Aug

StoryBundle and the Charitable Work of eBooks

This week, GoodeReader reported on SnugNugget’s initiative to allow consumers set the prices they pay for bundles of ebooks, as well as determine how much of the bundle will go to the author or to a charity; for now, funds from the sale of ebook bundles will go to Book Aid International.

Another platform, StoryBundle, works on much the same concept of allowing readers to determine what is a fair price to compensate authors for their works, while still supporting causes with their purchasing dollars.

According to StoryBundle’s front page, the model is fairly straightforward: “You choose how much you want to pay for these five awesome indie books. You decide how much of your purchase goes to the author and how much goes to help keep StoryBundle running. If your purchase price beats $7, you get two bonus books. This way you can rest assured in the knowledge that you already have the sequels to these wonderful titles without having to pay full price later.”

While StoryBundle supports the charities MightyWriters and Trees for the Future, the strongest feature of the site is the DRM-free nature of the ebooks. As with SnugNugget, this allows users to read their ebooks on any device, although Kindles and Kindle-app devices can receive the books instantly without transferring from a computer.

The current featured bundle includes as many as seven books depending on the price option consumers choose, including Undersea by Geoffrey Morrison, Journey to Hart’s Halo by Lou Hood, John Gone by Michael Kayatta, Bypass Gemini by Joseph Lallo, The Heretic by Joseph Nassise, and the bonus titles Unstable Prototypes by Joseph Lallo and Missing Signals by Michael Kayatta.

Mercy Pilkington (1082 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com