I started publishing my essays on the web using Booksie -- it was among the ones I found when searching for sites where my essays could live. My first impression when using it was not good. The process of making your writings available is very clumsy there; you have to copy and paste your documents instead of simply uploading a doc or pdf file.
So, today I decided to try another site I had read about during my search. That one is called Scribd and it is the way you expect any publishing site to be. You create an account in a second, and then you are free to quickly upload and publish your files. The interface is very easy to use and it even offers statistics! I can see all my documents listed on a page, the categories are simple to choose from and change if needed, and the summary field can even be auto-filled for you in case you do not type anything. Since you upload your own files, format is not compromise either like it is when using Booksie.
I had four essays to publish to Scribd under my brand-new account; I had one essay to add to Booksie so both Scribd and Booksie had the same essays published. Believe it or not, it was faster for me to create a new account and do it all on Scribd than it was to publish one single essay on Booksie. Argh... Maybe I do not need to have the essays on both and I can simply cancel Booksie. I will think about it.
For now, I added right next to the essays' titles the link to the Scribd version of the essay and the link to its Booksie version. And another plus for Scribd: On Scribd it was very easy to go get the URL of the essays to be shared -- there is a 'copy' button next to the URL field display . And guess how this is done on Booksie. Yep, you got it: as far as I could see, the only way is to display the document and copy the URL displayed in your address bar. Ha!
Until next time!
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