i like books, i like blogs, i like long tail models, but i don’t think this will work:
With the “Blog To Books” program, Hyperink assigns a staff editor to curate a blogger’s posts, structure them into a narrative format, and then create a book in PDF, epub, and mobi formats.
from: Techcrunch
it’s not the amount of work really, but the available supply and demand – there is not much of either:
- i’d guess there is less than 20k blogs that will ever want to create a sellable ebook
- i’d guess that each of them will sell 50 ebooks, mainly as gifts for their friends
it saddens me when investors and media pump up the expectations of otherwise interesting startup teams. sure you can argue that if the team is right, they will pivot from this idea anyway. but in b3c marketplace businesses like this, it usually takes a lot of energy to get enough disproof that you can actually decide to pivot.
meh.
Related articles
- Help us become the world’s biggest ebook publisher. Hyperink (YC W11, A16z) (news.ycombinator.com)
- Publishing Startups Provide New Avenues for Authors, Readers (betakit.com)
- Hey, book authors! Has Hyperink got a deal for you! (news.cnet.com)
- Which is best for books: Tablets vs smartphones (vodafone.com.au)