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For Me, Tablo Is A Dead End

I’ve been working on two stories on Tablo, the free-to-read and help-to-publish website that is rather good to use.

As I say over on my Author Info page, they are a pair of novellas;  the first one, titled “EMC-Squared” is going through the artwork & editing stage.  The second one, titled “the Juliet Gambit“, at the time of this blog post is in the first-draft / work-in-progress stage.

Over all, for a “live beta”, the service is pretty good.  There are a few annoying quirks, such as status pages that don’t reflect current stats, or “BookWorm” values that seem fixed in place for days at a time, regardless of other information on the site telling you differently.  I’m a Safari web browser user, since I do a lot of my writing and business on an MacBook, and I expect that it’s one of those browsers than an “author-centric” service should support properly.

However, a day or so ago, in spite of my initial enthusiasm for the service, I came to the conclusion that Tablo is a dead-end, at least for me.  The reason is economics, which is something I’ve talked about before here on this site.

Tablo Congrats EMail
Tablo Congrats EMail

I got an encouraging email from Tablo that looked like this:

Well, that’s pretty damn cool, isn’t it?  Tablo sends emails like this at least weekly, giving you a sense that things are going well for your writing.

I’ve had readers from the UK, the USA, Brazil, Germany and such.  But this is the first time that Tablo suggested maybe I want to consider the next step, going all-in and publishing to paperback.

Ok, that’s really encouraging.  I mean, I’d like to think they are making that suggestion based on hit rate, read-time and the like.  Real statistics that translate into possible reader spending.

Curious, I followed the link.  It took me to my “Publishing Options” page, where I can flip switches I’ve already looked at to enable publishing to Kindle, and other sites, and then in paperback.  No mention of costs or anything here, though.

Tablo - Cost of Publishing (About Page)
Tablo – Cost of Publishing (About Page)

A bit of checking around the Tablo website found this paragraph fairly quickly (points to Tablo for a easy-to-navigate site and good FAQ):

 

I’ve got this as a screen-snap, since the Tablo website prevents copy-paste, for obvious reasons.

My first reaction to those prices — $99 per year to list an eBook and $299 to list a paperback — roughly amounts to “go home, Tablo, you’re a drunk Aussie”.

If I have to use a site like Tablo to publish, let’s be honest, I’m not making $299 USD a year.  As I comment in my previous My Five Dollar Book, Coffee Vs Book or Trust vs Risk and It’s A Business blog posts, an established independant author can expect to sell 500 units in the first year for a book.  Of course, an established independant author doesn’t need Tablo, they’re already set up.

Authors like myself, who aren’t established, are the folks looking at services like Tablo. I know I don’t sell 500 copies a year of a new release.  I’m roughly one quarter that, per published book, if all goes well.  If I have to pay $299 USD a year up front to hope a book will sell and cover that extra cost … Uh, no.

Firstly, it was not clear to me from the website if that is a per title fee or per author fee, or per year fee or one-time fee or, or … and if I can’t answer those questions from the FAQ, I have to presume it’s the worst-case scenario before I make any commitments.

Tablo, if you read this, fix your FAQ and get some clarity.  Please.

They quote “40,000 stores and 30,000 libraries”, but ok, how is that different than Amazon KDP and CreateSpace?

If that $299 includes active book promotion and therefore increased odds of a sale, that’s interesting.  If it’s just more darts to throw at the board, well, 90% of the board is already covered by Amazon.

If it doesn’t include active promotion, why would I want to front-load my financial risk, instead of absorbing it on a per-sale basis?  In other words, why is $299 up front a better deal for the authors than a 30% per unit revenue split?  They don’t say.  There are no numbers, no hard data, to make an informed business decision with.

One of those things you learn in a hurry in independent publishing is that “fee up front before visible results” is a warning sign.  Now, I’m not accusing Tablo of being anything but above-board and well-intentioned.  What I am saying is that, as presented, they aren’t making a good sales case.

