Blurb is one of the largest self-publishing services in the world and was originally launched in 2006. The company has assisted eBook authors in launching over three million titles globally and they have launched a new program that will allow them to better compete with Amazon.
Dream Team is a new initiative that will connect aspiring or existing eBook authors with talent to help them take their title to the next level. The online marketplace is a creative hotbed of industry professionals with expertise in copy editing, developmental editing, book design, art direction, illustration, photography, cover design, ghostwriting, ebook conversion, and more.
Here is how it works. Blurb has tapped publishing industry veterans Richard Nash and Molly Barton to handpick and vet the Dream Team collaborators, populating the group with a range of experience that offers a commensurate range of price points. In order to hire anyone in the marketplace you have to be an existing Blurb member and agree to self-publish your title through them. You basically just browse profiles, checking out their rates and connect up with them to ask questions or to hire them. When it comes to payment, this is done outside of Blurb and its up to the talent to determine how they want to be paid, Blurb abstains from the entire payment process.
Blurb makes no money from this. They are simply connectors. The benefit for them is that statistically, when authors have help they more likely to complete their books. Therefore title completion and unit rates will increase.
A marketplace connecting writers with freelance talent was originally pioneered by Amazon with their seminal Creation Exchange platform. Sadly, this only is relevant for audiobooks, connecting writers with producers, mixers and narrators. Blurb might have stumbled upon a unified service to assist authors in all aspects of eBook creation, under a single platform.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.