Guest Blog – Bublish, a new way for authors to be found
Indietribe is pleased to guest a post from Kathy Meis, who explains the benefits of her company, Bublish to Indie writers:
Bublish Writer meet Reader by Founder, Kathy Meis
There is no bigger issue facing authors today than discovery. You pour your heart and soul into your manuscript, publish it either traditionally or independently, and enter into a digital marketplace that is absolutely saturated with content. Unless written by a bestselling author, even the highest quality work struggles to rise above the noise. In addition, abundance has pushed the price of content down. Authors now need to write and sell more books over time to make up for this lost income. This requires establishing a long-term relationship with readers who can advocate for you and your work throughout your writing career. In short, today’s transformed book marketplace requires a completely different approach to book promotion, and an innovative new set of tools to be successful.
In response to these new realities, we introduce Bublish, the award-winning book discovery and social commerce platform. Created by two writers, our live beta was launched last June at Book Expo America. We’ve been growing quickly ever since, and now have writers and readers bublishing from every corner of the globe. The platform is free to writers and readers. We make money (affiliate fees) from online retailers if we sell your books. Our goal at Bublish is to revolutionize the way authors share their stories and readers discover new writers and books. We’re here to empower authors and help them succeed in the Age of Content Abundance.
At the heart of the Bublish platform is the book bubble. Here’s what one looks like:
Book bubbles can be created in seconds and shared across multiple social channels. The marketing principles behind Bublish and the book bubble are simple, but powerful. We aim to provide the following:
an online experience that mimics bookstore browsing – Plenty of data confirms that readers are still drawn toward real-world book browsing (even if they ultimately buy their books online). There just isn’t a satisfying online browsing experience available yet. We wanted to change that with Bublish, so we studied every aspect of the bookstore browsing experience in creating the book bubble. We designed them to offer readers the same, quiet, enjoyable exploration of an author’s writing that is experienced in bookstores.
beautiful visual design to assist with discovery – The future of the web is visual. Think Pinterest. As humans, we naturally absorb information quickly from visual cues. In a world of content abundance, visual aids become even more important. They help us sort through the clutter. That’s why the book bubble includes images of the cover and author. The trick was to make bubbles visual while keeping the emphasis on the written word. We think the book bubble achieves that balance. The other requirement was to make this visual content easy to share across multiple social networks where discovery can occur. That’s why the share buttons travel with the bubbles. Bublish allows authors to break their books up into hundreds of small stories and spread them across the social web. When a reader encounters a bubble, they can easily explore more of the author’s work through the embedded links, share the bubble with their connections, or purchase the book right from the bubble. Think of bubbles as a social funnel to draw new readers toward your larger body of work.
a humanized sharing experience through storytelling – How many times have you unfollowed an author who constantly says, “Buy my book”? There’s no added value in this type of “share.” It’s just a command. In order to help authors stand out in a crowded marketplace without feeling like salespeople, we needed to provide a storytelling tool, a way to connect with potential new readers in the true spirit of sharing. That’s what the Author Insight section of the book bubble is meant to do. It’s the bubble’s “secret sauce,” where authors tell the story behind their story. Here, authors get to share what inspired a character or scene, or explain what challenges were overcome to write a chapter. It’s a way for authors to share their creation story. Not only does the Author Insight turn an excerpt into an original piece of content, but it allows the author to be a storyteller instead of a salesperson…and storytelling is a highly effective marketing tool employed by some of the most powerful brands in the world.
a simplified discovery process for both writers and readers – It was also important that Bublish delight not just readers, but writers. Book promotion can be drudgery, and time consuming. We wanted to lighten the promotional load for authors, who sometimes struggle to keep up with today’s content hungry, hyper-connected, 24/7, social marketplace. With Bublish, authors simply create a social profile, upload an ePub version of up to 30 of their books for free, and start bublishing. The author alone has access to their books; readers get to see only the shared book bubbles. But because the book is there in its entirety, authors can go to any chapter, highlight an excerpt, add their Author Insight, and share their bubble via Facebook or Twitter. Bublish handles all the design elements and also posts the bubble to the bubble stream on Bublish.com. It’s quick and easy to bublish.
a Pandora-like recommendation system that provides “contextual serendipity” – The book bubble is a great way for readers to sample new work not only because it is visual and concise, but also because of the strong recommendation engine we’re building. Our vision is to create “contextual serendipity” for readers – that is, introduce them to bubbles from many unknown authors within the context of the genres and topics they like. It’s a much more “democratic” process than writers are currently offered at big online retailers. Because bubbles make it possible for readers to sample lots of new writing quickly, every writer will have his or her shot…but the writing will have to shine. The actions readers take upon each bubble (saving them, sharing them, asking for more or fewer bubbles from a particular author) will guide the next wave of bubbles introduced to that reader. And because each bubble is encoded with information like the book’s genre and specific topic keywords, Bublish can begin to make recommendations at a very granular level. Imagine readers being able to find your book based on a type of food they like, a place they’ve travelled, or a period in history they’ve studied.
a social shopping experience like no other – As mentioned at the start of this article, the new economics of the content marketplace require authors to cultivate long-term relationships with their audience well beyond the sale of a book. As the Bublish platform evolves, we will introduce many new features where writers and readers can engage in conversations and events around the book. In addition, we plan to create an innovative marketing tool kit so authors can stay in touch with readers in a personal, but manageable way. For example, imagine your readers receiving a personal thank you from you every time they buy one of your books. The author can update the contents of the letter while Bublish automate delivery and management.
The time is ripe for true innovation in publishing. Authors today sit at the center of a transformed book marketplace. Yes, they face new challenges, but there has never been a time in history where authors have had more control over the success of their own careers. There has never been a better time to connect directly with readers and build a loyal following. Hopefully, we’ve given you a sense of how Bublish can help.
To find out more about the Bublish platform, please visit our blog (http://bublish.com/blog/) or email questions to info@bublish.com. If you’re all ready to open your free Bublish writer or reader account, you can do so here: http://www.bublish.com/. We can also be found promoting our Bublish authors on Twitter @BublishMe and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bublishme. We hope you’ll check us out.
I hope all our INDIETRIBE members and guests find this Guest Blog useful. It has been our pleasure to introduce you to yet another way of promoting yourself and your books.
