So Coldplay are doing their part to thank their fans for paying to go to gigs by giving away an album, which will also be free for online download from May 15th onwards. So why is this important news here at Sharing Books, a children's book publisher?

Because it shows the growing trend. Authors, musicians, creators in general are increasingly giving their work away for free as marketing tools. In this case Coldplay are giving away their music because they like playing live, and can make money doing that. And selling merchandise. Children's publishing is no different, and Sharing Books offers an avenue for authors and book creators to take part in the growing free-content make money on residuals movement.

Book creators can easily use Sharing Books as a distribution platform, driving people to their work and brand. We are happy to be used that way, and fully hope that happens. So book creators, take advantage of the service we offer, and get in on the growing free content movement.

Labels: business philosophy, content

I was in a meeting with some people today and the subject of 'who is in the Sharing Books community' came up. It is a fascinating question. My answer at the time was 'the rejected'. Sharing Books is a lot like America at various points in history: give us your tired, your rejected, your unwanted. This isn't to say that the people we seek out or the books we publish are poor quality, far from it. Our authors and illustrators are proving to be far more talented and motivated then we ever expected.

When we started out we fully expected the need to deal with a serious quality problem. This is proving far from the truth. Our creators are putting together books that are full of fantastic illustrations and well crafted stories. We are seeing fewer and fewer books with technical problems, and in general as more creators get involved the knowledge base has steadily grown. We have a Facebook group for people looking for help, and it has been steadily growing as well.

All this leads to the point, and title, of this post. Sharing Books exists because there are tens of thousands of books that get rejected each and every year by mainstream publishers. These books are not rejected because they are poor quality. They are rejected because mainstream publishers have a huge production overhead and are afraid to take on the risk that a new author or illustrator represents.

So if you are a children's book author or illustrator, and you've been rejected, you have a home here at Sharing Books. We are happy to help get your work into the hands of children all over the world.

Labels: business philosophy, community, publishing

Sharing Books has been featured on the video podcast SmibsTV this week, if you have a moment go check them out! It is not to long, only a few minutes, and it features me ( Marcus ) chatting with Peter Urban from Smibs about Sharing Books, the publishing industry, and the fantastic people here on Sharing Books.

A big thank you to the Smibs team for driving down to Calgary Alberta from Edmonton Alberta to do the shoot. The roads and weather were typical Alberta in the winter, and they zipped down on the Red Arrow bus ( which apparently has wifi internet for all us mobile computing junkies ).

Labels: business philosophy, media coverage, publishing, SmibsTV

Digital publishing platforms allow authors and illustrators to explore contemporary issues as they are unfolding. Sometimes events happen that are so moving, so important to an individual that they feel the need to create work around it right away. Events that are horrific, like the bush fires that swept Australia this season. Events that are culturally significant, like the election of President Obama. Events that are joyous, like a new member to the family. These are events that unfold in real time.

Sharing Books offers a place for people to take these real-time events, the living situations of humanity, and put them in a format for children to read. Our book creators can tackle some of the most difficult subject matter in ways that help children understand what has happened, and is HAPPENING, around them.

A great example of this is the Poster Poem, "Survivors" by Jennifer Poulter and Arti Chauhan, which tackles the aftermath of something like the bush fires in Australia. A simple illustration and poem that talks of the mixed emotions that grip survivors, whether they are adult or child.

People live in real time, not the years lag time found in traditional children's publishing. Parents can find they need material to deal with issues in the now, not two, three, or ten years after an event when their children are fully grown. Digital publishing offers a space where authors, illustrators, and content consumers can meet to produce, consume, and share creative works centered on our real-time lives. Content can be published in days instead of years, hours instead of days. What a powerful thing it can be, that space where speed meets relevance.

Labels: business philosophy, publishing

Pierre passed a fascinating article from the CBC to me this morning on Sita Sings The Blues by Nina Paley. The reason I am doing a blog post on Sharing Books about this article is that it shows how absolutely powerful giving away your content can be. There is a fantastic quote in the article from Nina Paley:

'The more I let go, the more money seems to be heading back toward me. There's enormous untapped power in the audience. ' — Nina Paley, filmmaker.

This notion that giving your content away, that allowing your creative works to freely move and distribute rather then clamping down, is critical to the Sharing Books business model. It is also critical to the success of our book creators. By giving the work away you open yourself to tens of thousands of potential readers, far more then you would ever hope to get with traditional print and distribution. You have the ability to link to your own personal websites, where you can sell merchandise and grow your brand. Sharing Books offers a platform for authors and illustrators to publish their work, develop their work, and grow their brand.

As the world gets increasingly digital, and media content gets further separated from the media container the ability to let your work flow freely is going to become increasingly critical. Some of our creators get this already, developing Poster Poems ( one page books ) and mini-books ( six to 8 page teaser books ). These are works that a traditional publisher would never consider as viable, but in the world of container-less content these are the exact sort of user generated ideas that have so very much potential.

