What self-pubbed authors need? A new editorial & review model

I’ve been thinking a while about what the self-pubbing industry really needs and how someone might execute it. A whole army of services has sprung up “supporting” (read, taking cash from) self-pubbed authors but very few do this effectively or because there are so many people offering the same service it becomes hard to tell the services apart or rate them effectively.

So what do we need? Firstly, we need trusted ways to find good editors (with real reviews – the equivalent of tripadvisor for our industry). Secondly, we need greater choices for people to review our books. Hugh Howey puts it well here when he says we need reviewers and readers (a way to access them, at least). Amazon has provided a platform but it’s a business model that works to sell books when you have an audience. We need places to build those audiences before they buy. There are tons of new tech apps out there for readers and writers and some of them are good. I just need one of them to bring it all together and gain traction, to revolutionise, a bit like Airbnb for self-pubbers; something that can turn tech to our advantage and overthrow the current system. Ideas?

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