Today is an exciting day.
Not because it’s the first Tuesday of 2020, although we are generally excited about that (mostly because it means we made it through the first Monday of 2020).
But no—today is an exciting day for another, somewhat big reason.
Today is the day we officially announce the launch of the all-new Storiad—complete with a new logo, new color scheme, new marketing website, and overall new look and feel for our platform.
“Woah, that’s a lot of new things.” Oh, we know. 😉😉😉
Now, you might be wondering, “Why the changes? What does that mean for me as a (prospective) user?”
Great questions. You’ll be happy to know we penned this article solely to ensure we answer those questions (as well as finally share our own excitement outwardly, which has been bundled up for weeks and driving us nuts).
But before we jump into the reasoning behind launching the all-new Storiad, we thought it might be nice, and perhaps even helpful, to quickly revisit the origins of Storiad, as told by our Founder and CEO, Ramzi S. Hajj.
Let’s venture back a few years…
Why We Created Storiad in the First Place
The idea behind Storiad is one borne out of frustration. J.P., a good author-friend of Ramzi’s, had spent years writing and editing his first novel, then many more moons finding a publisher. And when the triumphant release day arrived, with the beautifully-produced book finally available for purchase, it went on to sell… very, very few copies.
Needless to say, J.P. was less than thrilled.
At the time, Ramzi was an economist studying markets at one of the Big Four accounting firms in Los Angeles. He was intrigued by the fate of J.P.’s book. So he did some research into the bookselling market.
What he found was a truly unique industry with little structure.
Every year in the US alone, over a million books are published. That is to say, every year the publishing industry introduces over a million new products. These products compete not only against other newly-published releases but against books published last year, 10 years ago, a hundred years ago. The competition for attention and sales is intense.
Storiad knows every book has a market, and everything we do is aimed at helping authors find that market to get their books discovered, reviewed, recommended, and bought.
Very few authors receive meaningful marketing and publicity support from their publishers. Indie authors, of course, are on their own from the get-go. They are—in every sense of the word—on their own.
The unfortunate reality is if a book lacks marketing and publicity support, it will fail to get discovered, reviewed, recommended, and bought.
Whereas many authors attempt to market and publicize their books, their efforts tend to be ad hoc and for a short duration. There is no centralized place from which authors can run organized and sustained book discovery campaigns. And absent an organized and sustained book marketing and publicity campaign, book sales remain depressingly low.
Having identified these market challenges, Ramzi built Storiad to provide solutions by integrating familiar technology with practical guidance at an affordable price. Storiad knows every book has a market, and everything we do is aimed at helping authors find that market to get their books discovered, reviewed, recommended, and bought.
Why We’ve Revamped Storiad’s Look and Feel
Ah, so now that you know a little about us, it’s time to answer today’s big question.
And over that course of Storiad’s existence, a lot of things have changed (both in the industry and here internally as a startup).
With these numerous changes and attempts to evolve to meet new user needs, the foundational look and feel of Storiad admittedly lost some of its… consistency.
And so looking into what major changes we could make for our users going into 2020, we decided that first and foremost, we would give them a platform that actually looks and feels as awesome as it is valuable and powerful.
With a fresh new website, as well as a new logo and color scheme that embodies the evolution of old school book marketing (the forever fun but expensive book tour) to new school book marketing (thank you, technology), we feel confident that we’ve achieved our goal.
What Authors and Publishers Can Expect from Storiad Moving Forward
Of course, you might be wondering, “Great—the new logo, color scheme, and website do look awesome. But is that all? What’s next for me as a Storiad user?” 💭💭💭
Ah, another great question (and one we’ve come well-prepared to answer).
Over the course of 2020, we plan to make significant changes aimed at giving our users, both authors and publishers, an extraordinary amount of benefit when it comes to managing and marketing their books. Here’s a sneak peek at what we have on the roadmap over the next twelve months:
- New-and-improved navigation—as well as look and feel—to the Storiad app itself
- In-app guided tours to properly introduce you to all of Storiad’s features
- In-app feedback collection to guide new product features (and more quickly fix any bugs)
- Weekly blog content with value-packed tips and guides for authors of all levels of experience
- A monthly newsletter that finds and shares the best new content for authors and publishers
- And more!
If we’re being fully honest, that’s not even half of what we’ve discussed amongst our team for what we want to do this year—but we’ll focus on bringing all of what’s on this list to life first. After all, for a team of four people looking to change the entire publishing world with software, we have to start small.
Get Started with Storiad for Free
So, there you have it!
Head on over to the homepage to check out our new logo, color scheme, and nifty illustrations in action.
We’ve also got awesome new features and about pages, as well as an easy-to-understand pricing page for any prospective users (or users looking to take your book marketing to the next level with Storiad Pro).
Most of all, we hope we were able to share, and perhaps even instill, a bit of excitement in you as a Storiad user with this announcement.
Oh, and last but not least, if you’re not currently part of the Storiad community, you should know you can create an account and access a handful of our core features, right now, 100% free, forever.
Sound like something you might be interested in? Get started with Storiad for free by clicking here and signing up with our Free account.
Until next time, and as always, happy book marketing! 😃😃😃