Working...
Noticed anything different on your Buzzboard? We are now displaying influence on a 0-100 scale!
What does this actually change?
You may have also noticed the spiffy new Influence Breakdown Bar. This bar will fill up with everything that goes into your influence (like getting buzz hits and signing up new buzzers), so you will be able to see where your influence comes from and what you can do to improve your score.
More new stuff:
If you have any questions about any of the new changes or about Libboo in general, please send us a message at help@libboo.com, and we’ll be happy to answer!
-Team Libboo
——————
Psst…we’re now on Tumblr, so if you want to look at some bookishly inclined eye candy, check out libboo.tumblr.com.
For more Libboo news, you can follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook .
Feeling like you need more books in your life? Never fear, book drop number two is here! We’ve added over twenty books to Libboo today, and we have something for everyone: fantasy, thriller, horror, literary fiction, romance, YA, you name it. Here are a few of the books included in book drop #2:
Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer
Life as a ship’s boy aboard HMS Dolphin is a dream come true for Jacky Faber. Gone are the days of scavenging for food and fighting for survival on the streets of eighteenth-century London. Instead, Jacky is becoming a skilled and respected sailor as the crew pursues pirates on the high seas. There’s only one problem: Jacky is a girl. And she will have to use every bit of her spirit, wit, and courage to keep the crew from discovering her secret. This could be the adventure of her life–if only she doesn’t get caught. . . .
The First Secret of Edwin Hoff by A. B. Bourne
The First Secret of Edwin Hoff is a Batman-meets-Bourne thriller about an elite commando living the unexpectedly public life of a billionaire tech entrepreneur. But when Edwin is called to stop a bio-attack planned to release from a 9/11 plane, he does what a Seal Team 6 fighter would do for his next act, and more. Under deep cover, he protects the world from terror while turning those he meets into heroes.
Edwin Hoff is a fictional character inspired by a real person: Danny Lewin was a Counter Terror Captain in Israel’s equivalent of Seal Team 6. He trained to rescue hostages and kill terrorists with his bare hands. Later he went to MIT for his masters in math and founded Akamai Technologies, becoming a billionaire overnight. On September 11, Danny boarded AA Flight 11 and went to visit customers in California. Amid the horrifying tragedy, Danny left behind this puzzle:
On September 10, he packed up his office. No one knows why.
Match Day by Emma Standish
Ellen Albright is a senior medical student on the cusp of achieving everything she thought she ever wanted: graduating from a prestigious medical school, matching into the specialty of her choice, and marrying her long-time boyfriend, Jude Davenport. Though things may look perfect on paper, Ellen begins doubting where her life is headed and her upcoming nuptials to Jude. As the wedding date nears, Ellen journeys through her final clerkship in the ICU where she develops an unexpected bond with her enigmatic fellow classmate, Tyler Hudson. In doing so, she is torn between her blossoming relationship with Tyler and a sense of duty to follow through with a vision of her life that she has worked so hard to build.
As she navigates the complicated web of an unlikely affair, Ellen discovers that the lines between right and wrong aren’t always clear and that sometimes you have to risk everything for a chance at true happiness.
Backyard Banzai Chicken Warriors by Kimi Takazawa
This is a story about how the fate of the Earth rests on the downy shoulders of the most unlikely heroes. Deep in the secret underground laboratories of the University, an event known as The Stinkiest Cheese Bomb Incident occurred. Unassuming lab assistant Kenji Ban rescued three special eggs. Flambe, Haiku and Fluffles emerged—not as fluffy chicks, but as Backyard Banzai Chicken Warriors The three warriors transform into the Samurai Chicken Warrior, Ninja Chicken Warrior and Sumo Chicken Warrior respectively to battle vicious Hench-Rats and to protect their mother, Obachan. When orphan Butterfluff drops into their family, they lend a warrior’s wing to save Pigeonville from the heavy clutches of the fearsome Phatso. The farmyard will never be the same. Those who enjoy the chapter book antics of worthwhile adversaries such as Captain Underpants, Geronimo Stilton and Ricky Ricotta will be interested in delving deeper into the world of the Backyard Banzai Chicken Warriors. Additional missions are being hatched so keep close to the coop!
What can we say? We dig children’s books about chickens.
If you haven’t signed up yet, become a Libboo buzzer today and discover the next digital bestseller.
