MetaComet Systems, the company that developed the RoyaltyTracker royalty management system, has begun tests on AuthorPortal.com, a new platform that it hopes will improve communications between authors, publishers and agents. AuthorPortal.com is in beta testing with the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group and Samhain Publishing, and the company’s president David Marlin said he expects to gradually add more publishers in the months ahead.
“We’re extremely excited to start the beta testing phase and look forward to seeing all the platform’s functionalities in action,” said Marlin. “We are confident AuthorPortal.com will have a significant impact on how publishers, agents, and authors interact with each other and enable better collaboration. It’s going to greatly improve efficiency and relationships within the industry.”
AuthorPortal.com grants authors easy access to their royalty statements and centralizes their contracts, manuscripts, and other documents in one easy-to-navigate interface. AuthorPortal stores contracts and other information in the cloud and performs regular back-ups and security updates to ensure the safety of the documents.
For publishers, the portal eliminates the need to print and mail statements, and allows them to electronically deliver those and other documents quickly and securely. Inefficiencies common in document management are eliminated thanks to the platform’s searchable repository of files, Marlin said.
Literary agents can use AuthorPortal to manage the author-publisher relationship cycle via the platform’s interface, and gives them the ability to access documents from both parties in one central location. If an agent needs an approval on a contract amendment, Marlin said he or she can share the file and quickly get the author to sign off on the change. Agents can also provide publishers with immediate access to authors’ work, so they can focus on the deal itself rather than playing messenger.
Author Portal is designed to integrate with RoyaltyTracker and will also work with other systems on the market that make use of internet communication standards (e.g. Web Services). “We’ve developed simple interfaces based on widely use web standards, enabling virtually any system to interact ” Marlin said. “The goal is to make this tool accessible to everyone in the publishing field.”
Other publishers interesting in being participating in the second round of beta testing can contact Marlin at dmarlin@metacomet.com.
