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Publishing Platform: YouHeartBooks

4/17/2014

I've recently been pointed to a new publishing platform called YouHeartBooks.

For those who want to be on every platform available known to the internet, here's another! However, I've decided that being on every platform doesn't serve the best investment of my time. I've uploaded books to several different places and while being available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, and Smashwords with their premium distribution is really good enough for me. I already have a crazy time with accounting. While I want to support readers in where they want their books, I have to weigh risk over investment.

What risk are you talking about Stephanie? You just upload your book once and then reap the payment.

Well, I'll tell you.

*Pirating
*Marketing
*Accounting ethics

1. Pirating: I've found the books I've put on these small sites in the hands of, well, pirates. I'm glad I test these small sites with my own books because I'd have to fight to get those taken down for my authors. Luckily I can shrug, learn, and write the next book. If that happened to one of my authors, I'd be dealing with angry piranha because their books are on the "black market"--which for me is just marketing...and speaking of marketing...

2. Marketing: Usually, I have to drive the marketing effort to these sites i upload to. They don't have the budget or the expertise to drive traffic to their own site much less my book. They are probably thinking that one of these authors on their site will become a Hugh Howie and everyone will buy the book from their tiny site. It happens, but it's a bit backwards thinking. Tell me if I'm wrong... I've thought about the "If that happens, the site will become famous because that authors on their site." No, everyone will go to Amazon and buy the book.

3. Accounting ethics: I do not trust. I just don't. Not publishers. I'm sorry. It's why I became a publisher. I'm clear as glass. Everyone gets a report--a report from Amazon, Kobo, Createspace, and Smashwords. The end. Smaller sites are just an addition to the accounting I love to do. Plus, I really don't know about their accounting and how clear it is. People bitch about Amazon being hard to decipher...well thinking about another accounting system to converge with mine and the others make me shudder. Brrrrr.

ACTION ITEM: Go for it--upload your book to YouHeartBooks and tell me all about it!! Tell me their promotion plans and all that. If it looks good and is trustworthy--I'll join. But if I have to go through another accounting report--I'll wait till I have accountants that do that for me :)

6 Comments

Danny Beauregard link

5/10/2014 12:32:31 pm

Hi Stephanie,

I'd like to quickly introduce myself, I'm Daniel Beauregard, co-founder of YouHeartBooks.com.

Thank you for taking the time to write about YouHeartBooks, although it is unfortunate you didn't bother to reach out to us while making some, also unfortunate, assumptions and accusations.

That being said, I think you make some very good points and I would like the opportunity to address them. Of course, this is your site, which I respect immensely, and my only wish is the chance to share our point of view on an industry and project we are incredibly passionate about.

First, I'd like address the risks that you have pointed out.

1. Piracy:

I think it's quite unfair to point the issue of pirating eBooks squarely in our direction, or rather generically, "smaller sites" such as ours.

Unfortunately, piracy of digital products has existed since the internet began and eBooks have been in the crosshairs for quite some time. Heck, even before eBooks were easily available as purchased downloads, people were digitally transcribing texts word by word and passing said texts via public FTP servers.

Currently, the most widely used pirated copies of eBooks, found on the largest pirate distribution sites, are copies taken from the "big" distribution sites such as Amazon, B&N and others.

As the movie, gaming and music industry has learned, if someone wants to pirate your intellectual property, they will find a way.

We take a very hands on approach to the security of our authors' eBooks.

We review every eBook submitted to YouHeartBooks and physically review every file. We commit to our due-diligence by making certain that the eBook is not copyrighted or that our site is being used to distribute illegal content.

We are also actively working with authors on how to best track pirated copies. We place digital signatures within our download feeds to make certain the links aren't being distributed and all our download links are timed to prevent widespread damage.

Of course, there's always more we can do and we will continue to work with our authors and new technologies to make their digital products, that they entrust with us, as fairly distributed as possible.

2. Marketing:

Again, had you taken the time to connect with us, you would have found that we are very open in regards to our plans for promoting and marketing YouHeartBooks as well as the authors we are VERY lucky to consider as partners.

We have shared this with everyone who has asked and a number of our authors are involved and are very excited about what we're doing.

It is an extensive plan and if you would like further clarification I would be very happy to share this with you and your readers.

Further to this however, I would like say that we whole heartedly agree with you, again, something you would have learned had you spoken with us.

We believe that, for far too long, distributors, and often publishers, have left the very real necessity of marketing and publicizing a book, in our case eBooks, to the authors.

As you know, traditional publishers have been doing this for years, often turning the marketing of a hardcover or paperback to the author. This unfortunate trend is also occurring within the eBook industry as well.

