Vook now "Pronoun," pivots to self-publishing platform with 100% author royalty

7235 Views 35 Replies 20 Participants Last post by 555aaa, Nov 10, 2016

ilamont

Discussion Starter · May 19, 2015

Vook has been around for 6 six years, at one point doing high-end, high-quality ebooks (along the lines of iBooks Author) but later getting involved in back-end publishing services. They've pivoted again and renamed themselves to Pronoun. From the PW article:

After a year of acquisitions that included the online literary boutique Byliner and the e-book data analysis engine Booklr, e-book creator Vook has relaunched itself as Pronoun. The new company is a soup-to-nuts self-publishing platform comprising the combined technological tools of Byliner, Booklr and Vook. Declaring itself "a new model for authors," Pronoun offers its services free of charge and gives authors a 100% royalty rate.

Pronoun also published a manifesto. It's short on details, but big on stirring pronouncements:

We believe that books are important, and that the authors who create them deserve the highest respect.

We believe that technology should be used to empower authors, not to exploit them.

We believe that publishing should be open and completely free.

I'm intrigued enough to sign up on Pronoun's website to be notified once the product launches, but also a little skeptical as the revenue model and distribution are not explained. I've also been skeptical of questionable thinking around other startup publishing models such as Scribd and Oyster. Other indie platforms such as txtr have struggled to gain traction in a moderately crowded marketplace.

But, maybe there's something here. 100% royalties certainly sounds interesting.

Thoughts?

1 - 20 of 36 Posts

cinisajoy

· #2 · May 19, 2015

How much money do you have to give them upfront?

G

· #3 · May 19, 2015

cinisajoy said:
How much money do you have to give them upfront?

Always my first question!

There is no such thing as free on the internet. They have to keep the lights on somehow.

The issue with any new platform is this: how will it attract READERS. Sure, giving authors 100% royalties sounds great, but how many average readers are going to sign up for this site to buy your book, when they have their choice of a few million titles on Amazon. The hard, cold reality is that customers are generally lazy. The more effort it takes to complete a transaction, the less likely they will do so. Signing on to a new site with the hopes of driving traffic to it requires you to sell the customer twice: first on buying your book, and next on buying it from a site they never heard of.

The thing is, it is 2015. Indie publishing is no longer this new and shiny thing we need to give authors pep talks over. It is an established business. Their sales pitch is so ten years ago. What are they going to do to bring readers to YOU, not the other way around. The reason Amazon is the monster it is is because it brings in readers. If you have a site that attracts readers, you don't need a fluffy butterfly sales pitch to attract publishers. Their "manifesto" is the typical "us versus them" nonsense we have seen from the vanity press industry for over 20 years. Maybe I'm just jaded after over a decade self-publishing. Not seeing anything new and shiny of value here.

And I really, REALLY dislike cloak and dagger "sign up and we'll tell you everything later" nonsense. No, you be transparent with me NOW before I give you my information. Not later after you've added me to gods' know how many mailing lists.

See less See more

Accord64

· #4 · May 19, 2015

Of course 100% royalties sounds interesting! I'm even more interested to find out how they're going to achieve this. As of today, there is no information on their website, and they want us to sign up with our email addresses to "be the first to know."

Um, no thanks.

dianapersaud

· #5 · May 19, 2015

"The biggest company in self-publishing, Author Solutions (which was purchased for $116mm by Pearson in 2012 and is now part of Penguin Random House), is currently being sued by its own authors for its deceptive practices."

Author Solutions is bigger than Amazon?

dianapersaud

· #6 · May 19, 2015

"Authors deserve complete transparency."

But not from them, apparently.

Marie Long

· #7 · May 19, 2015

The fact that authors get 100% of royalties is a big red flag for me. Sure, it would be awesome if it were true, but I'm pretty sure there is more to be had in the fine print. I've signed up to get more information, though. I do want to learn more about this company. It might be something worth asking Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware. I haven't seen this company on or blog when I did a Google search.

From the PW article:

Asked how Pronoun will make money while giving authors a 100% royalty on all their e-book sales, Brody said the company will continue to generate revenue from its current legacy businesses in data conversion and sales tracking, but intends to take the classic tech startup posture and focus on creating a platform that attracts authors.

This sounds too vague to me. I will be watching with caution.

Gator

· #8 · May 19, 2015

dianapersaud said:
"The biggest company in ~~self-publishing~~ fleecing self-published authors, Author Solutions (which was purchased for $116mm by Pearson in 2012 and is now part of Penguin Random House), is currently being sued by its own authors for its deceptive practices."

