Online publishing platform Dimcos has closed their most significant partnership so far with Latvia’s largest book retailer Janis Roze. Dimcos will build the Latvian book giant a new publishing platform, where its 25 000 publications will be available for clients upon completion.
Dimcos is a young Finnish startup which has a thing for literature. The company provides new, as well as experienced, writers a place to publish and sell their productions in an interactive platform that supports social media visibility. Popular and promoted books and publications are displayed on the front page as recommendations, but less known publications are easily available through the search engine.
All of the books and documents published on the website are accessible through smartphones, tablets, computers and well, pretty much anything with an online connection and a screen.
What makes Dimcos appealing is its wide array of functionality for both readers and publishers coupled with social media recommendation options. Publishers can publish any form of text ranging from entire books to simple essays, and set a purchase price or release them for free. Documents can be ornamented with titles, sub-titles, descriptions, cover images and videos for better appearances.
Users can then browse through titles, read, and even comment and make notes on these texts, all of which can be viewed by other users. It’s a very liberal and volatile way of reading and it makes it easier for writers to get their productions out on the markets, with much less fuss than traditional publishing.
Frequent users of the webpage can make their own contributions, without necessarily having to be a writer by nature. The notes system is made so that readers who have remarks and ideas they wish to add can simply leave a comment on the spot they want, which will be then displayed on the side of the book for everyone to see. Vandalism is out of the question though, as users can hide or turn off the comment option altogether, leaving only the original text visible.
Publications can naturally be shared and recommended through the social media. This is one of the main reasons Dimcos could seriously help unknown writers to get visibility. When YouTube went viral, talented people emerged into public knowledge through videos. I don’t see why this couldn’t happen with talented writers as well. Dimcos is a place where self advertisement doesn’t require such ludicrous amounts of dedication. All you need to do is write good material, and if it people enjoy it, they will advertise it for you. At least that’s the idea.
Another cool feature for readers is the virtual, personal library, where the user can store own publications, fill it with texts they find interesting or do both. The Dimcos platform will also make suggestions on books you might like. It’s good to keep in mind that a good deal of the publications’ prices are set by those who own the copyrights, so not all of the stuff will come for free.
Dimcos isn’t meddling with just any small time players anymore. Janis Roze has over 30 book stores spread out across the country and it provides services to all of Latvia’s universities and libraries. The new assignment will give Dimcos a solid push upwards to bring the company into more widespread knowledge. They strongly believe the international markets not only have the space but the demand for a concept like theirs.
“Publishing through Dimcos holds great interest especially for schools but also for anyone who wishes to make their content commercialized online.”, says Kristian Laiho, CEO of Dimcos.
“Our concept acts as a library for educational systems, where studying material is distributed electronically. In addition to Latvia, a similar scheme is currently being build in Dubai to support the Finnish education and study material exports.”, Laiho adds.
Well, there are plenty of schools out there, so Dimcos should have no grand difficulties of finding potential customers, but it all depends how well they do in Latvia.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock // Library
