
Show HN: Softcover – A publishing platform from the author of the Rails Tutorial - mhartl
http://www.softcover.io/
======
markbates
Congratulations on the launch.

As the first author on the platform,
[http://conqueringthecommandline.com](http://conqueringthecommandline.com),
and as the author of two other books
([http://books.markbates.com](http://books.markbates.com)), I can say that
this was the easiest, and nicest tool chain I've worked with.

It took me from saying "I'm never going to write another book again" to "I
have so many books I want to write now!".

~~~
webwanderings
Very nicely done. Just finished reading the whole. Hope you'd write the
sequel.

~~~
markbates
Glad to hear you like it.

------
callmeed
I remember meeting Michael Hartl in the airport prior to RailsConf a couple
years ago. Great guy & I recall he mentioned this idea. Nice to see it
launch–best of luck!

~~~
mhartl
Thanks, Erik! I remember that meeting fondly—in line at Long Beach Airport en
route to Austin, if I recall correctly. I hope all is well!

------
acangiano
This is very interesting and well done. I have a few questions.

1\. Am I allowed to sell the files elsewhere? For example, sell the .mobi file
on Amazon Kindle and publish a printed version via CreateSpace.

2\. Are the files watermarked at all with Softcover's branding?

3\. Is this open to authors everywhere or are there restrictions?

4\. Will this handle sale taxes for authors? I'm a Canadian author with a
PST/GST account, will I be able to collect that from Canadian customers?

PS: The Browse and Setup links on conqueringthecommandline.com are meant to
point to softcover.io, so they are broken at the moment.

~~~
mhartl
Great questions, Antonio. I've just deployed an update to the front page at
[http://www.softcover.io/](http://www.softcover.io/) answering some of them,
but for convenience I'll answer them below as well.

 _1\. Am I allowed to sell the files elsewhere? For example, sell the .mobi
file on Amazon Kindle and publish a printed version via CreateSpace._

Yes, you retain copyright on everything you make and can do anything you want
with the files. They get built on your system by Softcover's open-source
toolchain, so you have complete control.

 _2\. Are the files watermarked at all with Softcover 's branding?_

No, the books have no Softcover branding. The online version has an
inconspicuous Softcover-branded footer by default, but even that can be
removed with a simple config setting, as described in the manual
([http://manual.softcover.io/book/marketing#additional_informa...](http://manual.softcover.io/book/marketing#additional_information)).

 _3\. Is this open to authors everywhere or are there restrictions?_

Softcover is open to anyone, and there are no restrictions.

 _4\. Will this handle sale taxes for authors? I 'm a Canadian author with a
PST/GST account, will I able to collect that from Canadian customers?_

I don't know about this one. If you join the [Softcover Google
Group]([https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/softcover-
publishing](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/softcover-publishing)),
I'll introduce you to my cofounder Nick Merwin, who is in charge of stuff like
this. If we don't currently support collecting Canadian sales tax, we might be
able to add it.

~~~
acangiano
Thank you, Michael. I joined the group.

------
avolcano
Seems like an alternative to [https://leanpub.com/](https://leanpub.com/) with
much better design. I'm very impressed.

~~~
Anjin
Thanks, I manage the front-end design and development so hearing that warms my
heart!

~~~
jimhart3000
As the frontend dev, any insight as to why you didn't go responsive with this?
It's a nice looking site and you did a great job, but I'm surprised - since
this is a publishing platform that obviously caters to multiple devices - to
not see a device-agnostic approach to the site.

~~~
Anjin
It's on the way!

Long answer: Over the course of development there had been some thought as to
whether or not the Softcover site would just be an informational site for the
Softcover gem and a place for authors to get their sales stats, and then each
book page would be its own separate thing that would be more or less fully-
customizable by the author. Point is that most people would have had to be
interacting with the site on a desktop because that's where they'd need to do
things like install gems and run the server.

