Scribd signs up Macmillan

[danicca]

Originally Posted by Atunah

Here is how I search each publisher and get the listing by genre. Now mind you, I have a subscription so I don't know if the results of showing are different. On home page I type in "Macmillan publishers". Yes, with the quotes.

I tried that. Perhaps the location makes a difference? Chosing books gives 29 books, and chosing users gives 2 MacMillan publishers. One shows samples, and other about a dozen books. I'm out of ideas and hope they will do something to make it work.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by danicca

I tried that. Perhaps the location makes a difference? Chosing books gives 29 books, and chosing users gives 2 MacMillan publishers. One shows samples, and other about a dozen books. I'm out of ideas and hope they will do something to make it work.

I run into a lot of samples too. I now just take books from my wishlist and search by title. This works best for me, especially with the big names because they only have a small subset of their catalog out there on SCRIBD.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by danicca

I tried that. Perhaps the location makes a difference? Chosing books gives 29 books, and chosing users gives 2 MacMillan publishers. One shows samples, and other about a dozen books. I'm out of ideas and hope they will do something to make it work.

Try this link
https://www.scribd.com/search-books?...+publishers%22

I am in the US and it give 1,717 books.

I am not logged in. You can then sort by Genre. Example 96 of those books are Romances.

[Atunah]

I never see any samples, just full books. So I can't recreate that problem.

I am in the US, I don't really know how this works in other locations. But I pretty much only ever see books on Scribd, I have to go out of my way to see documents like the stuff uploaded by users.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I never see any samples, just full books. So I can't recreate that problem.

I am in the US, I don't really know how this works in other locations. But I pretty much only ever see books on Scribd, I have to go out of my way to see documents like the stuff uploaded by users.

Same here I know where to go for both but I have never seen samples under Subscription books.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Same here I know where to go for both but I have never seen samples under Subscription books.

Some of the big publishers have made samples available under subscription. I come across them because I search by titles. One was a cozy, but the others were urban fantasy and one YA fantasy if I recall correctly. With the cozy one, I was reading along happily...not realizing it was a sample. After that I checked.

It's just another sales tool and since they don't want to list the whole book, but want the book to be seen, I guess they put up the sample. I can't recall the mystery off the top of my head, but it was a very recent release (at the time. It's now been months). Maybe after a time they release the whole thing. Or not. I don't know. I deleted it from my library in a snit, although I think I did review it with the warning it was a sample only.

[Red Falcon]

I have a 3 months promo Scribd trial. I love the content but the App, as so many people have posted, is complete garbage for both e-books and audiobooks.I have had the app force close and forget my position in an Audiobook so many times now that I just bookmark every 10 minutes or so. The e-book portion does not let you customize your reading experience behind the bare minimal of 3 color choices and font size.There is so much wasted space on my phone and Tablet that could be filled if they just let you do so. You cannot put the content on your SD card and for people like me with limited space on the phone you cannot put to many books on at a time. If Scribd does not do a major revision of there App by the time my trial is up I will just drop it.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Same here I know where to go for both but I have never seen samples under Subscription books.

I've seen some, some Macmillan ones. They list them like real books but it's title is something like "Way of Kings Sample (first 6 chapters)" instead of the regular book title alone.

[BearMountainBooks]

There's a report over at Smashwords and also carried at http://the-digital-reader.com/ that SCRIBD is dropping popular romance books because romance readers are reading too much. My sub has expired so I can no longer search SCRIBD---anyone with an active sub notice any changes? I've heard from one other subscriber that Smashword titles and Carina Press titles have been affected for certain. Smashwords has told authors this isn't just a smash thing--that they were informed it's ALL romance and erotica that will be culled and in some cases it will mean the more expensive/popular books (because they pay based on list price).

Anyone still a member?

[booklover6]

I'm a very happy member. I haven't seen anything on my list disappear. I mainly use it for audio books, but I read at least one ebook a month, too. As long as they continue to offer what I like, I'll keep the sub.

ETA Ok searching my other list (not my Scribd library) I am discovering some missing books. Susan Sizemore is completely gone, and Maggie Shayne's catalog is greatly reduced.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I'm a very happy member. I haven't seen anything on my list disappear. I mainly use it for audio books, but I read at least one ebook a month, too. As long as they continue to offer what I like, I'll keep the sub.

Cool. Let us know if you see things disappear. I think the culling started yesterday or the day before and there's some that are hoping it only affects small publishers or indies rather than the larger publishers.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Cool. Let us know if you see things disappear. I think the culling started yesterday or the day before and there's some that are hoping it only affects small publishers or indies rather than the larger publishers.

That's what I had read, but I am finding some big names with less titles, Catherine Mann, Maggie Shayne, Susan Sizemore, gone or greatly reduced.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by booklover6

That's what I had read, but I am finding some big names with less titles, Catherine Mann, Maggie Shayne, Susan Sizemore, gone or greatly reduced.

The announcement I saw said all publishers--but from the comments on the digital reader, a lot of people thought that meant "just indies, but they didn't want to tell indies."

It's got to be suicidal to take away books that are favorites. It makes no sense. (Some of the most popular indie titles were ones taken down apparently. And of course the most popular titles tend to cost the most). But a place like that has to have titles people want!

There's also concern that popular titles in other genres might get hit.

Well, it's interesting, if nothing else. Thanks for the info.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

The announcement I saw said all publishers--but from the comments on the digital reader, a lot of people thought that meant "just indies, but they didn't want to tell indies."

It's got to be suicidal to take away books that are favorites. It makes no sense. (Some of the most popular indie titles were ones taken down apparently. And of course the most popular titles tend to cost the most). But a place like that has to have titles people want!

There's also concern that popular titles in other genres might get hit.

Well, it's interesting, if nothing else. Thanks for the info.

The timing is particularly interesting in light of the reports coming in re: KU. They are pushing romance novels out at a time KU is looking a lot more novel-friendly.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The timing is particularly interesting in light of the reports coming in re: KU. They are pushing romance novels out at a time KU is looking a lot more novel-friendly.

From what little I can tell it's being done mostly by price. I think it's a silly thing to do, but if you think about it, one romance book from a trad publisher eats up most or all of the subscription dollars for a month. And if a romance reader reads TWO books--either indie or publisher from the popular read, they are likely the higher priced books. And let's face it--if you are a reader with a sub AT ALL, if you see a book for 9 dollars on Amazon, you're going to check SCRIBD to see if you can read it there!

But romance readers are quite possibly some of SCRIBDs loyal base...yet are costing them the most money.

Their model is obviously broken, but "fixing" it by taking out high-priced books (especially if popular or newly released) is likely to break it worse! There's some feeling in some indie circles that SCRIBD may be hoping authors will lower the price of their books to get them back in, but that's simply crazy. They have higher prices because they are selling well! And books are funny--you have to strike while you can. A book making money or selling for 8 dollars today might not make that tomorrow. An author has to balance things out.

I think SCRIBD is crazy for taking this route, but we'll have to see where it comes out.