With the traditional publishing world in flux as publishing houses balance the cost of printing and advertising books against their sales numbers, more and more book loving entrepreneurs are finding ways to stay abreast of readers’ changing habits and bring the words of authors they admire to the public’s attention. To publish means, in its simplest sense, “to make public,” and with the advent of online literature, print on demand, e-books, blogging, and social networking, tremendous possibilities are opening up for readers to receive the written word. New venues for authors to connect with their readers seem to be tripling every year. When I heard about the Libertary website and its efforts to keep out of print books and books that are not well supported by their publishers in the public eye, I contacted its founding partners Alice Porter and Kenneth Shear to find out more about the site and its goals. Here is our conversation about Libertary and how authors and book lovers can get involved.

Sheila
How do you describe the mission of your new web business?

Alice
Libertary’s mission is to connect more readers with more books and give them new and exciting ways to share and experience books.

Ken
We’re readers and we love books. We saw this enormous potential for the Internet to expand readership and enhance the reading experience. I have helped start a couple of businesses, and I’ve written a book; Alice has decades of editing experience. We know lots of authors who have written great books that haven’t ever reached their potential audiences due to existing limits on the business side of publishing. So we both felt it was a great opportunity for creating a business that makes a real contribution by exposing books to readers and helping give books a bigger role in online communities.

Sheila
How will your website make this contribution?

Alice
When readers find their way books on our site, they see pages designed and formatted for easy reading on the web (as opposed to a simple scan or PDF). We provide information about the authors and the printed copies. In some cases, authors have added new material for their Libertary editions. Visitors can navigate easily through our books and even change the text size to one that is most comfortable for them. We are planning a whole range of new ways for people to respond to books and share books with other readers.

For authors, we provide new life for worthwhile books that have not been successfully marketed or are otherwise under the public radar. We find new web-based markets for our books by placing links on sites that are already attracting readers on their subjects. We raise exposure, and through our book forums, discussion and “buzz.” Authors also share in any revenue generated by book sales through Libertary and donations made directly to our site. We encourage authors to read how it all works on the Libertary page called “For Authors.”

Ken
So far, books are not a big part of what people read on the web. We think it’s really important to make books available free online — just like magazines and newspapers that did not attract readership until they opened up their content. The web is full of existing communities looking for information on just about any subject and for good things to read. We are all about connecting books to readers in this way. The idea is to build constituencies around books online, by generating links directly to the book from other websites and blogs where we find communities interested in the book’s subject matter and ideas. When people come to read books at Libertary, we provide a more pleasurable reading experience than other online book sites. And as we further develop our site’s functionality, we will create opportunities for readers to exchange comments on books, review and discuss them in forums, share books with other readers, and interact with books in a variety of new and interesting ways.

Sheila
How do you think this effort fits in today’s publishing and book markets?

Ken
What we’ve done so far is put a bunch of very good books up for free reading. You can read a book for free on Libertary and comment if you want. We’ve only just started our website, so most of the functionality we envision isn’t there yet. But keep an eye on us — we’re going to create all sorts of new ways for readers to experience books and share their experience.

There are already lots of e-book sites. There are many great public domain books available for free, and some enlightened authors have begun to offer their books free online. The Kindle does a good job, for some readers, of creating an e-book experience that resembles reading a printed copy. We think all this is great because it makes books more available. But we’re only scratching the surface when it comes to using the Internet to add to the reader’s experience and the value of books.

Alice
We love the way putting books online can turn them into a more interactive, shared experience, and can expose books to more people. We don’t think anyone has as yet brought this together yet very effectively.

Ken
Our plan is to establish and develop new avenues to compensate authors beyond their existing publishing arrangements. We aren’t talking about the world of bestsellers but the vast majority of books with low or moderate sales where we think we can help improve business for both publishers and authors. It’s been shown pretty clearly that sales of printed books increase when a book is available to read online for free. (Just like offering books free in a library encourages sales.)

Alice
We believe that we can generate important additional sources of revenue for authors, sources other sites are not exploiting well and which authors would have difficulty managing on their own. For example, people can click through from our site and easily buy a printed copy. We have ads that will generate revenue for particular books. As we develop traffic, we’ll also be moving to an optional, pay-what-you-want model, where people can support our site, authors, and publishers.

