Category: Reporting

News, interviews and journalism topics.

Readers seek great books, not big publishers: Bibliocrunch CEO Miral Sattar

Published by Adam on January 21, 2016

Indie authors can’t do it alone. Believe me, I’ve tried. What I’ve learned over the course of writing, self-publishing and marketing three novels is that it pays to get help.

Over the last year, I’ve featured several tech companies and indie book promotion websites that aim to put indie authors on a level playing field with the traditionally published. These include Reedsy, The Fussy Librarian, NoiseTrade and Story Cartel.

miral-sattar_headshot — Miral Sattar, Bibliocrunch CEO

Today I’d like to feature Bibliocrunch, a company that’s actually been in the indie publishing game since 2011. The service connects authors to freelancers for editing, marketing, graphic design and much more. The site also hosts book giveaways and provides useful advice about indie publishing. Check out my profile on Bibliocrunch as an example.

I spoke with founder and CEO Miral Sattar about what Bibliocrunch hopes to accomplish and where she sees the publishing industry headed. Miral leads a team of seven based in New York City.

Adam: What problem is Bibliocrunch trying to solve?

Miral: Giving authors access to tools resources to publish the best book possible. We have a vetted marketplace that connects authors and publishers with vetted publishing professionals. But we also have our LearnSelfPublishingFast.com series which is growing very popular.

Adam: Today’s authors can self-publish a book all by themselves if they want to. Why is it important that authors pay for freelance help, and how big of an investment does that need to be?

Miral: If someone is paying for your book, then you need to make sure that it is in the best state possible. You need an eye-catching cover, a well-edited book that’s error-free, and readable on all devices and formats.

The investment varies. You can publish a quality book on a budget or pay what a typical publisher would pay for one of their authors. I have written articles on both. It’s different for each book.

Read Miral's articles on this subject!
How to Self-Publish Your Book on a Budget
The Real Costs of Self-Publishing a Book

Adam: The publishing industry is in a state of flux right now. Where do you think it’s going, and how well will self-published authors fare against industry published authors?

Miral: I don’t think this is a relevant question. I think it’s more important that traditional publishers start offering more to their authors. Right now, 40% of the books on Amazon’s best-seller list are self-published. People usually don’t care whether a book is self-published. They want a great read. If they love the book, they will recommend it to their friends.

Adam: What was your background before starting this company, and what led you from there to here?

Miral: I’m an engineer and writer by background. I went to both graduate (NYU) and undergrad (Columbia) in the city. I had been working at TIME Magazine for several years, leading a lot of the editorial product development. I was also finishing up my Masters at NYU at the same time.

In 2011, I noticed that people were publishing books based on breaking news events and selling tons of books. The people who were publishing were not professionals, and they were doing it through Amazon. So I went back to the higher-ups at TIME and pitched my project: publish books based on breaking news events. We had the best writers from all over the world between TIME, Fortune, People, etc. But like any big corporation, they were slow to approve and execute.

I ended up leaving and starting my own company, Bibliocrunch, several months later. We launched as a tools platforms where authors and publishers could write and convert their books in the cloud. However, we kept getting requests from authors asking if our platform could convert PDF files into eBooks, or design covers. We referred so many people that we made a marketplace out of it.

Adam: How many customers do you have?

Miral: We have about 20,000 authors and 1,500 vetted freelancers who provide services to authors and publishers.

Adam: What is the most popular service authors seek freelance help with?

Miral: I’d say editing and then cover design.

Bibliocrunch offers a variety of paid VIP services to authors.

Adam: Do you typically get authors who are looking to self-publish, or are they polishing things up with the intention of querying a big publisher?

Miral: We get all types of authors, though the majority of our authors are self-published. We also have publishers who have hired freelancers because they don’t have the budgets to keep qualified folks in-house. Each author is different, so we tell them the first thing they should do is define their goals.

Adam: Do you have minimum qualifications for the freelancers? Must they have professional experience in the publishing industry?

Miral: Absolutely. We check to see if they already are a member of a pre-existing organization, their LinkedIn profiles, their testimonials, works samples, and website.

Adam: Have you had any major success stories so far?

