Hi everyone. I'm a software developer that loves eBooks and self-publishing. I participated in NaNoWriMo last year, and although I didn't win (or write anything worth showing to anyone), I had a great time doing it.
Anyway, I wanted to ask all of you more successful self-pub authors some questions. I'm working on a self-pub serial ebook platform for authors. The idea is to provide a streamlined interface for authors to publish serial novels online. Think Blogger for serial novels.
I feel that serial novels can benefit from the web in ways normal novels cannot. And importantly, I feel that the general public is ready to consume online, serial novels (which certainly was not the case just a few years ago). The prevalence of e-readers and tablets has made this a very real possibility.
The main features as I see them:
- Streamlined signup and easy publishing to your own sub-domain. Entirely hosted and configurable. Variety of default themes to adjust the look and feel of your novel, full customization if you happen to be handy with HTML/CSS
- Full control over pricing of content, including monthly subscriptions or one-time fees, allowing free content, etc. Payments are handled for you and you receive a regular check.
- Non-exclusive rights - aka you can also publish on Amazon, Smashwords, etc
- Novel-specific features such as auto-magical inline linking to glossaries/family charts/index, timelines, extra content (images, video, podcasts etc). Automated builds of various format (PDF, Doc, mobi, epub, etc)
- Community integration (if you want it heh), emails to subscribers when you update, RSS feeds, novel-specific wiki, etc
- Main site will feature authors/novels and act as a portal to discovering content. Readers would register with the main site so login and payment credentials transfer across all authors, allowing a seamless and easy environment to purchase your content.
That's the idea anyway.
I'm curious to hear from you self-pub authors if A) there is any interest in online serial novels and B) if any of you would use a service like this. Sure, you could use Blogger or Wordpress.com, but the idea is to provide a service that is specifically tailored for serial novels. Authors could then focus on writing instead of setting up hosting and configuring blog software which isn't designed for serial novels.
Thoughts? Features that you would really want/need? Thanks!