Pronoun, a new way to self-publish — maybe

Update: Lots more skepticism about Pronoun in the blogosphere. See the comments here at The Passive Voice. (Posted June 19, 2015)

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Pronoun, a site and system that helps authors self publish, has announced a new manifesto — How to fix book publishing — and has raised $3.5 million in its efforts to do so.

Still, everything about the Pronoun (formerly Vook) pronouncement is being met with healthy skepticism in the blogland of self publishing. Mainly, this is because Pronoun hasn’t delivered.

It’s also because many of the sentiments expressed in the manifesto have been heard before — and no one has ever seemed to follow through on them.

But Pronoun is saying the right things, such as:

• Publishing begins with the author, not the publisher.
• A new system of publishing should make the author, not the publisher, primary.
• Authors shouldn’t have to query publishers to ask that their work be published.
• Authors should have control over their work.
• Authors should have support after the work is published.

And finally:

At Pronoun, we’re building a platform that puts authors first. We’ve assembled a team of people from traditional publishing, technology, design, and venture capital who love books and care about their future. We believe that technology should be used to empower authors, not to exploit them.We believe that publishing should be open and completely free.

 

Free. Completely free. Hard to argue with that.

Pronoun won’t say when it will launch its new, completely free, platform, but it will be interesting to see what it looks like and how it works.

 

Tags: author, editing, Pronoun, self publishing, TechCrunch.com, The-Digital-Reader.com, ThePassiveVoice.com, Vook, writing a book

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