Ken
So on the business side, we’re offering new alternatives to authors and publishers to promote sales of printed books and to develop new revenue streams. But beyond the business side, we’re making books more accessible to readers and enhancing the reading experience.

Alice
And that’s where we want to make our real contribution to the world of books and publishing.

Ken
People already read an enormous amount on the Internet, and many join communities where they not only read but also offer their own thoughts and reactions. So we treat each book as a website and look for ways it can connect to other websites, blogs, and web-based reference sources like Wikipedia

Alice
One of our important goals is to build constituencies and advocacies around books. We have opportunities on our site for people to play the role of Book Advocate. That’s a person who looks for websites and blogs where a certain book might be of interest and tries to get them to link to the book. The Book Advocate might insert references to the book on websites or might post comments or reviews of a book. A Book Advocate might work with the author to figure out how to best highlight the book’s appeal. As we go along, the Book Advocate might have first crack at leading discussions on our site or moderating comments. Right now, we’re primarily a reading site. But we want to become a place where people interact in new ways around books, and book advocates will be in the middle of this.

Sheila
What do you think makes a good Book Advocate? I can see having students in particular courses take on book advocacy as an internship or class project. Have you been encouraging this?

Alice
We have. Three characteristics make an effective book advocate: love of books, some web-based research skills, and an interest in learning how books can be effectively marketed on the web. Book advocates make their own hours, can work anywhere, and will learn a great deal quickly about the exploding world of online publishing.

Sheila
How do you attract and keep readers and authors using your site?

Alice
When readers find their way books on our site, they see pages designed and formatted for easy reading on the web (as opposed to a simple scan or PDF). We provide information about the authors and the printed copies. In some cases, authors have added new material for their Libertary editions. Visitors can navigate easily through our books and even change the text size to one that is most comfortable for them. And as we’ve discussed above, we are planning a whole range of new ways for people to respond to books and share books with other readers.

For authors, we provide new life for worthwhile books that have not been successfully marketed or are otherwise under the public radar. We find new web-based markets for our books by placing links on sites that are already attracting readers on their subjects. We raise exposure, and through our book forums, discussion and “buzz.” Authors also share in any revenue generated by book sales through Libertary and donations made directly to our site. We encourage authors to read how it all works on the Libertary page called “For Authors.”

Sheila
Could you take a stab at stating your “philosophy of the book”?

Alice
We believe that books should be read. Our motto is Freedom of the Book, and our first goal is to broaden readership. The web is a boon to readers with content that is growing exponentially, but most book sites on the web either severely limit the number of pages a reader can see, feature impenetrable PDFs, and charge for electronic versions. With Libertary, we hope to duplicate the traditional bookstore environment that welcomes readers and encourages them to read as much of the books as they want for free, even if they pay for books they take away with them. Using our HTML version, we can easily create new features for discussing and sharing books.

Sheila
How do you see your site growing in the future? What do you hope for one year from now? Five years? Ten years?

Ken
A year from now! For an online business, this is long-term thinking. We expect to have several hundred books by then. We plan to have many new features added to the online reading experience. We hope to have many book lovers involved in our site as book advocates or in other roles that emerge. We hope to be connecting books to readers and making the experience richer and more enjoyable than what’s currently available.

But we’re a new Internet business. Our future depends upon connecting with online communities and learning what people enjoy and find useful in this environment. There’s no formula or recipe for what we’re serving. We have very strong ideas about building communities around books and promoting readership, but these will work only if we are flexible, learn from our audience, experiment, and go with what really works to meet these goals. So, we can assure you that Libertary will be after the same goals a year from now though it will have evolved in ways that we can’t predict.

Five to ten years from now, we hope to be an important part of how books make the transition from printed objects to shared texts. We think that due to environmental and economic concerns, the mass printing of books on paper using highly toxic processes, and the use of internal combustion engines to haul them from one place to another will have declined considerably. We hope that printed books will still be a big part of reading, probably using some print on demand technology, hopefully an environmentally friendly one. But we want to be sure that books — those wonderful, various, complex connections between readers and writers — continue to transport people, even if we don’t spend so much effort transporting the books to their readers.

