https://www.dbooks.org

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Hi, @timoshey here to give updates on the dbooks platform. It’s been over 2 weeks since we announced the launch of the self-publishing application on steem; dbooks, and we want to thank everyone that has in one way or another contributed to the opening of the platform. From the inception till date, we can say over 40 books have been created on the platform. These books include concluded chapters and some still ongoing. We still need a lot of support from the community in terms of delegations as we have noticed the traffic on the site has drastically reduced mainly because we have next to nothing to offer in terms of monetary value for now. I will get back to that after I talk about the updates on the site.

We would like to appreciate the following people for using the platform so far:

• @spiritualmax
• @goldendawne
• @taskmaster4450
• @etaletai
• @ben.zimmerman
• @limitlessfash
• @hranhuk
• @texrex
• @luigiborla
• @alexaventuria
• Selena Reed
• Dave Everett
• @simplymike
• Theo W. Fitzsimmons
• Michael S. Sommermeyer
• @memepress
• @gold84
  And others who did not update their pen names.

We have done a lot of work since the announcement and added some of the features promised. We have also completely changed the UI of the site to make it more user-friendly. I would like to recognize the wonderful effort of our CTO @feekayo who has made all these updates possible.

Features Added

1. Rental Feature

It is now possible for users to monetize their books by setting rental fees for each book published. The authors of these books are given the freedom to set the rental price as they please but need to take to account the 20% service charge when setting the price. The price will be set in SBD, that is, users would be able to spend their SBD in renting these books on our site. The rental fee can be updated at any time in the event that the value of SBD either rises or falls.
The author’s total earnings would be visible on the site and he/she can choose to claim them at any time. The funds would be transferred immediately to the author’s steemit account. Books are rented out for a period of 30 days at a time.

2. Review and Rating

It is possible to add reviews to books created on the site. The reviewer can decide to publish the review on steemit as a post or not by ticking the ticker below the comment section.
A 5-star rating system has also been introduced. Readers can now review a book and rate the book out of a total of 5 stars which would help subsequent readers decide on the quality of the book before having to read the whole publication. Reviews that are allowed to be posted on steemit can be upvoted thus serving as an incentive to the reviewer. But take note that the review has to be detailed and well-structured to be able to attract favourable upvotes.

3. Language Filter

When creating a new book, it is now possible to select the language in which you want the book to be published in. This would help readers filter their selections easily and select their preferred language of choice.

4. Reward Pool Sharing

In other to create a sustainable income for authors on the dbooks platform, we have decided to create a reward pool which would be shared by everyone based on the interactions you get with your publications for each month. This reward pool would be gotten from the 20% fee being charged for publishing via the dbooks platform. 50% of the 20% collected would go into the reward pool and every month, this pool would be shared among users in steem.
We have to be realistic in dealing with this. Since the comment_beneficiary_reward (that is the 20% gotten from every post made) gets rewarded in steempower (SP), it would take a total of 13 weeks to completely power down the reward for each month. We have automated the transfers and have been able to separate the company funds from the authors funds. 10% would go to the company fund and the other 10% would go to the author’s fund.
The company funds would be held by the @dbooks.org account while the author’s funds would be held by the @dbooks.pay account. In other to speed up the process of the payment of the reward pool, we have decided that for now, we would conduct a power down of both accounts every month thereby reducing the waiting time by half (roughly 7 weeks now instead of 13 weeks). So it would take a total of 3 months for the authors to be rewarded from the reward pool. The funds taken from the dbooks.org account would be transferred back via the dbooks.pay account eventually. We see it as a non-interest loan.
The payment for the book rental to the author would be instant as oppose to the reward pool, since the payments are made in SBD and there’s no need for a power down in this case.

5. Partial Article Posting on Steemit.

In a bid to protect the work of an author if he/she eventually decides to put a price on the work, we have introduced the feature that posts only one-third of the article on steemit, leaving a link to our platform to complete the read. We believe this would bring in more traffic to our site and also make the rental feature workable because people cannot have complete access to the work by just surfing the blockchain.

Ways Authors Can Earn Using Dbooks.

In other to eliminate confusion, it is important I highlight the ways authors can earn from the platform. There are 4 different categories of authors on the dbooks platform, I will quickly run through that:

1. The category of people that allow their books to be published on our site and also on the steemit site.
2. The category of people that publish their books strictly on our site without setting a rental fee.
3. The category of people that publish strictly on our site and set a rental fee.
4. The category of people that publish on both our site and on steemit and also set a rental fee for their books.

After listing out the different categories, I will now explain how each category stands to benefit from the platform.

1. Those that allow their books to be published on steemit would be able to share out of the reward pool because they constitute the reward pool.
2. Those that publish their books strictly on our site without setting a rental fee would not be eligible to earn from dbooks because their books have a free access and also because they do not constitute the reward pool and it would be unfair to include them.
3. Those that publish strictly on dbooks and set a rental fee would be able to earn from the reward gotten from the rental of their books.
4. Those that publish on both our site and on steemit would be able to earn from the reward gotten from the rental of their books and also share of the reward pool.

We are working, we are actively working to get this project up and running and get the word out there as far as possible with the very limited funds we have at our disposal. Below are some of the steps we have taken to improve our present position.

• We started a campaign on the hyperfundit.com to solicit for funds. You can check out the campaign and help donate a few bucks to our course.

• We also recently got added to @roelandp ‘s solicitingpower site, where users and interested parties can easily delegate steempower to their favoured projects. You can check out our page here.

• We were added to @noisy steemprojects website, which showcases all the approved applications that has been built on steem. It’s amazing to note that over 345 applications have been built on this blockchain.

• We also recently had the opportunity to pitch dbooks at the @steemcreators conference in Las Vegas. A big thanks to @hyperfundit team and @entrepreneur916 for this great opportunity to talk about our project.

From all these, I am sure you can see that we have a lot to offer our users and the steemit community at large. Creating a mini market place where SBD can be spent is a welcome development which @ned and the steemit Inc people should look into.

Donate To @dbooks.org

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In other to make all these possible and many more which we have in store, we need the support of people that appreciate what we are doing to help fund the project by delegating steempower to the @dbooks.org account which would be used to manually curate publications made on our site. You don’t have to have thousands or hundreds of thousands of steempower to delegate, you can delegate as little as 50SP to help support this project, we believe that your little drops of water would eventually make a mighty ocean.

I recently delegated a very sizeable amount of my SP to the @dbooks.org account. Though the amount might seem very small, my aim is to show how much faith I have in the project and I would encourage others to do the same. I have successfully led by example. Below are varieties of ways you can delegate to the @dbooks.org account.

You can easily delegate to the @dbooks.org account via the much needed and thoughtful platform created by our dear @roelandp; solicitingpower by clicking here

Or by using @yabapmatt steembottracker

Click on the amount you wish to delegate below. You can also click on the custom amount to set your preferred delegation amount.

50SP | 100SP | 500SP | 1000SP | 5000SP | Custom SP

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