Labels: business philosophy, content, ebooks

Jennifer Poulter and I have been emailing back and forth about this and that for the last couple days, New Years calibrations clearly being events that barely slow either of us down from working. Jennifer is one of the people we've met over at JacketFlap who has turned into one of our biggest evangelists and go-getters. She is an absolute powerhouse, and we love her to bits! During our email discussions the question of how many books can Sharing Books handle on its site came up. Jennifer ( an just about everyone we talk to ) has also had much to say about quality control, but I will save that discussion for another time!

In terms of content we don't mind having a lot of stuff on the site. In fact, that is exactly what we do want. Space is not an issue, bandwidth and storage space are cheap. Without having to go to a new server package we can easily support 50-100 submissions a day on the site, up to a total of about 10,000 books, before we start to have a serious problem and ask for more server from our host. They can scale up to full enterprise size, and we would be delighted to have that problem to deal with.

The risk to us is so minimal, we can basically host 100,000 books on our site for dirt cheap, distributing them digitally and with print on demand features, and that cost is dropping in half every 18 months. The opposite is happening to traditional publishers. Every 18 months the costs of maintaining a highly vertical corporate structure, distribution network, and sales channel network, and cost of printing goes UP every 18 months ( by about 10% ). So, basically, if we get inundated, we would be absolutely ecstatic. Content is king online, and that is the exact wave of interest and activity that we want. That lets us get more advertising, charge more for sponsorships, and in turn give more back to our authors. If we were getting 100 books a week submitted, knowing that of those 100 only 5 are going to be moderately successful for a short period, and 1 is going to be very successful for a long time, we would be happy. That level of traffic and interest in our site would mean those six successful books would be getting a -LOT- of money. The more content, the more traffic, the more money we have to share.

Once we get to a critical mass of content, we'll add in more tools to let people discover and share books. Letting people build and share their library of favorite books with all their friends. Letting authors set up channels that people can subscribe to, so they can send out notices to all their fans when a new book is uploaded, or when a book gets changed. At that point we would also look into more collaboration and communication tools, letting authors connect with each other so they can edit books, and help improve each other's work. It is our sincere hope that we get absolutely SWAMPED with books. Our business success depends on it.

Happy New Year to everyone, here's hoping for a blast of a year in 2009, and here is hoping to us getting absolutely SWAMPED with book submissions! Also if anyone is interested in finding out more about WHERE Sharing Books is hosted, post a comment here and I will contact you directly and hook you up with some info and a sales rep at our host.

Labels: business philosophy, content

Every year I go through a Christmas tradition that has become known as 'The Tour of Alberta'. It involves traveling around 500 kilometers of Alberta highways to visit the members of my clan, and the family of my wife. I leave my laptop at home, and step out of 'the office' for a couple days. Between the turkey dinners, my father's eggnog concoctions, and endless Christmas cookies I get some time to clear the cobwebs and mental bitrot that has built up over the year.

One of the things that has come to light in cleaning out the corners of my mind is the opportunities that the current economic situation around the world poses. For the last century or so the business world has been driven by the idea of ever-increasing profits as the metric for success. An idea that the economy will always expand, and that the number one indication of a healthy company ( and stock portfolio ) is profit. But that idea, for the last decade or so, has become increasingly less important to a growing number of people.

We stand on the cusp of a tipping point, where their is a very real opportunity to change how we in North America and the larger global business world chart metrics for a successful company. Technology, when cleverly applied, can shatter existing business models and cost structures, and that allows us to make some serious choices as business people. We can chose to roll those savings into our profit margins, perpetuating an idea that we can always take more, and make more. Or we can take a portion of those savings and we can help create lasting change, expanding the range and scope of what is a successful business to include how we treat our customers, employees, and the world around us.

For me it is the difference between a company that focuses inward in a self-centered manner, and a company that looks beyond it's corporate board room and connects to the world around it in a deep and meaningful manner. We are at a point in time where technology lets smart business people converge social enterprise and profit driven enterprise in new and exciting ways. There is an opportunity for investors to get the pleasure of knowing their investment is being used to drive positive change in the world, while still gaining a return on their investment. Employees get to feel like they are working to build a better world, not just a better company and benefits package. Customers and vendors get to feel like the money they spend on goods and services goes to something more than just a CEO's pocket book.

One of the reasons I work for Sharing Books is because I know that the effort I put in directly correlates to the number of undiscovered authors we publish. I see my effort directly affecting their lives, a group of highly talented people who have been rejected time and again because they did not fit into the profit driven business model that dictates what will and will not get published. I get to see the gift of education and literacy spread to children in the developed world and the developing world. I get to know that my efforts are going towards making lasting social and economic change for a huge number of people, all over the world. I also get to see the potential revenue, and the growing amount of incoming revenue, for Sharing Books growing.

We are at a point where success in business can be about more than profit, and I am excited to go into the new year as part of the vanguard of social entrepreneurs who are in business to make money, change the world, and improve the lives of as many people as possible. I hope everyone out there had a fantastic Christmas, and I hope you are all recovering from your holiday excesses, and I look forward to a new year of working with you all to make sure some of those excesses go towards changing the world through children's literacy.

Labels: business philosophy, Christmas