Author Solutions is bigger than Amazon?

There. Fixed it for you.

Dennis E. Taylor

· #9 · May 19, 2015

You get 100% of royalties. Royalties are defined as 5% of net sale price. You get all of that.

That's my bet. Anyone have a pool going yet?

JRHolmes

· #10 · May 19, 2015

Thought I should get this in for discussion right away.

Pronoun is an author-centric publishing platform from the people behind Booklr and Byliner and is a renamed entity that was formerly known as Vook.

An announcement stating their philosophy and intent is here at Medium (https://medium.com/@pronoun/how-to-fix-book-publishing-e40a04ffd804).

It prominently states that it will be free for authors and will include at least some of the analytics behind Booklr.

Best is that this is going to be free for the author (at least at the start).

Now, let's see how this turns out. I'm skeptical about it and I note that there doesn't appear much about how Pronoun will make money for itself and not just pass everything to the authors.

elissa

· #11 · May 19, 2015

Hi everyone! I'm Elissa and I work at Pronoun. I'm really excited to see authors talking about us, and I certainly understand your skepticism. Here's the way I think about it:

People can post their every thought on Twitter for free. People can publish stories on Wattpad or Wordpress or Medium for free. Why shouldn't people publish and sell books for free? Yes, the existing book publishing models are pervasive, but they don't have to persist. That's why we're focused on creating useful publishing tools, not charging fees or taking cuts. We want to build a platform so valuable that every author wants to use it.

Right now, we pay the bills by partnering with enterprises like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Thought Catalog and charging for those production and distribution services. Our plan is to make our free offering so great that happy authors who are selling lots of books tell us what paid features they want us to build. (That said, we strongly believe that publishing a beautiful book and releasing it to every major retailer should always be free, no matter what.)

Does that make sense? We've been working hard to make sure we can deliver what we envision, and if you're interested in seeing more of our technology as we build it, just reach out to [email protected] and we'd be happy to show you what we're up to. Thanks for reading!

See less See more

Monique

· #12 · May 19, 2015

elissa said:
Hi everyone! I'm Elissa and I work at Pronoun. I'm really excited to see authors talking about us, and I certainly understand your skepticism. Here's the way I think about it:

People can post their every thought on Twitter for free. People can publish stories on Wattpad or Wordpress or Medium for free. Why shouldn't people publish and sell books for free? Yes, the existing book publishing models are pervasive, but they don't have to persist. That's why we're focused on creating useful publishing tools, not charging fees or taking cuts. We want to build a platform so valuable that every author wants to use it.

Right now, we pay the bills by partnering with enterprises like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Thought Catalog and charging for those production and distribution services. Our plan is to make our free offering so great that happy authors who are selling lots of books tell us what paid features they want us to build. (That said, we strongly believe that publishing a beautiful book and releasing it to every major retailer should always be free, no matter what.)

Does that make sense? We've been working hard to make sure we can deliver what we envision, and if you're interested in seeing more of our technology as we build it, just reach out to [email protected] and we'd be happy to show you what we're up to. Thanks for reading!

I appreciate you posting, but why not just provide us with actual details? I'd love to know the skinny, but you don't seem to want to provide it. You have a large audience of potential customers here. Why not tell us what you do and how you do it instead of this cloak and dagger jazz?

ilamont

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 19, 2015

elissa said:
That's why we're focused on creating useful publishing tools, not charging fees or taking cuts. We want to build a platform so valuable that every author wants to use it.

Thanks for taking the time to actually post here.

It would be helpful to understand what sort of tools are envisioned. As "100% royalty" is part of the pitch, does that mean Pronoun is also creating a sales/distribution platform? Will there be some kind of app or device for readers?

G

· #14 · May 19, 2015

elissa said:
People can post their every thought on Twitter for free. People can publish stories on Wattpad or Wordpress or Medium for free. Why shouldn't people publish and sell books for free? Yes, the existing book publishing models are pervasive, but they don't have to persist. That's why we're focused on creating useful publishing tools, not charging fees or taking cuts.

Twitter sells advertising. Wordpress is supported by fee-based upgrades and ad revenue. Facebook sells access to our souls.