-Team Libboo
——————
Psst…we’re now on Tumblr, so if you want to look at some bookishly inclined eye candy, check out libboo.tumblr.com.
For more Libboo news, you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or add us to your Google+circles.
Online Publishing Start-up Libboo Closes $1.1 Million Seed Funding Round
Financing allows TechStars company to make a shift in the world of publishing
Boston, Mass. – Oct. 3, 2012 – Boston startup Libboo, which last week launched its pilot program with publishing powerhouse Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), today announced the close of a $1.1 million seed round of financing led by Boston-based MassVentures. Other investors included Hubspot CTO and founder Dharmesh Shah, Avid and Wildfire founder Bill Warner, and past President and CEO of Compete, Don McLagan.
Libboo, a TechStars Boston company and MassChallenge finalist, is an online platform that connects “buzzers” (passionate readers and advocates who love to raise awareness about the books and authors they enjoy) with books from talented authors, to more effectively get those authors discovered by new audiences. Buzzers get rewards such as free ebooks, and increase their influence by sharing great writing with friends and followers via social media, email, and other online channels. With its pilot program, which launched on September 24, 2012, Libboo introduced revolutionary ways to combine the power of reader and author to create award-winning bestsellers.
Libboo CEO Chris Howard says it was a “personal challenge” to find investors who, like him, were after making an impact in the publishing world. The main pain point for authors that Libboo aims to solve is that talent gets lost in crowded spaces. Libboo wants to create a place for talented authors to get discovered and rewarded for their talent. It was important to Howard that Libboo’s investors be passionate and visionary angels and VCs looking to be a part of an industry shift.
The funding process commenced with Howard’s TechStars Demo Day pitch, which also cemented Libboo’s partnership with HMH. The round will allow Libboo to continue to grow its all-star team, specifically in engineering, operations, and business development. Libboo sees its investors as just as much a part of the team as the full-time staff. Their combined strengths and drive to move the publishing industry into the future will be invaluable in Libboo’s goal to discover the next digital bestseller.
About Libboo
Libboo is a TechStars company, the #1 startup accelerator in the world, dedicated to creating the next digital bestseller by combining the power of authors and their greatest fans. Libboo’s mission is to solve the timeless problem of talent getting lost in crowded spaces and aims to help all talented authors – published or independent – be discovered by the audiences they deserve. The company’s partners and supporters range from the National Literacy Trust to a number of the world’s largest publishers. For more information, visit www.Libboo.com.
###
Media Contacts:
Jason Freeman, Libboo, +1-562-533-5921, Jason@libboo.com
Tracy Wemett, BroadPR, +1-617-939-3631, Tracy@broadpr.com
We have some more new features and changes to the site to show you guys this week. Most awesomely, you can now upload Word documents to our editor! To see what else is new, you can watch this video walkthrough of all the changes that we deployed on Wednesday:
More new stuff coming next week!
-Team Libboo
——————
For more Libboo news, you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or add us to your Google+circles.
Sometimes the job has perks! It’s a sunny day and Chris is enjoying an afternoon of baseball at Fenway park. OK, he had a great time watching the ballgame – beer and hotdogs…. The next batter is on deck and here is the pitch!
Baseballs were not the only thing being pitched last Tuesday – Team Libboo was on deck for the MassChallenge PitchFest 2011. MC PitchFest is the time for the finalists to show off and ‘pitch’ their company to the world in only 60 seconds. All the finalist teams did an awesome job during this friendly competition. And, like at Fenway park, there was plenty of beer and snacks!
So, it’s the bottom of the 9th and Chris is on stage ready to deliver the Libboo pitch – the clock is set for 60 seconds and…. Chris bring his guitar….! He delivers a homerun – singing…..Yes, singing the pitch to an audience of MC finalists, mentors, and visitors from around the Boston area. Afterwards, everyone was talking about the only pitch that was a song..Wow!
We are also very happy to introduce our newest team member, Dan Zuch. Dan is from Buffalo, New York and will be working with our development team. You will get to know more about Dan in our upcoming podcast.
Please feel free to leave us a comment or suggestions. You can do this by clicking on the blog post title. Be sure to follow our ‘News from the Cube’ every Tuesday.
-Team Libboo
_____
Visit us on www.facebook.com/libboo and www.twitter.com/libboo – where you will find news and content from the publishing world, along with advice for writers and news from our community.