To put it another way, from a purely pragmatic perspective, why should I spend $299 up front with Tablo, as opposed to a targeted sales campaign on Goodreads or some book-blog website?  What is the value proposition?  I don’t know.

So, for me at least, until I hear from other authors who are unrepresented unknowns like myself, Tablo is a dead end as a publishing service.  I cannot afford the risk to experiment.  The cover-art that I have coming for “EMC-Squared” is going to set me back a healthy fee, and the editing costs are substantial as well.

I know that KDP and CreateSpace work, as they are, and I get results.

Thanks very much for reading.  If you’re a published author via Tablo, I’d love to hear what your experience has been.  If you’re looking a Tablo, let me know what your thoughts about the pricing are.

I’d love to hear from all of you.  All the best, and good luck with your writing and your book sales!

Published inAuthor Space

8 Comments

  1. R.E. Vaughn R.E. Vaughn

    Avoid Tablo. Quarantine yourself from this infected parody of an aggregation/publishing service.

    My experience with Tablo was disappointing. You’re absolutely right about not paying upfront before seeing something tangible. I paid to have an ebook set up by Tabloand ended up with something friends raised an eyebrow at–no copyright page, no title page, and a table-of-contents at the REAR of the book. Tablo didn’t seem too concerned when I asked about the odd format, gave me a canned response as far as I’m concerned. There was a $29 fee to update as well. And as for the print version, 10 days after paying, I still had nothing showing online. I finally through in the towel and called it quits when the owner, Ash Davies, said everything had been submitted and all I had to do was wait. How could he have submitted anything without a price for the book or the back cover info from me? All their slick web pages and upbeat rhetoric really overlay a company ran by a frat boy at the helm.

  2. Julia Schulz Julia Schulz

    I personally have found Tablo both efficient and exciting to use. I cannot sing their praises highly enough. Simple and straightforward, leaving me without the confusion and tension of self-publishing. They have granted me the freedom to purely concentrate on my story. All I had to do was hit publish at the end, and they took it away from there. We must be realistic in our hopes as to what we can achieve in the literary world. Let’s be practical. Most of us are not going to be making much money from the sales of our books. It is a little bit of fun. And, as far as I am concerned, Tablo have provided an efficient and extremely well structured playground for me to play in, to create something of my own, and have a book that I have written placed into my hands. End of story. I like to think of the annual membership as green fees; in which I pay money to belong to an exclusive golf club.

  3. Hi I have not started writing my book on tablo yet, I was reading comments and checking it out first. I do notice they do not talk about price or anything close to price up front. This bring a red flag to me because, if we put our information and books on this site; what will happen if we don’t pay the fee when they tell us to. Can they steel our information and change the name of the book? This is a very big concern for me.

  4. Avinash Avinash

    It was all awesome when I published my first poetry book from Tablo in 2018. I lost track of how many book I sold and was charged annual subscription. Recently I was send an invoice to pay annual subscription, little I know my credit card was charged and I realised that I never got my royalty paid for books sold since 2018. I am looking for a new publisher to transition to as I still want my book available on Amazon,etc. Not happy as I am sending emails almost everyday since July request inf Tablo to pay my royalty.

  5. F. Javier Monreal F. Javier Monreal

    Yea!!!
    I recently received a stiff charge ($598) on my checking account by Tablo.
    For what! Thieves!
    I have not seen a cent in royalties yet sinceI started with them back in 3019.
    I had told them earlier in 2020 to stop ALL charges and further “yearly” public’ns Fees!!!!

  6. Steve Books Steve Books

    Wow,thanks for the reviews,i have been communicating with Tablo and now i think i’ll go with the safe option KDP.

  7. Thanks for your candid review, I too am yet to receive any royalties, no reply to my emails, the sales dashboard has been in beta mode for over 2 years and they just do not seem to want to communicate. Many are reaching out to me since I updated my initial positive reviews and downgraded them to 1 stars. It appears they are all over you until you pay, then when you seek the payment for sales they go on radio silence.

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