Founded 2012 | ||
Tablo Publishing is a social self-publishing platform that allows authors to write books than can then be discovered by a large community of readers. The platform, which is commonly likened to social platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud, is used by authors who want to publish their work and build a following, as well as readers who want to explore and follow emerging authors and books across all genres. Tablo's author community spans more than 130 countries.
History
Tablo was founded early in 2013 by Australian entrepreneur Ashley Davies at age 19. Davies started the company after a challenging experience in publishing his own book, with the goal to democratise publishing by providing authors with an environment to create, publish and be discovered.
The initial idea was accepted into the AngelCube startup accelerator in Melbourne, who invested $20,000 of capital into the company and incubated the startup for three months. Following the launch of its online book creation and publishing application late in 2013, Tablo secured an additional $400,000 in funding from a number of Australian and American angel investors, including Catch Of The Day CEO Paul Reining and Y Combinator partner Kevin Hale.
Tablo's original product was a browser-based application that allowed authors to create and self-publish eBooks to stores such as Amazon and the iBooks Store. As an experimental campaign in late 2013, Tablo introduced social features that allowed authors to share their works-in-progress, which saw significant attention from authors and readers who were interested in connecting with readers while they wrote their books. Tablo relaunched as a social writing and reading community in July 2014 that allowed authors to write and publish books, and allowed readers to discover emerging books and follow their favourite authors.
In early 2015 Tablo launched the 'Tablo Reader' mobile application for iOS and Android. The launch of Tablo Reader marked the company's first dedicated product for readers and was brought on by significant user demand for a mobile product. In April 2015 the company released 'Tablo Scholar', a premium version of its free writing and publishing application that provides authors with deep analytics and insights into how readers are engaging with their books. Tablo Scholar forms the foundations of the company's business model.