• Leave a Comment
• Send an Email
• Invite as Friend

I create businesses. I am a passionate student of business models and processes.

I see being an entrepreneur as an art form. We work to create viable organizations that serve the public better than other older businesses. The materials for our art are people, money, knowledge and technology.

Contrary to other arts where creators can consider their work finished. We are never done as the economy and the needs of our society change; and as our competitors do their best to undo what we create.

The idea of Sharing-Books.com came up when a friend asked us to help publish her book. Our study of the industry revealed that children book paper publishing is a high risk and low margin business where a few hits have to pay for a lot of misses. We also noticed that when teachers and parents are not looking there are more electronic devices than books in the hands of today's children.

So we invented a business model where authors can get published on-line immediately as long as their content meets our contribution guidelines. This verification is done by volunteer librarians who have their own web site to access the books waiting for approval, and where they can discuss the interpretation of the guidelines and our publishing policies.

Then we built with an international team this first iteration of our web site; and we are progressing on a development plan that will eventually make our books available to the electronic devices used by today's children. Although we love paper books, we had to see books as content rather than as a paper containers of information.

Using a web based publishing model allows us to have a very different revenue model. We expect six revenue streams, most not available to paper publishing. Because our costs are so low we can share our revenues very differently. Authors share 1/3 of all our revenues according to the popularity of their books.

We also found that the primary motivation of authors was to be read and to have a chance to be discovered. We also found that most authors value literacy and genuinely want to make the world a better place. So we give a second 1/3 of all our revenues to Room to Read, a highly respected NGO who equip developing nations with literacy resources. See www.roomtoread.org.

The second motivation of our authors - being given a fair chance to be discovered - cannot be met with paper publishing due to high costs and low success ratio. The web is the ideal medium to serve that important purpose.

We accept that we will have a large number of books that will not find favor with critics, but that is the price paid to discover new authors and new books that will be adored by the public. We believe that because of their proven web popularity these authors will negotiate better terms with the traditional publishing, gaming and movie industries. (It should also be noted that Sharing-Books allows authors to upgrade their books instantly to a new and better version.)

As we keep only one third of our revenues to operate and provide a fair return to our shareholders, we have an extremely lean, automated and efficient operation.

We were delighted to discover JacketFlap. As we researched our business model, we saw the need for a web venue where writers, illustrators and industry specialists could find one another and collaborate to create new books. We had written an addendum to our business plan to create a site with specifications remarkably similar to JacketFlap. We are delighted that we will not have to invest in this project and that we can stay focused on building new features into Sharing-Books.

I create businesses. I am a passionate student of business models and processes. I see being an entrepreneur as an art form. We work to create viable organizations that serve the public better than other older businesses. The materials for our art are people, money, knowledge and technology. Contrary to other arts where creators can consider their work finished. We are never done as the... More