Mark Coker

Eugene G. Schwartz is editor at large for ForeWord Reviews, an industry observer and an occasional columnist for Book Business magazine. In an earlier career, he was in the printing business and held production management positions at Random House, Prentice-Hall/Goodyear and CRM Books/Psychology Today. A former PMA (IBPA) board member, he has headed his own publishing consultancy, Consortium House. He is also Co-Founder of Worthy Shorts Inc., a development stage online private press and publication service for professionals as well as an online back office publication service for publishers and associations. He is on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo Advisory Board.

The ebook subscription model seems to have hit a bump. According to Smashwords’ Mark Coker, Scribd is cutting its romance and erotica catalog. Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe […]

The post Scribd to cut romance and erotica titles from its catalog appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Smashwords is changing the way it allows pre-orders on its site for authors. Previously, the entire manuscript needed to be uploaded in order to take advantage of pre-orders, but that is no longer the case. Smashwords founder Mark Coker announced on the company’s blog that preorders are going “assetless.” “Starting today, all 100,000 authors and […]

The post Smashwords adds “assetless” pre-orders appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Subscription ebook services have been a buzzworthy topic in recent years, but are they a good deal for authors and publishers? That was the topic of a standing room only panel, moderated by Smashwords founder Mark Coker who noted the promise of subscription models as well as the "legitimate challenges" they face-specifically, what he called the "Goldilocks principle," ensuring that readers are getting enough value to continue subscribing; publishers are making enough money to justify their involvement; and, of course, the subscription service itself is financially viable.

Ebooks are feeling a bit hungover heading into the new year. The 50 Shades of Grey exuberance of 2011 and 2012 feels long ago. The first seemingly viable ebook subscription services launched at the end of 2013 (Scribd, Oyster) and Amazon launched its own ebook subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, mid-2014.

The main difference between Kindle Unlimited and Scribd and Oyster - all of which cost around $10 a month - is that Kindle Unlimited has way fewer books that people have heard of. That's because Scribd and Oyster have been able to attract big-5 publishers

I recently posted a portion of Mark Coker’s keynote speech from the Self-Publishing Book Expo. The first half of the speech was about 10 trends in self-publishing, which sparked some interesting conversations. In the second half of the speech, Coker discussed ways authors can succeed, but he started with the idea that self-publishing is getting more […]

The post Are indie authors headed for doom and gloom? appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

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