So I signed up for Tablo a while back and didn’t really do anything with it. But since they’re doing a collab with NaNoWriMo this year, I’m giving it the old college try. It markets itself as the Youtube of Writing, which upon first looking at it, yes, it is similar in some ways. I’m not sure what really separates Tablo from sites like Wattpad to be honest, but it touts that you can upload your novel when it’s finished to Amazon and they format it for you, keep up with sales and all that. However, they charge like 20% of sales or something to do so. I don’t know. Math makes me cross-eyed.

By the way, here’s my ongoing novel if you’d like to check it out. Here’s the synopsis:   

Nitz Taescrill, a violent-tempered deposed pixie empress, looks to gain revenge on her sister, Empress Janai, by hiring the elusive assassin the Pale Rat of Schetzera to kill her. But she needs coin and information first, rarities in the world of Splatter-Elf. Together she joins with shapeshifting, gender-bending warlock Wormwheel to find the Albino Unicorn of Arkalia as a gift for a warlord’s spoiled daughter. With bounty hunters, witch slayers, gods, and weird monstrosities after them, the job may not be as easy as they expected. 

And linkage: The Bloody Unicorn

What do I think of Tablo so far?

Well, I think it’s pretty awesome that you can follow writers as they’re writing something. I can’t help feeling I’d be reading really rough work in this case, but I decided recently to turn off my “give a shit” button and just write and put things out there. I have one novel I worked on for over a year and now I’m reading to open myself up more and sink or swim.

Other good points about Tablo are that you can join communities, have discussions, and the like. There’s always part of these kind of communities that can start to feel self-indulgent though. It’s just a circle of writers reading a circle of writers. If it integrated readers more into it (and I’m guessing there is a way to do so?) then I can see it’s appeal even more.

My feeling is that sites like Tablo may be the future of publishing. They provide a public place for writers to share their writing and get sometimes instantaneous feedback. On the other hand, I feel like having a book go through the regular process of writing, submitting, and such also still has its merits. Having people tell you your writing sucks has more value sometimes than hearing it’s awesome.

I’m excited to see where this goes. I normally flake out on such social media experiments after a while, but Tablo’s connection to NaNoWriMo this year got me more interested in it.

Have you tried Tablo, Wattpad, or other similar write and read as you go kind of sites? What is your experience?