We've kind of moved away from the idea of having a Myspace free-for-all,
towards something that is more of a designed garden, planning on allowing a
good deal of customization on the book side – each book page loads a
completely separate stylesheet from what is used on the rest of the site for
that reason.

With that I'm going to be focusing on redoing a lot of the presentation side
to meet what we'll need, and a part of that will be responsive styling.

~~~
jimhart3000
Thanks for the answer. That's good reasoning; I figured as well as this all
seemed put together it wasn't "oh, geez, didn't think of that!" so I'm glad to
see there was a reason. :)

------
desireco42
This looks amazing and further increases my respect for Michael Hartl. I don't
really have publishing intentions, yet making this as seamless as it is should
allow people who have talent and desire to publish their works easily.

I see that Michael is answering questions here, so here is one. If someone
decides to publish... let's skip anarchy, let's say erotic and porn novels, is
this still game?

Now that I think this through, someone can use toolchain and get their stuff
published anyway, I would just like to know, where are boundaries of your
service?

~~~
mhartl
Thanks for the kind words. We might not choose to highlight titles that could
invite controversy (especially not early on), but our intent is to produce a
flexible publishing tool that is limited only by the imagination of the
author. If that imagination includes, e.g., erotica, I wouldn't in principle
have any objections, especially if (as I would generally recommend to most
authors) they opted to use a custom domain name.

------
rpicard
I'm so excited about this! I'm currently drafting the last few chapters for
Explore Flask (web development book funded via Kickstarter) and the whole
self-publishing process is a mess when it comes to formatting. It looks like
the Markdown + Latex solution with things like boxes, code blocks and tables
pre-configured is an awesome way to do things. I'm almost certainly going to
switch to this toolchain from pandoc.

I'll also look into using the sales / hosting platform too. I'm a little
hesitant to put that in someone else's hands, but you guys have done such a
great job that I'll probably end up giving in.

Can't wait to start working with this!

~~~
mhartl
Great to hear it! Don't worry about sales & hosting platform; Softcover
supports custom domains, so you're never locked in. You could switch your
domain over to your own website at any time. I just know from experience what
a pain it can be, so we figure lots of people will be happy to pay a small
percentage in exchange for the convenience of not having to build and maintain
everything yourself.

------
ryderm
This is very well put together, and makes me excited about the possibility of
writing in the future. mhartl, I did your rails tutorial a few years ago with
very little programming background, and it singlehandedly got me interested in
programming enough to switch majors and spend all my time learning and
building things. Thanks, and congrats on the launch!

~~~
mhartl
Awesome, glad to hear it!

------
siculars
Congrats on the launch. Looks great and is tempting me to take a real stab at
writing I've always flirted with. Q: is there planned integration with print?
Could you send out text to a printer and get an actual book made? DO you have
relationships with any printers?

~~~
mhartl
Thanks! Glad it looks tempting.

We've definitely looked into print. It's a tough nut to crack, and the
ecosystem might not be mature enough yet for automatic integration. Lulu, for
example, built an API, but not enough people used it, so they closed it to new
developers. I'd love to offer a print solution at some point, though, so we'll
keep an eagle eye on it.

In any case, the Softcover production system uses LaTeX, which is designed to
make print-quality PDFs. The default output is optimized for tablets, but
adapting it to a print-ready version is fairly straightforward. I expect we'll
incorporate that into the typesetting system at some point. But unfortunately
right now you'll have to do a lot of work by hand no matter which production
system you use.

------
habosa
This looks excellent, congrats on the launch.

Also if anyone out there hasn't read Michael's Rails Tutorial, read it now.
The best and most thorough tutorial I have ever read on any topic, it opened
my eyes to modern web programming.

------
rafeed
This is awesome! Well defined, and I like the design and intro video. I wish
there were something like this for writing journal articles. Right now, it's a
total pain.

------
benatkin
I saw this go to the second page. I don't think it's enough to link to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest)
rather than the story from twitter to avoid being penalized. I think saying
that it's on Hacker News might be the way to promote it without getting
penalized. I think this is right up HN's alley though so I expect it to stay
on HN for half a day. :)

------
infocollector
Very cool project. Just in case if people are interested in Python for
something like this, I've been using some code to do this (slides):
[http://bit.ly/pythonclass](http://bit.ly/pythonclass) \- Its in alpha and
I've been using this to teach my python class. Haven't pushed it to
github/bitbucket, but I would love to share (or work together with others) if
there is demand.

------
mikekij
@mhartl FTW! Great work.

Kind of reminds me of a LaTeX for the web. Source code files -> properly
formatted documents. I may use this in a future project. Looks awesome!

------
prateekj
Looks like a nice product! Congrats on the launch.

One of the main concerns for any new book is marketing. Are you planning to
address this issue?

