LA Upstart Startup Stunned By Interest In New Book Publishing Idea

NewbBay.com, which has been in operation for a month or so, has been surprised by the level of interest shown from writers and readers. A steady drip of writers and a horde of verified readers, apparently glued to the site for multiple pages, definitely wasn’t expected.

NewbBay.com is a very different approach to publishing. You read a few chapters, then if you want to read more, you pay by chapter, using the site’s “currency”, banas. 1 bana = 1 cent.

“The idea is very new, and like all new ideas, we weren’t expecting people to instantly get it,” said Paul Wallis, Chief Publicity Officer for NewbBay.com.  Wallis is what he calls “a fairly well known” writer after many years writing commercially as a copywriter, journalist and creatively online, with a couple of books on the site himself.

“What appealed to me about NewbBay was the emphasis on allowing writers to be creative, and publish very edgy stuff. Collette Cornatzer’s book, The Reform, is a very confronting book, for example, with a very tough-minded writing style.

Anna Jane’s book, Run through the Jungle, is a romance, with a lot of wry humor, a “relationship among the bullets”. Other writers, notably MC Steps and Diana Kemp, aka scifidi, are writing quite unique books, with very unusual styles. Just about all our authors are creating very much individualized books, which was the original objective of NewbBay.com.”

For those who don’t know the industry- Indie publishers don’t exactly have it easy to start with. The usual result of a first month of operation is a damp fizzle. Getting any traction in the market is very difficult, and that’s usually because of lack of interest from readers and writers.

NewbBay.com is showing strong signs of dodging the usual minefield for indie startups. Site stats are showing real strength, after exhaustive analysis to make sure the site wasn’t being hit by bots, crawlers, etc. distorting the hit count.

“NewbBay is getting real people,” says Wallis, “…and it’s just out of the egg. There’s a long way to go. Most new sites get a couple of hits and a deadly silence. We did the exact opposite.”

“We’re still looking for more writers. We got unbelievably lucky with the writers we have, but we need to expand our range. We’ll be inviting writers on a personal basis, asking for feedback and criticisms to make sure the next stage is perfect.”

Click below for the PDF sampler from NewbBay.com’s first month of operations. It includes interviews with authors, and humor.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to start an indie publisher. It takes the patience of God to get it to work. NewbBay.com has so far defied all the basics of a publishing startup.

Paul Wallis
Chief Publicity Officer
011 612 9707 4104
[email protected]
http://www.newbbay.com/
Australia Region - NewbBay Publishing