Kobo Writing Life Podcast #65 - Matthew Cobb of Reedsy
Reedsy's ambition extends beyond just being a place where authors can connect with publishing professionals; it's a place for collaborative tools and with an ultimate goal of assisting the publication process right from the first written word of an author's manuscript right through the typesetting, publishing and marketing of the final book.
Mark Lefebvre, Kobo Writing Life Director, interviews Matthew Cobb, co-founder and lead designer of Reedsy regarding the platform and the amazing online Book Editor tool.
In the interview Mark and Matthew discuss:
- What Reedsy is (a marketplace for authors and editors, designers, etc to meet and collaborate as well as an online tool that allows authors to both collaborate in the creation process, but also produce production ready ePub and print on demand files)
- How the filters allow an author to find the right professional to provide the right editorial services to them, and the quote request process where you can request a free quote from up to 5 different matching professionals
- The curatorial process by which editors and other professionals apply to be within this ecosystem and are vetted and approved by the team at Reedsy
- How Reedsy doesn’t only handle the introduction to the publishing professional but also the transaction (ie, payment to the editor), but also the file transfer, as well as customer support and assistance
- Details about the online book editor and how it was born out of the frustration inherent when one of the founders wanted to publish a book
- The issues inherent with trying to use WORD to typeset and prepare a book for print-readiness along with how an author can simply copy and paste their WORD file document into the editor and it’ll preserve all the formatting, including headings, alignment, etc
- The ability for editors and authors to work together collaboratively online using the Reedsy Book Editor
- The use of templates that authors select, when they’re ready to export their print ready or ePub format file
- Whether or not this free editor is good for other formats such as children’s books, cookbooks, or other fixed layout types of book formats
- A bit about the four co-founders of Reedsy and the internal Reedsy family of employees
- Matthew’s favourite advice for a beginning writer to get on the right track for success
Mark then talks about the importance of finding the right person for the right job (ie, an author looking for just the right editor) and relates that to both the story of Goldilocks (how she kept trying things until she found the one that was just right), as well as the concept of asking a more detailed question in order to get the most optimum answer for you.
Links of Interest: