I recently became an independent publisher of Science Fiction, focusing mainly on Steampunk, and one of the first things I decided was to publish our releases in eBook form before moving into print-on-demand paperbacks. This meant my nascent company had a distinct problem: each of the four major eBook publishing platforms have different formatting rules. The Amazon Kindle store has one set of guidelines, while Barnes & Noble’s PubIt has a different set; meanwhile Kobo and Smashwords (which posts to the Sony store) each have their distinct rules for the formatting of eBooks.
This plethora of differences confronts every publisher who wades into the eBook space, and it’s so far been an unfortunate truth of publishing eBooks. Former TIME.com engineer Miral Sattar was amazed at the sheer number of steps involved in eBook conversion, when she turned the TIME travel guides into eBook one-offs. This experience at TIME.com, and her master’s research into diversifying digital media revenue streams, lead Sattar to create a new tool to simplify eBook formatting — BiblioCrunch.
At first blush, one could easily pigeonhole BiblioCrunch as a cloud-based tool to simplify distribution of eBooks, and Sattar would make a good deal of money off that process alone. Sattar didn’t stop with a goal to make eBook distribution simple though. On BiblioCrunch, authors have the ability to write their book, find copy editors and cover designers, and then publish it directly to retailers and on the BiblioCrunch website. Marketing is also made easier with a direct link to social media tools and the ability to create book clubs around any author.
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