Sheila
What are the biggest obstacles you see?

Alice
We’ve encountered some resistance from publishers of books that are still in print. We’ve found wonderful books that simply aren’t selling and whose authors are eager to give them the exposure that Libertary can provide. But although they aren’t selling the books, some publishers are reluctant to release the rights to publish on Libertary. We think this is partly because the business environment for publishers is changing so rapidly — they are deluged with proposals for presenting books online, and publishers are waiting to find the approach that works best for them. Some publishers are too attached to the way things were done in the past; they’re locked into a business model where the only way to do business is to charge per book. We think Libertary is the best approach to mobilizing the web for publishers, authors, and readers alike.

Sheila
What do you most want authors to know about your site and work?

Alice
We want them to know that Libertary can bring readers to their books! And for authors, there is no risk; if they don’t like the way their books appear on Libertary, we will take their book page down. This hasn’t happened yet, and frankly, we’d be surprised if it did. And we want authors to know that we’re dedicated to finding ways for online books to improve their exposure and the rewards — financial, professional and personal — from writing.

Sheila
What are your favorite stories about what has happened with books on your site?

Alice
One of the first books we posted is a true crime account, Fatal Flaw, by Kansas author Phillip Finch. It relates an extremely unsettling story about a multiple murder in Florida in the mid-’70s, the botched investigation that followed, and a wrongful conviction. The man still sits on Florida’s death row, more than 30 years later. We’ve been working with sites such as the Innocence Project to link to the book, which had been out of print for several years. Phil writes mostly fiction, and one of his novels, Sugarland, is also on Libertary. But I think Fatal Flaw might demonstrate how effectively our site can draw readers to important material that, for one reason or other, hasn’t been effectively marketed until now.

Ken
Drug Crazy, the first book we put online, is a brilliant and very readable account of what’s gone wrong with America’s policies on drugs. It sold well when it first came out, and now we’ve attracted several thousand people to read it online. We asked a few sites to link to the book, and now we’re seeing links multiplying on sites we haven’t had contact with. So the book is starting to have a far-flung presence on the web, exposing it to lots of people who would not otherwise have heard of it.

Sheila
Does a book have to have had a print run before it can make it onto your site?

Ken
We also are starting to produce new books. We currently have three in the works, including a book that I wrote about a hotly debated legal issue involving the early history of press freedom in America. This book provides an interesting case study for us, because it shows how free online reading can open up new publishing avenues.

Only a week after the online version went up on Libertary, it got the attention of an important national legal organization, the American Constitution Society, which highlighted it in their member newsletter. After a few days, I started getting requests for review copies from magazines. From the time I approved the proofs, it took only two weeks for the printed book to be available from several sources online. So we have shortened the timeline for production as well as for developing new ways to publicize the book to groups of people who might be interested.

Other books we have in the works include one about cinematic storytelling and a comic mystery novel with a twist, in that the solution has to do with a company improving its sales techniques. We like to experiment.

We offer books through print on demand, which means they will not be in bookstores unless the author finds some other avenue for this sort of distribution. This allows us to reduce overhead considerably. We are investigating ways to shape the relationship between authors, editors, and business management of books which will hopefully provide some increased compensation for book creators and better ways to reach the reading public.

Sheila
How can Writing It Real readers make a suggestion about a book you might want to include on your site or get in touch with you about their own books?

Alice
We’re always eager to hear about books! And if they’re a good fit for Libertary, we’ll make every effort to clear away any hurdles to presenting them in our inventory. Just write us at Info@Libertary.com, and you’ll hear back from us soon.

Sheila
Your project is certainly one a lot of us will be visiting and watching. It isn’t easy to change an aged and hallowed form of publishing into something new. Talk of changes in publishing began almost as soon as I started publishing books in the nineties and it has been very interesting to see what prejudices remain about the big publishing houses and print copies being the only way to get books into the world. But with social networking and online groups becoming something more and more of us participate in, your idea of how to use the virtual world to connect around books seems very natural.

Thanks for talking with us. Let’s talk again in six months to a year to see what’s happened.