Publishing Startup Tablo Raises $400,000 Seed Round

Tablo.io, a publishing platform built by 21-year-old Ash Davies, has raised $400,000 from Y Combinator partner Kevin Hale and Paul Reining. The company offers a Wattpad-like self-publishing experience – albeit with a superior design aesthetic – and a friction-free way to publish to Amazon and iBooks from your finished book.

“As a blogger I was so used to being able to type something and click a publish button,” said Davies. “I wanted to change this and give emerging authors a place where they can easily create, share, and connect with readers. Publishing a book with Tablo is as easy as publishing a blog and, when you finish writing, you’ll have an established readership.”

The service currently has 10,000 authors from 100 countries. Each author has a social profile on the site and authors can invite readers to follow them as they flesh out their books. The service offers a seamless, non-intrusive interface based around the book editor that allows you to enter text and publish it immediately. Book chapters appear as “posts” in the service and users can read them or subscribe to updates.

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Indie publishing is full of tools like these, but Davies is focusing primarily on nice design and a usable interface. It’s a fascinating effort and the seed round should improve some of the site’s services and features. Plus you can enjoy a paranormal fairlytale for free night now, which is pretty sweet.

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