A Free E-Book Marketplace for the Social Media Set

I got an email earlier this week from Tom Evans, a UK-based developer who told me he’d been working with a small team for months on the creation of a new online marketplace for e-book authors.

The service is called Payhip—it officially launched last week—and I can tell you that if I had a self-published e-book to my name, I would definitely be giving it a try. For starters, it’s free: There are no setup or service fees, and authors retain 100 percent of their royalties, which are paid out via PayPal. I’m guessing it’ll probably put some much-needed money into the purses and wallets of independent authors who are having a tough time getting their books noticed.

Here’s how Evans explained the Payhip process to me:

“In terms of how it works, it’s very straightforward. An ebook is uploaded (all formats, and a size limit of 1GB [per book]). Once uploaded, the e-book author gets a link to a ‘Buy’ page, which can be distributed on all the social networks, or on their website [or] blog.”

It’s as simple as that, I guess. I do want to point out that I haven’t used the service myself, so I can’t actually vouch for its ease of use or its effectiveness. But according to a recent post on the company’s blog, “the current version [of Payhip] will always be free.” The same post also mentions that, “in the coming weeks, we will be adding a few pro features that users can pay for if they want to.”

“The main idea behind this,” according to Evans, “is that an ebook author is likely to have followers/fans/friends. And by sharing the link [to their ‘Buy’ page], they can reach their direct audience, rather than just relying on a marketplace such as Amazon, which takes a big cut.”

If you’d like to give the service a try, I’d recommend watching the video below; it’ll run you through the process of creating an account and actually uploading a book to the site.

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{VIDEO} How to sell your ebook online using Payhip