Miral: We’ve had a few authors hit the top 10 on Amazon. Most recently, Howard Kaplan, author of The Damascus Cover, bumped James Paterson and Patricia Cornwell one week.

publishingboxset — Bibliocrunch offers a free 4-book box set of books to help indie authors. Click the image for more details.

Adam: What do you believe is your competitive advantage to other companies offering similar services?

Miral: I think we’ll see the rise of marketplaces in 2016. Almost everyone has one now which is great! Blurb, Publishers Weekly, Publishers Lunch, just to name a few.

We have a VIP Service that guides authors through the self-publishing process with a real person on the phone. We also have our LearnSelfPublishingFast.com author training courses, which come with tools, templates, blog posts and guides. Our most popular course is our marketing intensive.

Adam: What’s coming next for Bibliocrunch? What can you tell me about any plans to further expand or enhance your services?

Miral: We’re expanding our LearnSelfPublishingFast.com series to include children’s books and also launching a few children’s book initiatives later this year.

Adam: Besides Bibliocrunch, what other innovative companies helping indie authors do you like?

Miral: I love Wattpad and BookBub and recommend both to all our authors. Wattpad is great if you’re good at social media and have a fantasy type novel. BookBub is a great way to kickstart sales if you get accepted.

Thanks so much to Miral Sattar for the Interview! Miral also contributed a new year’s prediction for my article on indie publishing in 2016! For more on innovative indie publishing companies, check out my interviews with Reedsy, Story Cartel, NoiseTrade and The Fussy Librarian.

Want to be featured or suggest an innovative indie publishing company? Contact me.

Book publishing to be ‘more mainstream than ever’ in 2016?

Published by Adam on January 9, 2016

Indie publishing gurus gaze into their crystal balls.

Happy new year, everyone! As the proud indie author of two self-published books, I thought it’d be fun to see what people closely involved in supporting and promoting indie publishing predict for book publishing industry in 2016.

Here’s what they had to say!

Emmanual Nataf, co-founder of Reedsy

Photo of Reedsy co-founder Emmanuel Nataf — Credit: about.me/emmanuelnataf

“Most forms of publishing have dramatically changed in the past few years: it’s become incredibly easy to publish photos (Instagram), song tracks (Soundcloud), videos (YouTube), blog posts (WordPress), etc. In 2016, it’s book publishing that will become more mainstream than ever. Through books, more people will express who they are and communicate their vision of the world with others. With 2016 set to break all records with hundreds of thousands of titles pushed to the market, authors need to have a clear idea of what they can expect from publishing a book. In most cases, it will be a gratifying and enriching experience; but only those willing to work hard will find it lucrative.”

Jeffrey Bruner, founder of The Fussy Librarian

“I predict that Barnes & Noble’s eBook division will either be sold or auctioned off through bankruptcy proceedings and acquired by a tech startup that will reinvigorate B&N’s website and database and create a little more competition for Amazon.”

Miral Sattar, CEO of Bibliocrunch

“Now that there are more and more quality books being published a day, largely due to self-publishing, you’ll see a rise of companies that provide marketing tools or services to help the best ones reach the top and get discovered.”

Meanwhile, Smashwords founder Mark Coker wrote an excellent post on his own 2016 predictions. I’ve quoted a few of his predictions below, but definitely read the full article!

Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords

Photo of Mark Coker, Smashwords

“Indie eBook authors will gain market share at expense of large publishers”
“The overall market for ebooks will shrink in dollar terms, but unit volume will increase”
“Kindle Unlimited will gut single-copy sales and drive greater eBook commoditization”
“Print will remain steady, though those sales are the sole domain for authors of traditional publishers”
“Wattpad will be acquired“

What are your predictions for 2016? Sound off in the comments below!

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Reedsy pushes for better indie books through collaboration

Published by Adam on October 28, 2015

Reedsy co-founder Emmanuel Nataf talks about the future of indie publishing.

Just because I’m an indie author doesn’t mean I can’t get good help with editing and book design.

I recently signed up for Reedsy, an innovative web platform that helps indie authors find freelance publishing assistance. A few days ago, I signed ex-DC Comics editor Rachel Gluckstern to edit my upcoming novel, The Wanderer and the New West. It’s an exciting collaboration that was made possible by Reedsy.

Also read:
Line between traditional, indie publishing nearly gone: The Fussy Librarian
How indie authors can break through the noise with NoiseTrade
How to find readers and get book reviews with Story Cartel

Reedsy was founded in London during the summer of 2014 by Emmanuel Nataf, Matthew Cobb, Ricardo Fayet and Vincent Durand. For the first year, the co-founders worked on Reedsy as a side project on nights and weekends, but it became a full-time job after the startup was accepted into Seedcamp, a London-based startup accelerator. Soon after, the tech startup raised cash from angel investors including Ben Yoskovitz, the bestselling author of Lean Analytics. Today, Reedsy is a team of seven that operates out of a co-working space in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London.

I spoke with co-founder Emmanuel Nataf about what Reedsy hopes to accomplish and where it sees the publishing industry headed. You can read the full interview below.

Adam: What problem were you trying to solve when you created Reedsy?

Emmanuel: We were seeing two major publishing trends converging. On the one hand, more and more authors were self-publishing, as they could easily reach an audience through digital distribution (460,000 titles were self-published in the US in 2014 according to Bowker). On the other hand, more and more top publishing professionals have left traditional houses in the past few years and have gone freelance, available to work with both traditional and self-published authors.

At the time, we were seeing too many low-quality books being pushed to the Kindle Store. It was clear that self-publishing was not yet a viable alternative to the traditional route. Quality can only be achieved with an investment in editorial, design and marketing services, something that self-published authors did not have access to. They needed a single, trusted and quality source of people that they could collaborate with.

It’s from this frustration that we decided to create Reedsy, a curated marketplace for the
publishing industry.

More recently, we started to work with traditional publishers as well. They have been impressed
with the level of quality Reedsy professionals can provide, and love the way our collaborative
tools streamline their workflows.

Adam: Today, authors can self-publish a book all by themselves if they want to. Why is it
important that authors pay for freelance help, and how big of an investment does that
need to be?

Emmanuel: The production process of a book doesn’t stop after the writing phase – it starts there. Self-publishing authors can certainly release new titles much faster than “Big 5” authors but they can’t skip editing, design or marketing if they want to have any chance of being successful. In fact, to stand out from the crowd, they need to publish a high-quality product and have a solid plan to commercialize it. This takes time and requires experience. This is where Reedsy professionals can help.

We are planning on open-sourcing our data so authors can get a better idea of the cost of self-publishing. However, for an 80,000 word book that needs editing, design and marketing help, you will need at least $2,000. Most spend $5,000 or more if they want to work with award-winning professionals and want to design an aggressive marketing plan.

Adam: The publishing industry is in a state of flux right now. Where do you think it’s going, and
how well will self-published authors fare against industry published authors?

Emmanuel: The whole value chain is evolving so much that I’m not sure how long the selfpublishing/traditional publishing antagonism will remain.

For instance, we recently helped PFD Literary Agents set up their own digital imprint where they give a very interesting 50/50 deal to authors. The emergence of more digital imprints is something that we follow closely. What we believe, though, is that the production of high-quality books can be commoditized through a service like Reedsy, and that publishers should only do what they do best: curate content, offer physical distribution and negotiate foreign rights.

Adam: How many freelancers and how many authors do you have on Reedsy?

Emmanuel: About 6,000 authors have joined Reedsy so far and we have selected 300+ professionals out of 7,000 applications.

Adam: What is the most popular service authors are looking for when they join Reedsy?

Emmanuel: Self-publishing authors are mainly looking for editing services when they come to Reedsy. We would love to see self-publishing authors invest more into their book covers though: too many of them still underestimate the incredible impact a beautiful cover can have for their book sales.

We see mix of authors looking to self-publish and authors looking to polish their manuscript before submitting to agents or publishers, which is why we recently added a “query letter review” service to our marketplace. Eventually, we want Reedsy to become the backbone of the industry, providing high-quality services to all authors or publishers.

Adam: Do you have any minimum qualifications for freelancers? Is it required they have
experience in the publishing industry?

Emmanuel: Yes! Our team receives hundreds of applications every week and only selects a handful of professionals. The objective is to provide the highest level of quality to authors and publishers. This is why people often describe Reedsy as a “curated” marketplace. We require a strong experience working at top publishers or with bestselling authors and a portfolio of at least 10 books. We also ask them to connect their social networks to Reedsy so we can verify their online identity.