~~~
mhartl
The Softcover sales platform includes a marketing page with slots for author
bio, testimonials, FAQs, etc. (See, for example, Mark Bates's marketing page
at
[http://conqueringthecommandline.com/](http://conqueringthecommandline.com/))
Softcover also supports an optional free HTML version of your book, which can
be a great marketing tool. Finally, we are planning to develop a step-by-step
"Marketing Wizard" to give authors detailed advice and guidance in their
marketing efforts.

~~~
thaweatherman
Do authors have the option of providing a book preview for free online rather
than the entire thing? Or does that feature only allow for the entire book to
be made free online?

~~~
mhartl
Yes, Softcover has integrated support for making downloadable previews. In
addition, currently the HTML version has to be either 100% free or 100% behind
a paywall, but we plan to add the capability to make select HTML preview
chapters available as well.

------
thaweatherman
I love it! One comment I do have though is that the space alloted to the video
on the page is quite large. Larger than the default zoom in Firefox at least.
While it isn't a huge deal to not be able to see the whole picture and there
is a full screen button, it might be helpful to some to make the video smaller
on the page.

~~~
Anjin
Yeah... I wanted to do a big full screen stretching video. But probably easier
to constrain it. Changed!

------
taylorlapeyre
This has the potential to become the definitive way to publish and buy books
online. Amazingly well done.

------
HistoryInAction
Interesting, especially in context of the FG Press announcement. Good luck!

~~~
mhartl
Thanks!

------
barkingcat
I'm running into error with "softcover server" not sure if it's my set up or
if it's something in softcover.

I'm on os x, using ruby 193

~~~
mhartl
Sorry for the inconvenience. If you join the [Softcover Google
Group]([https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/softcover-
publishing](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/softcover-publishing)) and
post the error message there, I'll take a look and see if we can figure it
out.

------
the4dpatrick
Congrats on launching!

Reminded of when of a youtube video where you talked about this idea and how
you solved your money problems through the rails tutorial.

------
aalpbalkan
Congrats, looks good. Will it remain free? What will be the restrictions in
the future.

~~~
mhartl
Thanks! The Softcover production system is available for free as open-source
software under the permissive MIT License. Softcover just takes a cut of
sales, so we only make money when you make money.

------
hrjet
This looks great. I was not able to find out myself: Where is the source-code
hosted?

~~~
Anjin
That is totally up to you. You can write your book and push changes to GitHub,
store the book files in your Dropbox directory, tempt fate and just store them
locally, etc.

Softcover just pulls in the HTML and eBooks that are compiled from the source
code, as well as the book config files, and generates the views and links.

~~~
hrjet
Thanks for that info, but my question was about the source code of Softcover
itself.

------
Ash-k
This is cool.. congratulation

------
macobo
Awesome. I'll look into this when writing my thesis.

