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[YADS] Channillo, Inc.

Dhewco

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I did a search, but didn't find anything. Has anyone heard of Channillo.com. It's a web-based serial publisher.
 

mrsmig

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Linkety link: Channillo.com

This is a subscription-based publisher, meaning those who wanna read gotta pay. The memberships aren't terrifically pricey - they start at $4.99/month and top out at $19.99/month - and can be canceled at any time.

Contributing writers get 80% of total revenue after payment processing fees. However, there's this:

There is a minimum payment threshold of $50.00. If a writer's earnings are less than $50, the amount earned gets added to the next month's earnings until the threshold is passed, in which case a payment will be made.

Given the low price of subscriptions and the undefined "payment processing fees" (does this mean after Visa/Mastercard/etc. take their bite, or are there other processing fees involved?), I wonder how long it takes the average writer to get that first $50 payment.

I'd never heard of this site prior to this thread. I would assume that traffic is driven to the site via the writers themselves; i.e. they tell their friends and family to go there and subscribe. Beyond this, I'd be curious to know what Channillo does (beyond the usual social media outlets) to market itself.
 
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Dhewco

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Yeah, I was contacted via Twitter. As I told the nice lady, I've never considered serials and I thought their (I'm not sure covers is the right word) were pretty decent. Not sure if the site provides those. I can't afford even the 4.99 right now, so I can't judge any quality. I was interested in what this community thought of them.
 

mrsmig

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Yeah, I was contacted via Twitter. As I told the nice lady, I've never considered serials and I thought their (I'm not sure covers is the right word) were pretty decent. Not sure if the site provides those. I can't afford even the 4.99 right now, so I can't judge any quality. I was interested in what this community thought of them.

Nope, according to their FAQ, writers must provide their own covers as well as editing. There's also this:

You do not need to have a Channillo membership to apply, but you will be required to get one before you can begin your series. Writers are expected to read other series (as time permits), and are encouraged to connect with, support, and promote other Channillo writers whose work they enjoy.

The more I read of their website, the less interested I am in Channillo.

BTW, I had a look at a couple of their offerings, but the samples offered are only about 145 words long - not really enough to judge quality.
 
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Dhewco

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Yeah, I wasn't happy about the length of the samples, either. I somehow missed the part about requiring a membership. That lucks me out. I don't have 4.99 to use on this site. No wonder they're contacting via twitter. The reason I haven't self-published the novel I'm working on (final edits, I hope) is that I haven't found the money for a cover...also other reasons for procrastinating. There were a couple on the site I'd try on the strength of the cover alone, but I can't do it now.
 

PandaNinja

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I did a search, but didn't find anything. Has anyone heard of Channillo.com. It's a web-based serial publisher.

I am an author that is on this website and I would like to offer my opinion since I'm coming from the inside with my information. I have been on this website since its debut, and I have yet to reach the threshold of $50. I'm not sure what other authors are making on this website, but I am pretty sure most of the website views are just as the other user on this thread said, is from the authors themselves or from word of mouth and friends and family, and such. My story on the site has fluctuated in subscribers. Meaning I'll gain subscribers and then I'll lose them and this has been a back and forth thing since, April. My story my story is only two more chapters away from being completed, and I have originally had thoughts of taking the story down but since I'm almost finish with it I just thought I'll push forward and continue to finish it. I think since the website is no its not really gaining a lot of views which probably makes it hard for the authors to actually reach the $50 threshold. I'm not sure if someone has reached it as I said before maybe someone has, but I haven't, and it's been months.I'm not saying that the website is bad, because it isn't, but maybe it's not just for everyone. I don't think it's for me. but that's just my own opinion.
 

VeryBigBeard

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Just like you wouldn't want a print publisher who can't distribute to bookstores, you don't want a web publisher that has no idea how to reach an audience. This goes for everything from a blog post to a story.

Promoting content in the web space is just as hard, if not harder, than promoting print content. If the site isn't doing that, they won't get readers outside of their authors. Of course, Chanillo charges the authors $5/mth as a condition of acceptance so I expect the business side there is doing just fine, or at least well enough to cover expenses. The authors lose, but that's to be expected when your business model is basically the cyber equivalent of PublishAmerica: buy your own book.

I could publish anybody tomorrow on my blog, which reaches about 4 people a week. This would be a Bad Idea for you to do. Very, very rarely, I post a little writing there just as a kind of throwaway, fun exercise. Absolutely nothing I want money for goes on my blog because it's not an effective promotion vehicle. Very few websites are, which is why it's better to publish with epub. The e-mags that do OK are the ones with a dedicated niche audience built up over time on a reputation of decent content, whether from one artist/author or many. (I notice that I view more art directly online than I do stories--I usually want those in a more comfortable format. My own tastes only, of course.) Some of those with reputation pay an advance or can guarantee at least small royalties or maybe serve as a decent portfolio piece if they're seen to have influence. If your work is niche enough, that might be an acceptable trade off. Most stories have broader reach and it's usually a good idea to start submitting at the places that will pay you for your work, then work down to the small niche markets with similarly small remuneration.
 

