General

Nothing Binding is a online community for independent writers and the readers who love them.   We define independent as any work not sitting on the featured table at your local Barnes & Noble, so we welcome a wide variety of writers and writing - all 100% free.  NB is not affiliated with any publishing house or industry service provider.   We are as independent as the writers we set out to help when we established this concept.   As a writer in the community, it is important to keep in mind that NB is about meaningful and personal interactions with each other - as well as readers from across the globe.  Create an honest and personal profile, create audio/video of yourself, make contacts, stumble over a new genre, and most of all have a great time!

Profiles

To make the best connection with others, we have found that profiles should be reasonably brief (imagine your average online reader's attention span), contain personal insights and information, and have a personal picture.   Your title(s) should have a picture of the cover, a brief description, and a great "elevator pitch" or short tag line under 200 characters that grabs an online browsers attention.   NB is designed to encourage browsing and discovery.  You will note that our various categories and browsing mechanisms force the viewer to try out new areas, and that's just the way we wanted NB to be.  Your profile will soon be a serendipitous discovery for someone out there, and that's a wonderful moment.

Audio/Video

One of the core concepts with NB is that our research shows that buyers of independent works do so because of a personal connection that is made with the writer in some way.   The single most powerful of these is one on one interaction such as you would find at a signing or reading.  Clearly, this is not something that an independent writer can do on a national, daily basis, and NB has designed a system online that replicates this powerful interaction.   Accordingly, we have 2 distinct and easy rules for audio/video:

1) You must be seen or heard

2) It must be under 10 minutes

If what it is we are trying to replicate is personal interaction, then text and music just doesn't cut it.  If you would like to add an audio piece to your profile, we have a system that allows you to use your phone to make a recording.   Already have a media piece that you would like embedded?  Send it our way at

Interacting

Very simple, nobody likes jerks.  So do not be one on NB.  We have a simple flagging system that allows users to report bad behavior similar to the one used on Craigslist.   Be a jerk, and you will be flagged.  Get enough flags and we'll pull the content.    Be constructive, be creative -  relax.

Promoting

We welcome all linkbacks from other websites as well as any promotion writers would like to do for us.   As you can see, we do not have a huge amount of revenue to support massive advertising efforts, so we rely on grassroots marketing to build our community.   The more we are, the more we can effect industry changes and develop new ways for modern readers of independent works to find their next great read.   Here's a NB logo for your own site, feel free to resize: