Contently: Empowering and connecting quality reporters and publishers. Pubslush. Reading Is Alive And Well At Social Reading Site Goodreads, Which Just Hit 10M Members. Goodreads,the site that lets you share the books you’ve read, are reading, and want to read, says it has just hit the 10 million member mark.
That means the company has doubled its registered user base in a little more than a year — 15 months, to be more precise. It took Goodreads four and a half years to reach 5 million members back in May 2011. Co-founder and CEO Otis Chandler tells me the “main accelerant of our growth this year” has the company’s new Facebook Open Graph app. He also says Goodreads’ book recommendation engine, which it launched in September after acquiring Discovereads.com, has played a big role in the growth.
Chandler notes that “the publishing industry has a huge discovery problem, because books are going digital” and brick-and-mortar bookstores are disappearing. Goodreads claims to have more catalogued 360 million books, with 22 million (and climbing) added per month. The company also just moved into a new 6,000 square foot office in San Francisco. Amid Lawsuits From Publishers, Boundless Launches A Free, Open Alternative To Textbooks.
Since it first appeared earlier this year, Boston-based educational startup Boundless has been on a mission to ensure that college students have a free alternative to the pricey and bulky world of physical textbooks.
The startup believes that an oligopoly of textbook publishers has been driving up costs for years (as the four top publishers currently control the lion’s share of the market) and so it set out to change that. Naturally, as a result, Boundless has found itself on the receiving end of litigation — courtesy of three of those top textbook publishers. Leaning on the $8 million it raised in April from Venrock, Nextview, Founder Collective and Kepha (and nearly $10 million total), the startup has since gone on the offensive, filing a motion to dismiss two of those claims last month, as it buckled down to fight its accusers. But to give you some quick background on Boundless: During its private beta, the startup emerged as a product (or proponent) of the Wikipedia Era.
StoryBundle Pay-What-You-Want Book Sale Launches With Sci-Fi Titles. StoryBundle is just one of a few new “pay-what-you-want” book deals blossoming from the ashes of traditional publishing like ferns after a forest fire.
This service, run by former Gizmodo pop star Jason Chen, is one of the cooler offerings out there right now and they started out with the Big Bang package featuring up to seven sci-fi books for your perusal and purchase. You can donate as much (or as little) as you want and a portion of your cash can go to a charity. You can also stiff StoryBundle itself, giving all the cash to the author. Your choice. “My dream is two-fold,” wrote Chen in a blog post. Services like this closely mirror similar services in the gaming and media space including the Humble Bundle aimed at raising awareness of indie games and music.
We covered competitor Snug Nugget last week but I think StoryBundle is definitely a bit prettier on the surface and the book offerings seem a bit more polished. A New Kind of Book› Principles & Practices.