Welcome to 2013! To help you get this New Year off to a great start, we at Scribr would like to offer our loyal journalists a 20% discount on new book orders starting January 9, 2013 through January 23, 2013 to help keep your memories safe. Simply type in “Scribr2013” during checkout to get instant savings.
Keep journaling,
Mark and the Scribr team
Scribr, Inc turned a year old this month! We made sure to incorporate on Cinco De Mayo so we could celebrate each year with copious discount margaritas and guacamole.
We’ve come a long way from the first prototypes in late 2010 (pre-incorporation):
We started Scribr to solve a simple problem - journaling - but we never expected the tremendous feedback we’ve seen from all of you!
We never expected that after an impromptu debut at SF New Tech late last year, we’d be featured on The Next Web. We never expected to be interviewed by AllThingsD. We never expected to make the front page of Hacker News. We never expected to see thousands of people signing up for our service in a day - this service we’d written just to solve a personal problem - nor to see so much positive feedback and constructive criticism. We’re honored, so honored, to have all of your support and interest.
Scribr’s been quiet since our launch. Firstly we were busy dealing with the orders and the bugs, but we’ve sorted a lot of that out and things are humming along behind the scenes. We quietly rolled out a number of new book covers - you’re now given these choices when buying a book:
Most of all we’ve been quietly watching, tracking, determining the features people want and use the most. We’re listening and working behind the scenes to build the next revolution in Scribr. We see something amazing, and we’re bringing it to you.
Until then, keep writing, keep discovering.
— Adam and the Scribr team
We told you last weekend that we’d be sending out invites this week; that time has come! Our first batch of invites just went out - we’re starting small and expecting breakage.
There are a lot of things we want to improve about Scribr, such as:
We considered holding off on the launch until these things were complete, but we knew we’d just have a new list of things at that point. So we’re launching today!
We’ll keep improving Scribr with these ideas and more. We’d love your help in figuring out what’s important, so be sure to use the Feedback tab on the right of every Scribr page.
Looking forward to sharing Scribr with every one of you,
-Adam
Scribr is launching this week!
If you’ve requested an invite for Scribr, keep an eye on your email - starting this Wednesday, we’ll be sending them out.
We’ve come a long way since announcing Scribr at the SF New Tech meetup last October. Thousands of invite requests, feature additions, bugfixes, book prototypes and press meetings later, we’re ready to open the doors.
There are still bugs we know of, still features we want to add (both big and small), and we’re sure that as we grow the number of both will grow as well. Every Scribr page has a support/feedback tab on the right side - as you use the site, we ask that you use this tab for any suggestions or bug reports. We want your help in building a great product!
Invites will be sent out in batches, starting small and growing larger as we gain confidence that our servers won’t melt. We’ll keep you guys updated through that process. New sign ups will still be on an invite basis, so don’t worry, nobody’s going to cut in front of you.
Thank you all so much for your interest, we’re super excited to give you the Journal You’re Already Writing!
- Adam, Mark, Chris and Trish
Scribr’s had a whirlwind week! If you haven’t already, make sure to read the excellent articles about us on TheNextWeb and AllThingsD. We’ve had a huge influx of invite requests, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and general mentions; we hear you loud and clear!
Something we want to avoid, however, is being branded solely as “printed Twitter”. We aren’t just about printing out your social posts.
Our goal at Scribr is simple:
Make it easy to record and rediscover your life in a virtual journal. Give you the option of preserving that record in a physical artifact that you can enjoy years from now.
We lay the groundwork for that journal by importing your social media streams; those streams often reflect the minutiae of daily life, and provide a context to remember things by. But we realize that not everybody uses these services in this way - some folks just don’t care about what they posted on Twitter two weeks ago.
If you prefer, you can sign up for Scribr without linking a single social service and use it solely as a private journal. When you sign up for Scribr, we offer you the option of receiving a nightly email - a feature we reviewed this week - which allows you to update your journal with a simple click of the “reply” button.
Alternatively, go nuts and link all of your social accounts, but only choose the content that really matters for the book. When you build a book - a feature we’ll be reviewing very soon - you have the option of omitting any type of content you don’t care about:
Additionally, when we publish the book, we prioritize certain types of content (your Facebook photos, for instance) over other types (say, a mention on Twitter). We do this to keep the book a reasonable size (and price) without cutting out the content that matters most to you. We’ll cover this much further in our next Feature Breakdown, coming up in just a few days.
Until then, thank you all for the terrific feedback and enthusiasm, and keep writing!
One question we’ve seen a lot of people asking: “how does the pricing work?”
The short answer:
Most people will spend $25 to $45 plus shipping. Once you sign up, you’re free to build and preview as many books as you’d like, with whatever constraints you’d like, and see the price instantly.
The long answer:
Scribr books are variably priced, depending on their length. We have special algorithms that ensure your book won’t be HUGE and hugely expensive – these algorithms trim out “low-value” content to ensure there’s room for the more important stuff.
By default, a 1-year book maxes out at 130 pages, which will cost you $45 plus shipping. Many customers, however, will pay less than this - it’s actually quite difficult to fill 130 pages - only $25 to $35.
Similarly, if you build a custom book that encompasses the past 2 years and is 250 pages long, it’ll cost you about $75. 4 years and 500 pages will cost you about $115.
Once you sign up, you’re free to use our Book Builder to build and preview as many books as you’d like and see the price instantly.
We’ll delve further into the bookmaking process in our next feature blog post. Until then, keep writing!
Happy New Year!
In this second installment of our feature breakdown, we look at the tools Scribr gives you for keeping a private journal alongside your imported content. Whether you do this is entirely up to you.
We’ve made it as easy as possible to dump your thoughts into Scribr in one of two ways. The first way is to simply open myscribr.com and visit any day you want to make an entry. At the bottom of each day there’s a huge blank textbox for this purpose - just click and start typing:
When you’re done, hit the stupidly large Submit button and the post is instantly saved:
If you want to make an edit, just click on the post and it becomes editable:
We realize that remembering to log on to the site and keep a journal can be a chore. It’s something you have to remember to do, and maybe you don’t have time for that. You’re busy, you’ve got a million things going on. So we offer you the option of a nightly email asking how your day went:
All you need to do is reply to this email, and your reply will be placed into your Scribr for that day. You can even reply to the email later, and it’ll still go onto the correct day:
In time, we’ll be offering an iOS and Android app as well, to easily record entries on the fly. Perfect for those long family vacations and contemplative walks in the woods.
Again, whether you use this feature or not is entirely up to you. No pressure. But if you do, rest assured that your journal entries are given top priority in any books you build - they’ll never be ousted by your thousands of Tweets. We’ll explain more about that in our next post.
Until then, get some rest, take a walk, and if you need a little hair of the dog, here’s a classic bloody mary recipe we know and love!
Hi there, faithful reader! As Scribr gets closer and closer to its public launch, we want to show you some of the great features to expect in a series of blog posts. In this, the first of the series, we’ll look at our Explore tab, and how it lets you rediscover the past.
When you link a service like Facebook to Scribr, Scribr’s automated archaeologist digs up everything you’ve ever posted and archives it in our secure vault. After the dust has settled, we put your past on display in your own personal museum. The first floor of your museum is called your Timeline:
Timeline is a great way to easily view your history in a single glance. You can scroll through the timeline forever – the farther you scroll, the more of your history it shows.
The second floor of your museum is your This Day In History exhibit. This exhibit shows you what you posted on any given day of the year, in years past.
We love these features. You’ll be amazed how much content you’ve posted over the years, and how much of it you’ve forgotten! Want to reminisce in writing? Click on any date to jump to the journal view for that day, where you can post a message from the future that’ll be preserved forever.
The Explore features of Scribr are just part of the magic; we’ve got more in store for you, so keep checking back!
-Adam
This is a season for celebrating with family and friends, enjoying a little downtime, making new memories and reminiscing on old ones. This year, take the time to document these moments and share them with your friends; you’ll be preserving them forever without even thinking about it.
If you’re one of our Beta users, this is a great day to try our “this day in history” feature, and bring back some of those forgotten memories.
Whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or any other holiday you celebrate, all of us at the Scribr team send you the warmest and happiest wishes this season! Happy Holidays!
– Adam, Chris, Mark and Trish
Hi everybody!
It’s been a while since you heard from us; we’ve been hard at work on Scribr and are proud to say it’s almost ready for prime time. We’re fixing every bug we can find and making sure that Scribr looks its best before inviting the first beta users in.
If you’re signed up for a beta invite, that’s awesome; thanks for your interest! We’ll be sending you an email with instructions very soon. You’ll get access to all of Scribr’s cool features, including book publishing. As a bonus, all beta users will get a discount on any books they purchase.
If you haven’t signed up for beta yet, it’s not too late! You can do so at the Scribr frontpage - http://myscribr.com. Just enter your email address and hit the stupidly large button.
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