Tablo.io is a new premium publishing platform that offers a good way of producing and distributing ebooks quickly and professionally, with authors keeping 100% of their royalties.
There is, however, a price to be paid for the service, with plans starting at $7.95 a month to publish one book, $15.95 a month to publish three books and $29.95 a month for 10 books.
The site has a fairly narrow range of distribution at present, covering just Amazon and Apple’s iBooks. You can, of course, go direct to both of these retailers fairly easily at no cost, although iBooks can be a bit awkward.
You can upload a document to Tablo and it will be converted for you to view and edit or you can write online straight into the cloud. Your ebook can be previewed or you can download an epub to test.
Distribution is claimed to be push-button, with Tablo assigning any ISBNs needed, producing your files and distributing.
You’d need to do the maths to find out whether it would be worth your while to pay for the Tablo service. If you’re happy producing your own ebooks, then it’s probably not for you, but if you’re paying to have your ebooks done for you, then you could find this a simple way of saving some cash.
If you already go through other distributors, then you’re generally paying them 15% of the net, which means on a $2.99 ebook you will be paying the distributor (after Amazon’s 30% share) about $0.30 per sale.
If you went with the Tablo option, which pays 100% of the net, you’d need to be selling at least 26 books a month to break even on the basic plan (one book) at $7.95 and 54 books on the three-book plan at $15.95 a month.
The well-designed site has been set up by 21-year-old Ashley Davies, from Melbourne, Australia, who has pulled in $400,000 in funding for the business.
The aim is to build a community of writers and readers and Tablo already has 10,000 authors signed up. Authors can set up social profiles on the site and publish chapters of their book as they are writing it.
You can get more information and sign up for a free account at Tablo.io.