In short, anything "free" online has to generate revenue in order to stay in business. You say you are "partnering" with the New York Times, etc. What does that mean? Are you selling them access to me if I sign up for your service? Are you aggregating user data and selling it to these other media companies? As a business owner, it is important for me to understand HOW YOU PAY YOUR BILLS before entering into a contractual agreement with you. Is the price of admission that I get your "newsletter" full of ads from these companies? I shouldn't have to sign up for the service blind before getting basic information. All I have access to is a "manifesto" (A word, honestly, that has scammy scam written all over it. Self-publishing is a legitimate business in 2015, not an underground "revolution.")

You say I get 100% of the royalties...based on what? If my book is $4.99, you pay me EXACTLY $4.99 with no fees? Because that is what 100% means to me. Is there a set-up fee? Or is the "basic" service free but anything of real value is an "add on" that costs money? Do you sell services that "support" indies (like, I don't know, overpriced Kirkus reviews...like so many companies do these days?)

I've been involved in the industry too long to blindly trust people who feign that they are introducing a new paradigm and issuing manifestos. I'm all about new outlets to sell my book, but for a company that claims authors deserve transparency, you sure are good at obfuscation.

See less See more

dianapersaud

· #15 · May 19, 2015

Elissa,

Amazon (and other distributors) take their cut because they have expenses too, like credit card processing fees. I don't blame them for taking a percentage to cover their costs and making a profit.

It's great that your company will have those costs covered by their other businesses.

What exactly are you offering to authors? What do you offer that we are not getting elsewhere?

If you are trying to stir up excitement/curiosity by being vague, it won't work with authors who will interpret this as another scam.

elissa

· #16 · May 19, 2015

You all make some great points, and it's true that we risk being perceived as scammy by sharing our mission before we share the specific details about what we plan to offer. Maybe that was a mistake (we hope not!), but we took the risk because we thought it was important to tell authors what (and who) we're busy working for as we develop our tools and services.

I'm sorry I can't give you all the answers you're asking for today, but your questions are understandable, and we are eager to share more information about our new platform as soon as we have more information to share. (That's what the email form on Pronoun.com is for--information only. It's actually not possible to sign up for our services yet, although some early-access authors are helping us by giving feedback on what's in progress.) Thanks again for your interest and your comments; your perspectives are truly helpful.

Maria Romana

· #17 · May 19, 2015

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:
And I really, REALLY dislike cloak and dagger "sign up and we'll tell you everything later" nonsense. No, you be transparent with me NOW before I give you my information. Not later after you've added me to gods' know how many mailing lists.

This is one of my internet pet peeves. So many sites are doing this nowadays, some where you have to give an email address just to look at their home page! That's like walking up to stranger in a bar and saying, if you give me your phone number, I'll tell you all about myself...

Salvador Mercer

· #18 · May 19, 2015

Maria Romana said:
This is one of my internet pet peeves. So many sites are doing this nowadays, some where you have to give an email address just to look at their home page! That's like walking up to stranger in a bar and saying, if you give me your phone number, I'll tell you all about myself...

I'm a bit old school so I was thinking more like asking a pretty woman for a kiss at a bar and then telling her you'll buy her a drink LOL

(Hoping none of the younger generation freaks out, but way back in the old days that was how it was done, no damn social media for meeting people, it was either a bar, club or your aunt's second cousins daughter hehe.)

cinisajoy

· #19 · May 19, 2015

Salvador Mercer said:
I'm a bit old school so I was thinking more like asking a pretty woman for a kiss at a bar and then telling her you'll buy her a drink LOL

(Hoping none of the younger generation freaks out, but way back in the old days that was how it was done, no damn social media for meeting people, it was either a bar, club or your aunt's second cousins daughter hehe.)

Pretty woman at bar says is that drink a cheap beer or a high end mixed drink?
Oh and what kind of kiss?

Now back to the post at hand... why do you need my email address to tell me what You can do for me?

WHDean

· #20 · May 19, 2015

Just a heads up to the writers who care. Vook is (or was now?) a content farmer and a publisher of farmed content. Have a look at the "Dr. Vook Ph.D" (I kid you not!) series on Amazon, which is published by Vook. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of one of the many "courses" offered will see instantly that they're utter junk, which is sold to people who don't know better. And this is only one example of the crap this firm churns out. I wrote a complaint to Amazon, but you know how that goes...

If Vook collaborates with the NY Times and Forbes, it's probably with their Placing Flyers on Car Windows Department. Writer beware...

ETA: They also seem to--how do I put this?--"engage" people to review their books, as one fine fellow admitted to me after a little prodding.

1 - 20 of 36 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.