PandaNinja

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Of course, Chanillo charges the authors $5/mth as a condition of acceptance so I expect the business side there is doing just fine, or at least well enough to cover expenses. The authors lose, but that's to be expected when your business model is basically the cyber equivalent of PublishAmerica: buy your own book.

from what I'm aware of I haven't been charged $5. so I'm not really sure how accurate that is. Maybe other authors are charged if they want to subscribe to other stories on there. But I have never been charged any money from the website to publish my story or anything like that.

other than that, I do agree with what you're saying. Because it's probably best to do your work and have it published in book format or some type of format that's a little bit different than this website.
 

VeryBigBeard

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I was going from mrsmig's quote above. That's the PublishAmerica black flag right there: "Do it for your fellow authors!" But there's nothing in that set-up for authors, and nothing for readers. It's all about covering basic overhead. Looked at that way, providing your own covers and editing fits right in. This publisher doesn't have costs. They just pay the domain upkeep.

I'm glad you haven't been charged, though. At least they seem flexible on that. I suppose if one had a piece that was basically a throwaway then there probably is a community of people there willing to read it, and maybe they promote enough to have a small inbound audience. You probably still get more readership on a SYW post.
 

PandaNinja

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I was going from mrsmig's quote above. That's the PublishAmerica black flag right there: "Do it for your fellow authors!" But there's nothing in that set-up for authors, and nothing for readers. It's all about covering basic overhead. Looked at that way, providing your own covers and editing fits right in. This publisher doesn't have costs. They just pay the domain upkeep.

I'm glad you haven't been charged, though. At least they seem flexible on that. I suppose if one had a piece that was basically a throwaway then there probably is a community of people there willing to read it, and maybe they promote enough to have a small inbound audience. You probably still get more readership on a SYW post.

You have a point. I'm going to probably make Nightmare Chronicles my last story on the website. I've noticed a few other authors have taken down their stories from Channillo. However, I plan on leaving mine up, I just won't upload any stories on there anymore. Its very hard, for me at least, to drive traffic there. I'm probably better off self-publishing on Create space.
 

Manuel Royal

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from what I'm aware of I haven't been charged $5. so I'm not really sure how accurate that is. Maybe other authors are charged if they want to subscribe to other stories on there. But I have never been charged any money from the website to publish my story or anything like that.
But -- have you been paying (a minimum of) $4.99 a month for your membership?
 

chandlermaid

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I was also approached to write for them, but I responded wondering about the ratio of actual readers to writers. They never responded back so, in my opinion, that pretty much answered my question :) Then I emailed someone I knew that was currently writing for them, and they didn't answer my questions either. It was strange and made my radar tingle.
 

PandaNinja

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But -- have you been paying (a minimum of) $4.99 a month for your membership?

In the beginning, I decided to try that out, because it's more so a choice. If the authors don't want a membership, they don't have to have one. After a month, I decided to cancel my membership, but that did not affect me in any way. So, in total, I have only paid $4.99 one time only.


Sorry my reply is so late. I haven't signed on in quite a while.
 

BethTurnage

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I did publish on Channillo but took my story down. Another prospective Channillo writer contacted me through my FB page and this is what I wrote to her:

"I'm sorry to say that I've soured on Channillo. It looked promising but after a couple weeks there I realized that the site owner is doing no promotion on her site. The site is not optimized for SEO and has no Google page rank. This shocked me. So there is no way any traffic is coming to Channillo through the web.


I spent a good deal of effort trying to drum up business for subscriptions. The irony is I used to work in the newspaper circulation business for twenty years so if there is anyone who can sell subscriptions it is me. But it doesn't help if people don't know you are there and if your website looks dark to the web crawler bots. (Additional note: people I sent to the site said they couldn't find my story, which probably means there is no site map which makes searches of the material more difficult than necessary.)


That didn't bother me so much until I wrote her and offered my services gratis so Channillo could gather a web presence. I have nine years experience building page rank and web presence through a number of different blogs so I do know a couple things. She was too busy to talk to me.


It appears that the only way authors make money is off other authors on the site. We all have to buy a monthly subscription and it appears that money is the pool from which everyone else is paid and that's not a lot.


She does say you are expected to network with other authors. I take this to mean that she does expect us to subscribe to other authors books and the ones that network the most get the lions share of the money. She may not realize it but is seems what she created was a ponzi scheme.


Earnings works out to less than a dollar per subscriber per month. And she only pays out when you earn fifty dollars. At the rate I was going it would have taken me a year to make $50 and I would have spent $65 to earn that money. So it is not a good deal for me." (Additional note: the $3.65 I "earned" was not paid to me upon severance.)

