Huffier
Contestant information
Business name:
Huffier
Name:
Andrew Cooper
Business website:
Twitter:
Facebook:
LinkedIn:
Elevator Pitch
Elevator Pitch:
eBook store rival to the Kindle Store where indie authors + publishers can take upto 100% in royalties & customers read first chapters FREE!
Detailed elevator pitch:
Huffier is an eBook Store offering services to publishers and indie authors (B2B) and the use of the store to general consumers (B2C). Consumers can: Discover new indie books. Read first chapters, free. Buy an eBook Bundle instead of an eBook. Rate & review titles. Test their knowledge on book quizzes. Publishers & Indie Authors can: Receive between 80% - 100% of sales royalties, access buyer data similar to how Facebook works for pages, set their own prices with no thresholds and receive royalty payments monthly. We're taking on Amazon. We aim to be insightful for publishers, to provide new opportunities to indie authors and to delight readers in every which way that is possible.
Industry sector:
Internet and New Media
Business Plan
Your USP:
No other eBook retailer in the world offers more than a 75% sale royalty on eBooks for selling titles for free. Huffier sells titles for free and gives the publisher / author at least 80% royalty. If they pay a premium per title then they can receive 100% of every sale made for a title. We offer readers the option to spend the same amount they would on Amazon for a single title, yet receive multiple eBook files for better flexibility in personal reading preferences. Users can read the entire first chapter of any titles in the store, for free. 60p is donated to the UK children's book charity Booktrust for every £1 classic literature title sold in the store.
Your market:
Publishers + authors hate Amazon, and so do a minority of consumers because of their tax evasion, their dispute with Hachette, their monopoly over the book retailing industry and their price fixing scandal to name a few. Publishers + authors alike are looking for other alternatives to Amazon in order to take away their monopolistic power. Libiro in the UK is interesting for indie authors, they offer 75% royalties to authors, but nothing to entice consumers away from Amazon like Huffier does with reading first chapters free and downloading eBook Bundles (PDF, ePub, Mobi files). Honestly, I can't sufficiently detail my knowledge of the eBook retailing market in 700 characters...
Your people:
Andrew Cooper - Founder & MD. 23. Studied computer science at University of Salford. Freelance web designer / developer from 2008 - 2012. Mentored by Lord Young of Graffham, billionaire Graham Weston, former MD of webuyanycar.com, former technical architect of moneysupermarket.com and other successful business / technical people. I developed the technical platform for the original subscription service and then amended this to be just the eBook store. Also carried out all of the business development with publishers and indie authors (secured licensing agreements making up 7,000 titles for a subscription service). Raised £8,000 from Start-Up Loans and £3,500 investment. There's more...
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