We believe that an open eBook marketplace, such as ours, can be more and do more for its authors. We have content and we have visitors, we have the ability to inform and help guide our readers. We have ZERO interest in the "shotgun" approach to sales, that is to: have as many eBooks uploaded as humanly possible and then hope we get our authors a few sales here and there.

That's a terrible plan and we have no interest in this.

Also, to be perfectly blunt, the assumption that our sole hope depends on an author being a "Hugh Howie" and thus "everyone will buy the book from their tiny site" is an affront and an insult to how we have proven to run our site, the MANY hours of work we've put in and the passion we have for this project.

It was at best rude to say so and is, in our opinion, unprofessional to assume this.

We have no interest in "riding the coat tails" of a popular author. Naturally, we wish all the success in the world for all our authors, we want them to do well and hope they have the opportunity to earn a living from their passion whether the sales are from our site or Amazon.

We also believe that an open marketplace like YouHeartBooks, that doesn't force exclusivity, offers the very best royalties of any eBook marketplace, provides a safe and easy environment for readers and authors, provides an alternative to the big distribution services.

One we believe in and have worked very hard to develop.

3. Accounting ethics:

Once more, had you not made these assumptions and contacted us, we would have been happy to provide a demo account so you could see exactly how our author dashboard allows our authors to track EVERY sale of their eBooks as well as their payouts.

Being a fairly new si

Daniel Beauregard link

5/10/2014 12:34:13 pm

3. Accounting ethics:

Once more, had you not made these assumptions and contacted us, we would have been happy to provide a demo account so you could see exactly how our author dashboard allows our authors to track EVERY sale of their eBooks as well as their payouts.

Being a fairly new site, every single mistake we make, any dishonest move, or suggestion of dishonesty, will finish us. We take it very seriously.

Suggesting that our accounting could possibly be "unethical", without a single kernel of evidence, is irresponsible.

We've already paid out royalties to our authors and have not, nor will we ever, behave in any fashion that would ever purposely negatively effect our authors. Ever.

Finally, I would like to leave you and your readers with this.

Our only intention with YouHeartBooks is to create an open marketplace for authors to sell their eBooks free of restrictive agreements that take away your rights, forced file formats, unnecessarily high royalties and provide an experience that is simple and easy to use.

We want to create a space where our authors are celebrated, their books are loved and the opportunity to make sales is present.

This will take time, it will take effort, love and a A LOT of hard work. We're here to make a difference and do our best.

We hope that we'll earn the opportunity to earn your trust in time Stephanie and we hope that, next time, instead of making assumptions about us, our intentions or our plans, you'll take the time to write us an email or hit us up on twitter (or Facebook) and engage with us.

We're pretty friendly and, yes, we heart books :).

Stephanie McKibben

5/11/2014 04:19:30 pm

Hello Mr. Beauregard!

Good points! Well made! Sorry you got cut off there, and I'm glad you continued. I was interested to read your comments.

When I wrote the article I had no intentions of painting YouHeartBooks.com with any bad connotations, I was only explaining my experiences with other sites, but I can most certainly see how it might be taken in a way that I might be shuffling my experiences onto your company.

My encouragement to try YouHeartBooks was not sarcastic, though I can see how some might take it as such. Those who know me understand I don't employ sarcasm.

In the future, I'll be keeping this in mind. Thank you so much for your response. I think I owe it to you and readers to try your service and give an account of my findings and amend my blog.

~ Stephanie

R. Barri

7/5/2014 04:27:41 am

Stephanie -- I am curious as to if you ever gave YouHeartBooks a try -- and, if so, what were your findings???

As they recently contacted me, I'd like to know from others if they are the real deal as an additional source for eBooks sales.

Elizabeth Barone link

10/3/2014 06:42:19 am

Looks like their site is a ghost town now. They reached out to me several months back. The site's blog hasn't been updated since April, and none of their social media accounts have been updated since this summer. I currently have 11 titles pending.

I tried reaching out to them via email and got failure errors immediately from both their "contact" and "support" accounts. I've just tried tweeting them again, but don't expect to hear back. I'm not sure what's going on, but I would advise everyone to hold off uploading any more content until we're sure that the site is active again. My concern here is that, because I have ebooks and pricing in limbo, I may run into issues with price-matching over at Amazon, for example.

YHB does not owe me any payments at this time, so at least there's that. Still, it's strange that they've completely dropped off the face of the planet. They seemed so enthusiastic about the site when they invited me.

Stephanie

10/4/2014 07:28:14 am

Interesting to know! Thanks for the input! I know some people have been wondering about Your Heart Books and wanted to know if they were legit. This gives us an update on how the site is doing.

Publishing Platform: YouHeartBooks

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