When I wrote and asked for the story to be taken down, I also listed the problems I saw with the site. She didn't bat an eye, just took the story down and kept my "earnings," as well as the membership fees I paid. So I take this to mean she is well aware of what she is doing. And in my mind, it's just not ethical.

I advise to stay away from Channillo. Once you put your story up on her site you've lost your "first publication rights," and many publishers would not want to buy your story, no matter how good it is. In my case, I only wrote the story as a promotion for the other, larger works of my series, so instead of Channillo I've placed it on my blog for free. And that's okay. Better that than lose money.
 
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PandaNinja

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I did publish on Channillo but took my story down. Another prospective Channillo writer contacted me through my FB page and this is what I wrote to her:

"I'm sorry to say that I've soured on Channillo. It looked promising but after a couple weeks there I realized that the site owner is doing no promotion on her site. The site is not optimized for SEO and has no Google page rank. This shocked me. So there is no way any traffic is coming to Channillo through the web.


I spent a good deal of effort trying to drum up business for subscriptions. The irony is I used to work in the newspaper circulation business for twenty years so if there is anyone who can sell subscriptions it is me. But it doesn't help if people don't know you are there and if your website looks dark to the web crawler bots. (Additional note: people I sent to the site said they couldn't find my story, which probably means there is no site map which makes searches of the material more difficult than necessary.)


That didn't bother me so much until I wrote her and offered my services gratis so Channillo could gather a web presence. I have nine years experience building page rank and web presence through a number of different blogs so I do know a couple things. She was too busy to talk to me.


It appears that the only way authors make money is off other authors on the site. We all have to buy a monthly subscription and it appears that money is the pool from which everyone else is paid and that's not a lot.


She does say you are expected to network with other authors. I take this to mean that she does expect us to subscribe to other authors books and the ones that network the most get the lions share of the money. She may not realize it but is seems what she created was a ponzi scheme.


Earnings works out to less than a dollar per subscriber per month. And she only pays out when you earn fifty dollars. At the rate I was going it would have taken me a year to make $50 and I would have spent $65 to earn that money. So it is not a good deal for me." (Additional note: the $3.65 I "earned" was not paid to me upon severance.)

When I wrote and asked for the story to be taken down, I also listed the problems I saw with the site. She didn't bat an eye, just took the story down and kept my "earnings," as well as the membership fees I paid. So I take this to mean she is well aware of what she is doing. And in my mind, it's just not ethical.

I advise to stay away from Channillo. Once you put your story up on her site you've lost your "first publication rights," and many publishers would not want to buy your story, no matter how good it is. In my case, I only wrote the story as a promotion for the other, larger works of my series, so instead of Channillo I've placed it on my blog for free. And that's okay. Better that than lose money.

You're definitely right on how it takes about one year to at least closely reach $50. It's closing in on a year and I'm a few dollars away from 50.

I feel that if she promoted the website better then Channillo would have a broader traffic. I finished my story on the site last year, but I wanted to make it to $50 before I took the story off. Either way, just like you I was only using my story as a promotional for other projects that I'm working on and planned to completely revise my story on Channillo either way.

I say good luck to the people thinking about putting you story on this website.
 

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Ponzi Scheme was my first thought as well. Glad you haven't been ripped off too badly, Panda, but it's still not ethical of the pub.
 

PandaNinja

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Ponzi Scheme was my first thought as well. Glad you haven't been ripped off too badly, Panda, but it's still not ethical of the pub.

No it's not ethical at all, unfortunately. :/
 

Earthling

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I was contacted by Kara Klotz on Twitter today. The website rang alarm bells so of course I came here immediately... not good.

I know one author who's fallen for this. :( She's talked to me before about it but I assumed 'Channillo' was a legitimate magazine she'd been accepted to. There's no way I can contact her without looking like a horrible person trying to drag her down, is there? I'm sure she'll make her own conclusions when the royalty cheques fail to appear.

EDIT: What does [YADS] mean as a thread prefix?
 
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Maryn

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YADS is Yet Another Display Site. I've looked it up a great many times and the last one finally stuck.

Maryn, slow learner
 

zmethos

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Someone (can't remember who) hit me up with an offer to publish on Channillo a while back, but when I looked into it, I just couldn't see any up side. Like, it didn't seem to me like I'd be "discoverable" there, and I wasn't going to ask people who already read my work to go subscribe.
 

JSPembroke

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I was hit up yesterday. I deferred answering, not knowing much about the site at all. A little research and ... well, can we say, "Forewarned is forearmed."?

I wish her and the site well but it just doesn't seem like a viable option. I'd rather direct publish to Amazon and let the chips fall where they may. At least that costs me nothing out of pocket.