Do hipsters in Williamsburg read books? Angsty millennial site Thought Catalog is going to find out, with a new line of staff-written e-books.
The first four original e-books written by Thought Catalog staff and contributors include “Cover Story” by Liz Colville, “Going Down South” by Dan Hoffman, “Take Out Your Earrings Before You Fight” by Chelsea Fagan and How To Be A 20-Something,” a collection of some of the most popular articles published on Thought Catalog, edited by Stephanie Georgopulos and Brandon Scott Gorrell. The publisher is selling them for between $2.99 and $4.99 each at thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks, and they will be available for download on iPad, Kindle and Nook by the end of of the week.
The new publishing venture has been in the works since April. According to Thought Catalog’s founder and publisher Chris Lavergne, the publication received many emails from readers asking for books, and it then decided that it wanted to experiment with more long-form writing.
“We don’t really know where it will lead; we just think it will be an interesting venture for us from both a literary and business standpoint,” explained Lavergne.
While the first four books are by staff and regular contributing writers, anyone will be able to submit manuscripts of at least 5,000 words at thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
Other publishers like Politico and Newsweek publish e-books. It will be interesting to see if a niche publisher like Thought Catalog will be able to use e-books as a viable alternative stream of revenue. The investment is quite a bit lower than doing a run of physical books. After all, Thought Catalog isn’t trying to publish the next 900-plus-page Murakami novel.
“Thought Catalog digital books are a different take on the form — quick hits, subway reads, short story collections,” said Thought Catalog’s head of development Alex Magnin. “It’s content made for the digital reader.”
More in Media
NewFronts Briefing: Samsung, Condé Nast, Roku focus presentations on new ad formats and category-specific inventory
Day two of IAB’s NewFronts featured presentations from Samsung, Condé Nast and Roku, highlighting new partnerships, ad formats and inventory, as well as new AI capabilities.
The Athletic to raise ad prices as it paces to hit 3 million newsletter subscribers
The New York Times’ sports site The Athletic is about to hit 3 million total newsletter subscribers. It plans to raise ad prices as as a result of this nearly 20% year over year increase.
NewFronts Briefing: Google, Vizio and news publishers pitch marketers with new ad offerings and range of content categories
Day one of the 2024 IAB NewFronts featured presentations from Google and Vizio, as well as a spotlight on news publishers.
Ad position: web_bfu