That's really good. It was the element of competition which made Authonomy the snake-pit it now is; I hope you manage to keep Book Country free of such behaviour.
We were uncomfortable with the gaming aspect as well. We put several measures into place in order to ensure that members really can't game the system. Book Country strives to be a meritocracy and writers get out of it only what they put into it. For example, in order for your fiction to become visible on our Genre Map, you must first read and critique three pieces of fiction by other members. There’s a strong reputation system – what we call ‘karma’ - built into Book Country. Members can rate critiques, comments on reviews and discussion comments as "constructive" or "not constructive"; the more often other members find your comments constructive, the stronger your reputation on the site. Additionally, we take into account how active members are overall. The opinion of a Book Country member who spends a considerable amount of time leaving thoughtful feedback for other writers, and whose comments and reviews are consistently rated as constructive will weigh more heavily than that of a new member who leaves dozens of short, unhelpful reviews, even if all his reviews are five-stars. Those kinds of reviews aren’t really helpful to any writer and they tend to get thumbed-down on Book Country.
To be clear, negative reviews are welcome at Book Country, as long as they’re written in a respectful way, and contain actual concrete advice for the writer on how to make the work stronger. We ask members to think of the Peer Review rating system as an indicator not of how much you did or didn’t like a book, but rather, how much work does this project need before it’s ready to be shopped to an agent or editor?
Will Book Country expect to make money from these services?
And how do you distinguish between self-publishing services and vanity publishing? Just asking, because you know me and know how pedantic I am.
*evil grin*
Heh! Which is one of the things I love about you, dear!
Yes, of course the business will expect to generate revenue. This is how we'll eventually be able to keep the community aspect of Book Country free.
Additionally, ePub conversion, distribution and storage isn't free, despite what other self-publishing services may lead writers to believe.
We'll offer pretty basic services for a flat fee: We will create and distribute the book for the writer. We'll handle the back end of collecting and forwarding payment. Books will be for sale on a separate area of Book Country, or a writer will be able to choose wide distribution. We, however, do not promise marketing or editorial services, nor do we promise to make your book a bestseller. What we promise is to produce professional-level interior e-book and print book files.
This is all pretty far away at the moment as the publishing system is still being built.
How do I define the difference between self-publishing service and a vanity press? I think the primary difference is that a vanity press makes you believe that you're being published by a real publisher, with false promises of being promoted and marketed like a real publisher. They tend to charge an extraordinary amount of money (in the high four figures) for "marketing & promotion" and quite often include a contractual obligation that the writer purchase a certain amount of his or her own book.
A self-publishing service, on the other hand, is just that: an up-front business that offers a service or set of services in exchange for money; generally those services tend to be one or all of the following, depending upon whether you are purchasing e-pub or print book services: ePub conversion, e-pub distribution, DRM, ePub storage, assignment of ISBN, guidance with cover creation, guidance with interior layout, typesetting, printing, binding, shipping, facilitation of sales (ie, distribution, handing credit card authorization and transaction, distribution of e-pub or print book to customers who have purchased the book), and so on. There should be no fine print or hidden fees. All the costs should be laid out at the get-go, so the customer knows exactly what he or she is paying for.
Does that make sense?
And now I need more coffee! =)