Adam: How does Reedsy make money? Is it purely commission-based?

Emmanuel: Our fees are shared between professionals and clients who both pay a 10 percent commission on every transaction. This allows us to develop our product, curate our network, and offer customer support with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.

Adam: Besides Reedsy, what other innovative companies are helping indie authors right now?

Emmanuel: Crowdfunding platforms are a good complement to Reedsy. For instance, Reedsy authors often use Publishizer or Kickstarter to raise funds to pay for our services. We are also pretty excited to see what Find My Audience is going to release in the coming months to help authors locate and engage with a highly qualified audience.

Adam: What’s coming next for Reedsy? What can you tell me about any plans to further expand
or enhance your services?

Emmanuel: Many things! First, we will be adding more services to our marketplace in the coming months: marketing, ghostwriting and translation will be progressively rolled out. Then, we will be adding dedicated publisher accounts to allow publishers to manage entire teams and projects through Reedsy. Last but not least, we will be releasing our collaborative book editor to allow any author to work collaboratively on their books and get properly formatted EPUB and PDF files instantly.

Thanks so much to Emmanuel Nataf for the Interview! For more on innovative indie publishing companies, check out my interviews with Story Cartel, NoiseTrade and The Fussy Librarian.

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Line between traditional, indie publishing nearly gone: The Fussy Librarian

Published by Adam on August 17, 2015

Jeffrey Bruner, founder of The Fussy Librarian

Today’s indie authors can punch above their weight and take on traditionally published authors, says The Fussy Librarian founder Jeffrey Bruner.

The Fussy Librarian, based in Des Moines, Iowa, sends daily book recommendations to readers based on their preferences.

“The line between ‘industry’ authors and ‘self-published’ authors has just about vanished,” Bruner, a former journalist for Gannett, tells me. “An author can hire a cover designer and copy editor and produce a book that looks and reads just as well as anything by the big publishers.”

Also read:
How indie authors can break through the noise with NoiseTrade
How to find readers and get book reviews with Story Cartel

The marketing budget possessed by big publishers might not be as big an advantage as authors think when deciding between indie and traditional publishing, he says.

“The marketing budget of the big publishers usually goes to only a handful of titles — the superstars like James Patterson, John Grisham, etc.,” says Bruner. “Everyone else is getting the crumbs.”

It’s a sentiment also voiced by Guy Kawasaki, the former chief evangelist of Apple, who wrote a book on indie publishing.

“The fact is that they only do [extensive marketing] if you are Hillary Clinton or you’re David Beckham,” Kawasaki said last year. “They don’t do it for the other 10,000 authors every year because frankly they can’t call the New York Times 10,000 times every year.”

Bruner says that indie authors can do a lot with a little. “Self-published authors don’t need to have a huge marketing budget — just enough to create what Kevin Kelly calls 1,000 true fans. Once you have established that base, they will provide the word of mouth to boost you to 50,000, 100,000, 500,000, etc. But the book has to come first and it’s got to be great.”

He points to many tools available to indie authors today, including Rafflecopter for giveaways, MailChimp for mailing list management and PayPal for e-commerce.

“I’m not saying it would have been impossible to self-publish a bestseller 15 years ago, but it’s a lot easier now.”

Meet The Fussy Librarian

The Fussy Librarian seeks to help readers find well-written books, regardless of how they were published.

“We want to be your personal librarian, the person you can turn to when you want to read a good book,” says Bruner. “We’re like a matchmaker for readers.”

The company knows it must court authors if it wants to provide a valuable service to readers.

“Our business doesn’t exist without readers, so they have to be our primary focus … but you’re also not going to last long unless you provide great customer service for authors, too,” says Bruner.

While the Fussy Librarian is not the only game in town for book recommendations on the Web, the company tries to differentiate itself by providing more personalized recommendations to readers, he says.

“A lot of services send you a list of books. We email you a list of books that match your taste in reading.”

The Fussy Librarian breaks down book promotions into emails based on 40 genres, more than competitor BookBub, and also provides content filters for readers who don’t want to see books with profanity or sexual content, he says.

The company has tried to entice authors with competitive pricing offers. Authors pay a fee per genre, but get discounts when they promote books in more than one genre. Also, the Fussy Librarian doesn’t charge extra to promote box sets.

“Our company is privately owned, so we don’t have venture capitalists demanding a return on their investment,” says Bruner. “And we know that most authors aren’t rich, so we try to keep our prices as low as possible. The cost of living is low in Des Moines, so we don’t need to keep much for ourselves.”

How many readers see a promotion varies by the chosen genre, with anywhere from 25,000 for cookbooks to 95,000 for contemporary romance fiction, says Bruner. Readers see anywhere from three to 20 books in each email, depending on their preferences, he says.

With only one full-time and one part-time employee, the Fussy Librarian cannot read every book submitted to the site. To ensure a base-line level of quality, the website requires that books have at least 10 Amazon.com customer reviews with an average score of 4.0. If it’s a new release, the author must have a previously published book with 50 reviews on Amazon averaging 4.0.

Before starting The Fussy Librarian in 2013, Bruner worked as wire chief for Gannett’s national wire desk.

“Like a lot of people in journalism, I decided I needed a Plan B,” he explains. “I worked at the Des Moines Register and its owner, Gannett, started layoffs in 2005 whenever it decided the bottom line needed boosting. After surviving seven or eight rounds, I got tired of waking up each morning wondering if I would still have a job. I also calculated that, when adjusting for inflation, I was actually making less than when I was hired in 2000.”

At first, Bruner kept his day job at Gannett and worked on his new venture at night. Then, in October 2014, he submitted his resignation and made Fussy Librarian his full-time job.

“My only regret is I didn’t do it five years earlier,” he says.

Bruner says the service continues to evolve, with new features on the way. “We’re working on two major projects — one for readers, one for authors — over the next six months. We think they will both be innovations in the book marketing industry, so I’m reluctant to spill too many details, but they both hold tremendous potential and we’re really excited about them.”

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It’s a myth that New York publishers will market your book better, says Guy Kawasaki

Published by Adam on July 14, 2014

Guy Kawasaki talks to media in Sydney. Credit: Canva

I’ve always been envious of traditionally published authors.

I am the self-published author of two dystopian novels and I know there are advantages to my way, including greater control over the final product and more revenue per sale… but marketing is not easy and it’s certainly not cheap.

So, while self-publishing is going OK for me, there’s always been a voice in the back of my head saying, “This would be so much easier with a New York publisher!”

I have to admit I was a bit surprised when Guy Kawasaki said that’s all a myth.

Guy, the former chief evangelist of Apple, is the author of 12 books and recently self-published one all about this topic called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. At a recent media breakfast in Sydney, he said self-publishers can find just as much success as authors with New York publishers–if not more.

“The publishing industry is a very interesting place because it used to be an oligopoly where a few dozen firms in New York controlled the whole world. That is no longer true because of self-publishing and Amazon.”

It can take a year to release a book under the traditional publishing model, he said. “As a self-publisher, from the time manuscript is done–which I can determine–8 hours later it’s for sale on Kindle.”

That all sounded good, but I couldn’t help but feel that Guy might be forgetting that getting initial sales depends on marketing. Maybe Guy is famous enough to sell his own book to thousands of people, but what about the rest of us? I had to ask, wouldn’t a relatively unknown author still get better marketing from a big New York firm?

Guy said no.

“The fact is that they only do those kind of things if you are Hillary Clinton or you’re David Beckham. They don’t do it for the other 10,000 authors every year because frankly they can’t call the New York Times 10,000 times every year.”

In many cases, even traditionally published authors end up doing their own marketing, he said.

“The irony is, if you are lucky enough to garner interest from a New York publisher, one of the first questions they are going to ask you is, ‘What’s your marketing platform?’ Which is kind of ass-backwards because the reason why you’re going to them is for their marketing platform.”

If the publisher actually took care of marketing, Guy said the 90-10 revenue split between publisher and author might make sense. But if that’s not going to happen, it makes little sense for the author to give up 90% of the sales, he said.

With self-publishing through Amazon, the author keeps 70% of each sale. “That’s five times better than what you would get from a publisher,” he said.

The good news, he said, is that self-published authors today have a free marketing platform to get the word out to their audience: social media.

“I’m not saying everyone is guaranteed a bestseller, but at least everybody has a shot and you’re not at the whim of someone in New York.”

Adam Bender is the self-published author of two dystopian novels about surveillance: We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.