a good place to start looking for marketing help.

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