Thank you to Nate Hoffelder, whose Morning Coffee newsletter pointed me to the week's closing stories. I am particularly grateful to him for picking up news from BookFunnel that I would otherwise have missed. BookFunnel is one of those tools I know many authors use as part of their marketing and fulfillment service, and one that is perennially on my list of things I really must get around to spending the time to understand and start using.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
As yet, my understanding is rudimentary, so much of the terminology I am using to report it comes from BookFunnel's blog on the update, which I recommend you read if you are interested in pursuing it.
BookFunnel's WooCommerce Integration
BookFunnel are now offering a direct plugin for those who sell direct using WooCommerce. WooCommerce is the sales platform associated with WordPress, so this should make the integration of your WordPress website and BookFunnel account smoother. To quote some of the features they cite:
- Automatic delivery of e-books and audiobooks after purchase
- Supports free and paid orders
- Refund and cancellation support: when you issue a refund or cancel an order from your WooCommerce dashboard, BookFunnel automatically removes the book from the reader's library
- Delivery log: see exactly what was sent and when, right inside your WooCommerce admin
- Automatic retry: if a delivery notification fails, the plugin retries automatically and sends you an alert if there's a delay
Two notes on the requirements to use this plugin: you need a self-hosted WordPress site (not WordPress.com), and you need a Mid-List Author or higher BookFunnel account.
Kindle's ‘Story So Far' Feature Rolls Out
I am on much firmer ground when it comes to Kindle. And I reported a while back on the feature update that is in the news this week. “Story So Far” is one of those “enhanced reader experience” tools that seem to be becoming increasingly popular (see Spotify's Page Match), and which tend to use AI features that raise questions about how the AI is trained and where that training data then goes (to be clear, Amazon responded to the initial controversy by saying there is no storing of copyright materials or onward sharing, and that they are only used in the moment to provide the specific insight a paying reader has requested, and I am not aware anything has changed).
Story So Far provides readers with quick summaries when they pick a book back up and want to remember what happened last time, a bit like the recap at the start of a TV show episode. The feature was announced some time ago but is only now being rolled out, across some Kindle devices, and the Kindle app from the app store but not yet on Android.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
If you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.
Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.
