

Show HN: GitBook WebEditor - friendcode
https://www.gitbook.com/blog/releases/webeditor

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jplahn
I've been using this to write a book and really enjoy it so far (though I also
enjoyed the desktop version, for what it's worth).

One thing I've noticed (and that I tweeted earlier) is that having my github
hooked up to my book, every time I save (via cmd-s, which I do out of habit
every minute or so) it automatically pushes to my repo. So without realizing
it, I had something like 50 commits after working for 15 minutes. Not a big
deal, but it might be nice to separate the two.

The other thing I've noticed is that saving also builds the book. So in this
same 15 minute period of working, I went to the status page of my book and
noticed I had 50 or so builds currently being processed, with almost all of
them failing in a flurry of emails an hour later. (Side note, any reason for
this?)

So the only thing I would say is that I'd like to see a separation of the
saving, committing, and building, much like the desktop version had. I'd like
to build my book (and commit it) at the end of the session, not on every save.
But maybe that's just me.

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foreign-inc
Am I the only one who thought this was a GitHub product from the LnF of their
website?

~~~
knicklabs
They even send out an "Explore today on Gitbook" email which looks an awful
lot like the "Explore today on Github" email.

It's a cool product, but they could use some original direction in their
branding and marketing.

~~~
krick
I'm pretty sure it's intentional, although they obviously wouldn't admit it.

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benatkin
Has this company licensed the Git trademark? [http://git-
scm.com/trademark](http://git-scm.com/trademark) (2.3)

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atonse
Err maybe I'm misunderstanding this but the pricing says 80% royalty? That
means they take 80% of your profits if you sell a book authored in this tool?
Is this normal in the book world?

Edit: I think I misread, the writer probably gets 80% royalty.

~~~
jarcane
80%-cost is higher than any other POD service I know, that's potentially quite
good.

Through my current publisher I get 70% after cost, so it depends on what their
fee is (and it irritates me more that they don't specify what that fee is).

I'm also more than a little uncomfortable with the monthly fee angle,
especially with it being mandatory to have your books listed on other
services. I'm a firm believer in 'money should flow to the author,' and it
makes your book's public availability outside of a niche site with poor
discoverability contingent entirely on continually providing said site with
more money. Your book now no longer pays for itself, but rather must make at
least enough to cover the cost or else it vanishes from the public eye.

It's a small fee, but having been through it and seeing what the long-tail of
a book can look like, it's something that can add up and be problematic in the
long run, and it also hampers the service's utility for those who wish to
offer their book free in digital. You can also probably bet on the likelihood
it will get bigger, not smaller, over time.

This is, in small scale, why vanity publishers were awful and why everyone
jumped on board with POD in the first place.

~~~
friendcode
I'll add more details about what are the fee and that the author is keeping
80%.

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s3nnyy
I've just wrote something for about an hour, then went to make a new outline
point via "add article" on the left pane. As a result, the editor refreshed to
the new empty outline-point and my previous written text disappeared, which is
a big no-go, I guess.

~~~
s3nnyy
One of the co-founders replied within three hours on a Sunday to this inquiry
with a notification that a code-change has been pushed such that this issue
can't happen again.

I am impressed.

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killercup
This looks interesting. It reminds me of [http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/)
which is basically a general-purpose Github-based web editor and that I used
some time ago to edit my markdown files.

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nacs
Looks good. Any plans for Bitbucket support?

