Are you on Scribd?

[chicki]

Great ideas and information from everyone. Thank you!

Chicki

[Stanford]

Some worrisome news on the Scribd front....

http://www.evilreads.com/blog/2010/9...dark-side.html

[meromana]

Originally Posted by Stanford

Some worrisome news on the Scribd front....

http://www.evilreads.com/blog/2010/9...dark-side.html

Hmmm, that is concerning. I will have to look for more information about this. I can certainly understand if they're not making a profit and can't afford to host all these documents, but if that were the case, it seems they should give the individual authors the opportunity to remove their content or pay to have it hosted or whatever, if said content is a problem for them...

Thanks for the share,
Maria

[kcmay]

That's the second negative article I've read about scribd in the last couple of weeks. I've decided to remove all of my postings and delete my account.

[chicki]

I've been keeping an eye on the flap going on with Scribd this week:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tammy-..._b_702788.html

Chicki

[Stanford]

Now Scribd offers a couple workarounds to avoid the archive...

http://support.scribd.com/entries/22...-what-can-i-do

[meromana]

Thanks Chicki and Stanford for those links. I followed the directions to keep my sample out of the archives, though I'm still not sure I understand the idea behind the concept. I get that it's mighty expensive to host all this stuff, but I don't think their business model of archiving stuff and charging for access to the archives is going to fly...

--Maria

[RyanMWilliams]

I read about the archive feature and thought it certainly could have been handled better. In my case the books and stories are for sale in their store so that's a bit different.

[M T McGuire]

Scribd have just sent me an e-mail about the archive. Now you can go into your profile and click a box to request them not to archive your stuff. I've gone there and done it!

Cheers

MTM

[chicki]

I did the same yesterday, M.T. Better to be safe than sorry ...

Chicki

[Luke King]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Scribd is yet another US-centric outlet, Chick. Publishers (and indie authors) without an 'official' US presence are excluded.

Does this mean I'm excluded from uploading documents that are not for sale, such as samples?

[M T McGuire]

Originally Posted by Luke King

Does this mean I'm excluded from uploading documents that are not for sale, such as samples?

Most likely the other way round. I haven't tried selling anything on there yet, but for example Amazon's digital platform is available in the UK but is completely pointless because they'll only pay you by cheque, in dollars after you've earned $100. I shouldn't speculate but that may be what Mr Marr was talking about because clearly once your bank has taken commission and the IRS have taken their cut there's probably not much left.

Cheers

MTM
(apologies if I turn out to be talking cobblers).

[Luke King]

I have answered my own question. I am able to upload documents for free, and it looks as if non-US authors will also have access to the store once they get out of beta.

As far as free downloads go, I think feedbooks is a better option. I've had more than 700 downloads of Lucky to be Alive in less than a month. I'm planning to sell the next one (which will most likely be my last kid's book) so I figure it's good publicity.

[Luke King]

Originally Posted by M T McGuire

Most likely the other way round. I haven't tried selling anything on there yet, but for example Amazon's digital platform is available in the UK but is completely pointless because they'll only pay you by cheque, in dollars after you've earned $100. I shouldn't speculate but that may be what Mr Marr was talking about because clearly once your bank has taken commission and the IRS have taken their cut there's probably not much left.

Cheers

MTM
(apologies if I turn out to be talking cobblers).

I posted the above while you were posting this. They seem to be set up to deal with non-US authors, but the message says the store is only available to US customers while they are in beta.

[M T McGuire]

@ Luke King.

That's interesting... US customers only isn't a problem, I hear Dr Who is quite popular in the States so I can hope! ;-) I agree with you about Feedbooks, I had a massive response on there to two of my free e-shorts, then the most recent one bombed. It may be because it was rubbish but I suspect it could also be because a) I didn't upload it at Saturday lunch time (this seems to be a good time for me) and b) I uploaded it on 31 July and quite clearly, my usual readers were on holiday... either that or Feedbooks and Smashwords are just so much busier that you don't get the lenghth of "recently published" page exposure you used to.

Cheers

MTM