With the mercury pegged at above 90F for the last week in Boston -things are sizzling for team Libboo at MassChallenge. Having survived business bootcamp, our mentor board officially selected, along with our team goals submitted to MC- we are executing our projects, goals and plans to make Libboo the hottest writing community on the planet!
Our first exciting news of the week – Richard and Anna tied the knot and were married on Saturday. Congratulations to the newlyweds!
While in the UK, Chris met with best selling author, Professor Richard Wiseman – and talked about his latest book Paranormality, recently released in the US. I’ve just downloaded my copy and its proving to be awesome and intellectually stimulating seeing how Professor Wiseman debunks paranormal behavior and brings it into the context of our every day. Time to throw away that crystal ball!
Richard Wiseman is also co-author and generously helped us start The Great Libboo Experiment: ‘PARADOX: The curious life and mysterious death of Mr Joseph’ Wheeler’ – A shout-out goes to our members currently working on ‘Paradox’, You guys rock!
In the meantime, while a bit lonely in the Cube, Fernando has been working away on developing new projects for our community. We’ve planned a few things:
- Summer Writing Expos: We would like to feature content from our members: for example poetry, BBQ recipes and short stories. We’ll be announcing the first of our Expos this coming week!
- Libboo Interviews: Every two weeks, we will interview one member from our community and feature one of their libbooks on our blog.
Be sure to follow our Tuesday and Friday blog for news- and content to help you get your project written at Libboo.com
And now, this week’s photo:
-Team Libboo
______
Be sure to follow us on www.facebook.com/libboo and on www.twitter.com/libboo!
We’re always tweaking and adjusting Libboo, and today we released a small update which should make Libboo a better place.
We have improved our spam filtering processes, so all Libboo content should now be spam free.
Material now gets manually checked by the Libboo Team so we can weed out all suspicious users and material before it ‘hits the shelves’. If something does get through our Libboo-dar then there are ‘Report Spam’ buttons all over the place. If that button gets clicked, Libboo-Busters roar into action and take whatever steps are necessary.
We’ve just upgraded some of the features on Libboo, so, what have we done?
We have re-written our editor, it’s now more intuitive, easier to use, and has all the information you need to write collaborative books in one place. It also updates in real time so you can see what others are doing as they are doing it.
Copying/pasting from popular word processors like MS Word is now much smoother. We have also reworked the finished product for all Libbooks, making them more like real publications you find in shops.
The way you manage a Libbook has changed. You now have an Events panel telling you everything that changes in real time. You can run multiple Actions at once, send and receive messages via email.
Libboo is now fully integrated with Twitter! You can add as many twitter accounts as you like to integrate with Libboo, selecting which events you want to be posted to the site.
We’ve been hard at work over the last 24 hours, working through the day and night (we’re in different time zones) to upgrade the site.
We’ve added several new features and done some serious bug fixing, to make your Libboo experience much smoother.
So, what have we actually changed?
- New and improved email alerts
- A new style front page for published Libbooks
- The ability to see exactly how your Libbook will look before it’s published
- Automatically add your published Libbooks to the Libboo Twitter feed
- Better support for Internet Exploder
- Smoother operations on Libboo Tasks
- Increased support for non-English characters in names and usernames
- Improved chapter tags in Libbooks
We have also upgraded our backend system, making our lives here at Team Libboo that little bit easier.
There’s still a lot we want to do with Libboo – it’s just a matter of getting the features made, tested and deployed.
We hope you like what Libboo is becoming – and hope to see you soon!
Team Libboo.
So, from the state of the blog it looks like all we have been doing lately is making badges and stickers, and forcing people to wear them… we have been doing that, but we’ve been up to other things too.
We’re putting some serious time into developing some extra features for Libboo, some large and some small. I can’t tell you about the big ones yet, those we are keeping under our hats until we launch them, but I can tell you about some of the smaller features, and fixes.
You will soon be able to preview your Libbooks before you publish them, that way you can see what the finished result will look like before making it available to the world.
Whenever anyone publishes a Libbook it will be automatically posted to out special twitter account – libboopublished, that way you can easily keep track of new Libbooks.
Libboo will now remember your sign-in name (unless you un-tick the ‘remember me’ box), making it easier and quicker to sign in.
We have increased the quality of book pages, so reading books on Libboo.com should now be easier. We’ve also designed a new book front page, making it cleaner, and easier to read.
As for the big features… watch this space…
