... And now Vanity Press for eBooks ... Yuck!

[simonroyle]

http://goodereader.com/blog/electron...shing-program/

From the article, "The new program from Borders allows authors to (for a low fee of $90.00) publish on their platform. This fee dispenses an official ISBN number for your soon to be bestseller. They also have a higher tier package for $200.00 that allows you to create an ePub version of your book, to which you retain full rights! This means you can also sell the ebook on other platforms."

They must be really desperate to pull a stunt like this...

[GA Russell]

How much would it cost to have someone else do it?

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

How much would it cost to have someone else do it?

Smashwords does it for free.

[GA Russell]

Well that's good to know!

[delphidb96]

Smashwords, Apple and B&N let you do it for free. (Although Smashwords charges $8 if you want an ISBN and don't have one for the epub - still a fantastic deal when you consider that Bowker wants $125 for a one-off ISBN.)

Derek

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by simonroyle

http://goodereader.com/blog/electron...shing-program/

From the article, "The new program from Borders allows authors to (for a low fee of $90.00) publish on their platform. This fee dispenses an official ISBN number for your soon to be bestseller. They also have a higher tier package for $200.00 that allows you to create an ePub version of your book, to which you retain full rights! This means you can also sell the ebook on other platforms."

They must be really desperate to pull a stunt like this...

I see no problem at all with this. Many independent authors would welcome assistance with publishing their book, and $90 is a low enough fee.

[TGS]

I'm wondering what it is that tips this over into "vanity publishing", which presumably is in some way dishonourable, and distinguishes it from independent publishing, which, by contrast, is highly honourable?

[simonroyle]

Originally Posted by TGS

I'm wondering what it is that tips this over into "vanity publishing", which presumably is in some way dishonourable, and distinguishes it from independent publishing, which, by contrast, is highly honourable?

OK I'll try and explain although I agree that there is a lot of ambiguity in terminology.

For me what "tips this over" are statements like these:

- new program from Borders allows authors to (for a low fee of $90.00) publish on their platform. This fee dispenses an official ISBN number for your soon to be bestseller.
- Barnes & Noble’s newly launched PubIt!, for example, lets authors post an existing e-book to its site for free and splits royalties, while Borders is charging a fee to help authors create an e-book.
- “Everyone has a story to tell, pictures to share or advice to give. It turns out that those are exactly the kinds of things people want to buy and read as eBooks,” said BookBrewer CEO Dan Pacheco (he obviously hasn't been to this site...)
- Webmasters and authors can easily intergrate the RSS feed as the text for the ebook and start selling it on Borders new platform.

Anyone who has worked seriously on getting a book out there knows that it is a tremendous effort requiring months of hard work - that's after the writing is done.

Here it appears that the Border's CEO is saying, "Two clicks and you're a bestseller..."

I don't have an issue with getting a book printed for personal use or to give to family and friends. That is an appropriate use of a Vanity press (I think there're a lot easier ways to get a book printed, but that's just me).

I do have an issue when a poorly edited "book" (blog) is pushed out onto the market for sales to readers, because this will cause a backlash against self-published or "Indie" books.

Yes good stuff will rise to the top, and bad stuff will sink, however the height that something good has to rise just got higher with this ill-conceived notion. I hope their business tanks in a hurry.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by simonroyle

I do have an issue when a poorly edited "book" (blog) is pushed out onto the market for sales to readers, because this will cause a backlash against self-published or "Indie" books.

Regretably, your description applies to the majority of independently published books. Most are not edited at all, let alone reaching the "heights" of being merely poorly edited.

This is simply B&N's answer to Amazon's digital publishing platform. I have no problem with it as a concept.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Regretably, your description applies to the majority of independently published books. Most are not edited at all, let alone reaching the "heights" of being merely poorly edited.

This is simply B&N's answer to Amazon's digital publishing platform. I have no problem with it as a concept.

Nor do I. One of the truely revolutionary aspects of eBook technology is the democratization of publishing. Does that mean a lot of dreck gets published? You bet! But it also means more people have more chances to get their views distributed.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by simonroyle

From the article, "The new program from Borders allows authors to (for a low fee of $90.00) publish on their platform. This fee dispenses an official ISBN number for your soon to be bestseller. They also have a higher tier package for $200.00 that allows you to create an ePub version of your book, to which you retain full rights! This means you can also sell the ebook on other platforms."

Wait!
If I read correctly between the lines, you pay 90 bucks and you do not even retain the full rights?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

Wait!
If I read correctly between the lines, you pay 90 bucks and you do not even retain the full rights?

I think that it means that the lower price gets your book into the B&N store only, whereas the higher price gives you an ePub book that you can also sell elsewhere.

[markus]

They also wrote a follow up article http://goodereader.com/blog/electron...get-published/

Even the ceo of bookbrewer commented on it, most of the info in the above article was gleaned by both the CEO and management at Borders, which is why that article is more extensive getting into the semantics of the bookbrewer and borders deal.

Many people will say, there are cheaper alternatives then this new program, but there is lots of DIY involved. Sure you can publish on Smashwords, and pay the premium fee to get listed on iBooks, or you can format the book yourelf (requires effort) with Amazons DTP program. Borders seems to bridge the gap between hiring a professional agent or agency to hyperlink your table of contents and format your book for a number of e-reading platforms, and marketing it for you.

Obviously borders or bookbrewer are just providing a service, something most normal people might find interesting, and less time consuming. They will distro your book to Kobo, Borders, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, for $90.00 thats a solid investment. Considering the sheer amount of effort people put into writing a book, 90.00 is nothing.

If this is not for you, there is always the Kindle Singles new program.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think that it means that the lower price gets your book into the B&N store only, whereas the higher price gives you an ePub book that you can also sell elsewhere.

And what would prevent me from running my new ebook called "Give me a brake, bare with me!" (*) in txt format through Calibre conversion and publishing it elsewhere with the same ISBN I got from Borders for super-saver $89.99 price? Do they have some right to ISBN that was assigned to my book?

(*) See, I run it through a spell check!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

And what would prevent me from running my new ebook called "Give me a brake, bare with me!" (*) in txt format through Calibre conversion and publishing it elsewhere with the same ISBN I got from Borders for super-saver $89.99 price? Do they have some right to ISBN that was assigned to my book?

I don't know. Perhaps the terms and conditions of the site would tell you?