Just yesterday we ran a profile of Unglue.it founder Eric Hellman; it was written by one of our colleagues, Book Business magazine editor-in-chief Brian Howard.
It turns out, though, that we probably should have waited at least one more day before running the story, because Unglue.it released a bit of important news earlier today, at around 2:30 p.m. EST: The company will be relaunching on Monday, October 15, at 12:00 p.m. (noon) Eastern time.
According to an email sent today from the Unglue.it team, “It’s been a blessing in disguise that Amazon Payments forced us to halt our campaigns in August. When we evaluated our options for getting back up, we liked what we saw.”
Here’s more from that same email:
“We’ll be using Stripe as our payment processor for the relaunched Unglue.it. Many of you recommended them and we see why: a thoughtfully designed API, fantastic documentation, and responsive service. They’ve taken the time to talk with us personally and understand our business. For us, this means peace of mind, plus much cleaner code. For you, it will mean a simple payment interface right inside of Unglue.it, with no need for any other accounts—just a credit card.
“You’ll see other improvements to the site as well. We’ve overhauled the pledge process to communicate more clearly about premiums and acknowledgements you receive for supporting campaigns. We’ve added profile badges to thank ungluers who have made pledges (but we’ve also improved our handling of anonymous pledges). We’ve added OCLC number support, so you can click directly from many Unglue.it book pages to WorldCat records. Rights holders will see a more clearly
explained and user-friendly process for launching campaigns.”
The Unglue.it team also announced that they’ve recently developed working relationships with both LOCKSS (which works to safeguard digital content) and Readmill.
Incidentally, Eric Hellman himself will be traveling to a number of literary festivals and book events in the coming weeks, and he hopes to meet Unglue.it fans during his time on the road. If you plan to be at any of the major upcoming book events in Columbus, Frankfurt, London, New York, Vancouver, Charleston or Saratoga Springs, keep your eyes peeled for Eric, and say hello.