------
ogdenyogly
Bookmarked this for when I complete my novel :)

~~~
Anjin
I know you are joking a bit, but if you were really thinking about jumping
into writing a novel, being able to publish nicely formatted HTML chapters as
you write them for free to people is a great way to get people interested from
an early stage.

It's a model that has worked in the past for some people, including this
recent example I heard about on NPR:
[http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/02/14/2014/andy-weir-
th...](http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/02/14/2014/andy-weir-the-
martian.html)

He slowly published each chapter, then when he finally finished the book, he
posted the ebook versions for free on his site. Eventually he added it to
Amazon (and had to attach a price to it because they don't let you give away
ebooks) to help people load the ebook onto their Kindle with less friction
than making them download and transfer the file, he found that he was selling
more copies of the book than he was giving away for free on his site.

It's exactly that model of openly sharing what you are working on with the
people that are going to use or be entertained by it that we want Softcover to
encourage.

~~~
bowerbird
thanks for point to that, i hadn't seen it before, and it's a great example of
the experience many have had, namely that giving away an e-book can spur sales
of it.

-bowerbird

------
yixizhang
Backend has become simple enough that you wouldn't have to pay much attention.
The great design of this website has anything specific to do with its Rails
backend?

------
globalpanic
How does this differ from leanpub?

~~~
mhartl
Softcover is based on the Rails Tutorial model, which differs from Leanpub in
several key ways. I actually think Leanpub is a great service if it meets all
of your needs as an author, and in fact if it had met all of _my_ needs I
might not have bothered building Softcover. (Of course, Leanpub didn't exist
when I first started publishing the Rails Tutorial in 2009, but I might have
used it for follow-on products.) Here are some of the important differences:

\- _Softcover comes with an industrial-strength, open-source production
system._ This means you can write heavily formatted books with cross-
references, code listings, tables, etc., and interactively build them locally,
all without being locked in to a proprietary system.

\- _Softcover 's HTML books are first-class citizens._ The online version of
the Rails Tutorial is a key part of its marketing strategy, so it has to be
polished and prominent.

\- _Softcover gives you your customer list._ Letting customers opt-in to share
their email is fine for more casual authors, but it isn't ideal if (like me)
you're trying to build a business.

\- _Softcover supports custom domains._ It's important to me to use a custom
domain for branding/SEO and so that I own my own traffic.

------
rastokes
Is the logo an ouroboros?

~~~
Anjin
It is! Idea was to signify our desire to consume traditional publishing with a
new publishing model. Publishing eating publishing.

~~~
peterarmstrong
"New publishing model"? You could have just used a photocopier.

~~~
bowerbird
now, now, peter, let's not get cranky. :+)

you've seen other competitors before, and will probably see a whole lot more,
and all of them won't be as incompetent as those you have faced down in the
past.

ok, for those of you who might not know, peter is the force behind
leanpub.com...

which is highly similar to this site, but has been around for a few years
already.

so, no, this is not a "new" model, and there _will_ be similar tool-chains
that will come soon, and i can guarantee it, because i'll be releasing one
that i've been working on for over a _decade_ now.

but we do not need internal squabbling, because killing corporate publishers
is gonna be hard, no matter how many of us are committed and dedicated to
doing it.

yes, they are dinosaurs, and yes, they _will_ go extinct, eventually, even if
we do absolutely nothing. but they are also dinosaurs with _very_ deep
pockets, and that's a significant factor in the greedy money-ruled world we
have today.

so welcome to the revolution, softcover. strap on a helmet, and let's get to
work.

-bowerbird

------
lizk
This is awesome!

------
marukokinno
Congratulations! Will use it. By the way, thank you very much, Mr. Hartl, for
the rails tutorial. It was life changing for me, a former completely non-tech
guy, now running my customs brokerage business trough a collaborative database
tool horribly coded by me myself :) edit: misspell

------
marukokinno
I noticed that when changing from one chapter page to another, it loads much
faster than the original rails tutorial, that takes forever. Nice improvement,
still note a little latency though. It will be nice for people to study the
Rails Tutorial Book when published on Softcover's new platform. Is going to
happen?

~~~
mhartl
There is already a version of the _Rails Tutorial_ book that builds on
Softcover, and in the coming weeks I plan to move the full tutorial over to
the Softcover platform (taking care to preserve things like legacy download
links). Watch for an announcement once the change-over is complete.

