Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Publisher's Office [Public] => Topic started by: Bill Hiatt on April 09, 2019, 06:23:29 AM
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Scribd has published the first volume in Scribd Originals, an ebook/audiobook platform designed for stories between magazine articles and full-length books. It sounds a little bit like Amazon Original Stories (formerly Kindle Singles).
At first, I got excited because I thought there might be open submissions, but I can't see any evidence of that, except for a vague statement about reaching out to "authors, agents, and publishers." Listing authors separately gave me hope, but it could just be trad published authors. A number of authors have signed up for future projects already.
The one point of interest is that the content will be exclusive to Scribd. That kind of exclusivity has been common in video but so far confined to Amazon in books, at least as far as I know. If it brings more subscribers to Scribd, it might be emulated elsewhere. Interesting fuel for speculation, anyway.
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Bill, have you ever made anything from Scribd? I have yet to make my first penny there.
At first, I got excited because I thought there might be open submissions, but I can't see any evidence of that, except for a vague statement about reaching out to "authors, agents, and publishers." Listing authors separately gave me hope, but it could just be trad published authors.
From little I've read after a cursory bit of googling, that's exactly what it looks like to me: a new toy for trad-pubbed authors, not a thing for indies.
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Bill, have you ever made anything from Scribd? I have yet to make my first penny there.
At first, I got excited because I thought there might be open submissions, but I can't see any evidence of that, except for a vague statement about reaching out to "authors, agents, and publishers." Listing authors separately gave me hope, but it could just be trad published authors.
From little I've read after a cursory bit of googling, that's exactly what it looks like to me: a new toy for trad-pubbed authors, not a thing for indies.
I've made very little, but I don't have most of my catalog wide, so it's hard to judge what would happen if I really gave it a shot.
Yes, I feared it would be just for trad-pubbed authors.
However, it will be interesting to see if exclusive content changes the equation at all.
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I make one or two figures per month from Scribd. Four figures per month from each of the second-tier four (Kobo, Apple, B&N, GP)
So, Scibd is negligible to me, and I'd have a tough time believing giving them exclusivity on anything would be advantageous.
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I make one or two figures per month from Scribd. Four figures per month from each of the second-tier four (Kobo, Apple, B&N, GP)
So, Scibd is negligible to me, and I'd have a tough time believing giving them exclusivity on anything would be advantageous.
That was my first thought, but they have signed up some recognizable authors.
However, Scribd isn't trying to make anyone's whole catalog exclusive, just the pieces in its new program (which presumably authors are writing specifically for Scribd).
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My sales at Scribd vary wildly. Some months I do pretty well, others I don't get anything depending on how their business model works this week. Though Scribd and Bliliotheca are still the only library/subscription services where I've ever made anything approaching a decent income. All the other services only give me the occasional odd sale.
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I get a tiny bit every so often from Scribd. I don't have a lot out there, and not doing any advertising at the moment, so I don't expect much.
I'm thinking if this new thing is for trad pub, the authors likely have no choice if their contract says the publisher gets to do this sort of stuff.
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I have an attorney friend who uses scribd for work and then grabs whatever books look interesting to her. She's convinced a lot of peers to drop their KU subscriptions because (according to her) the signal to noise ratio is better.
I think (and no evidence, just anecdotal) scribd as a place to find fiction is an afterthought to a lot of people and a happy accident. I honestly can't see the benefit of doing an exclusive deal with them unless it was for a novella and they promised a significant push.
Scribd is weird for me (like the others) some months I make under fifty and then other months I am a little shy of mid 3 figures. No rhyme or reason. I can't figure out a pattern or what's going on. I figure the best months are when an attorney finds a book and recommends it to others in the office or something.
I might be willing to try a book and see how it goes, if they opened it up, but it would have to be a one off and for a limited time.
I honestly don't mind putting a book or two into an exclusive program. It's putting my entire catalog that scares me.