Thursday, January 9, 2014

New ebook selection service

As the ebook market becomes more saturated with every new release, readers are faced with the daunting task of finding what they are looking for. While retailers try their best to bunch titles together under genre categories, the options for listing are often limited by the choices themselves. In recent years, more and more authors write books that may contain some genre elements, yet cross multiple genre boundaries by either the story arc itself, by the writing style, or even the settings. All this can make it difficult for readers to find exactly what they are looking for.

With companies such as BookBub, readers can sign up for email alerts pertaining to discounted titles in a specific genre.

A recently launched service, The Fussy Librarian http://www.thefussylibrarian.com/, takes the selection process a step farther, offering their subscribers the option to select books not only based on genre, but also based on the reader-selected level of profanity and violence. I have found The Fussy Librarian's service extremely helpful, both as a reader and as an author.

This week, I came across a new website offering a similar service to its subscribers - ebook Soda http://www.ebooksoda.com/ 
Their daily emails are scheduled to start arriving from January 14th, 2014, and will feature bargain books, free books, and books by genre. This service is not limited to Kindle, as the subscribers can select one or more reading devices and retailers, both in the US and abroad.

There are several boards across the Internet abuzz with talk about poor writing, saturated market, and unprofessional books released prematurely. Both authors and readers are trying to come up with ways to pre-screen novels, and separate the bad apples from the good ones. The reason behind this is obvious - if a reader purchases a self-published title and comes away disappointed, he or she is less likely to purchase another self-published book. There are many independent authors who are equally upset about prematurely published books hitting the market, as it casts a bad light across the board.

I believe that companies such as The Fussy Librarian and ebook Soda, who offer readers a peace of mind with their selection of pre-screened titles, are taking a step in the right direction.   


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