Something I was pondering last night. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
I’d like to evolve my writing model a bit, for the project I’m hoping to start in 2012.
I started out with 100% free releases on the web (Sailor Nothing, Unreal Estate), which was fun, but definitely rooted in the “fanfic / amateur” mentality. Of course, that was also in the era in which the only way to get a book in print was to beg a big publishing house to pay you the slightest bit of attention and maybe, just MAYBE give you a contract which you barely see a dime from.
Then came anachronauts, and with it, the viability of the self-publishing era. So, I split my work 90%/10%, with 90% for free and 10% as retail bonus material. It worked reasonably well, I sold some books, and I got to do it on my terms. But I’d like to see how much further I can push this while remaining independent.
My current thinking is a 10%/80%/10% split. Here’s how it’d break down.
10% FREE SAMPLE CHAPTER(s): Anybody can walk up to the web page and read the first chapter or two of each book, which gets them hooked and interested.
80% REST OF THE MAIN STORY FOR REGISTERED PREREADERS: Here’s where most of you could come in. Joe Q. Webdude would not see this part of the story — but anybody who’s been following my work for awhile can register to be an official prereader, getting access to the complete plotline for each book. This would be free of charge, with the assumption that if you’ve been following me enough to find these words on my blog, odds are you’ll be interested in leaving feedback and helping me grow as a writer. Likely, I’d allow a “friends and family” alloitment (5?) per registered prereader, to let them in through the green door as well. (Folks in as “friends and family” couldn’t in turn invite more friends and family, to keep it from chaining forever.)
The blog itself where I collect prereader feedback would be open for all to read — not much I can do about that. But, it wouldn’t really make any sense to someone who wasn’t in the Prereader Club, so I don’t think it’s classified intelligence or anything worth guarding jealously. The STORIES, those I can guard.
10% RETAIL EXCLUSIVE BONUS SHORT STORY: Like anachronauts, I’d keep a bonus chapter (external to the main plotline, but deeply related) as retail-only. For the super deluxe experience, prereaders would still want to order the books… which would include 100% of the material, and would be available in paper, ebook, or donation-gift formats that suit any device you happen to prefer.
I think I’m at the stage in my writing where I should stop giving away the cow for free with the milk, but I can be very generous with allowing backstage access to the cow for selected dairy farmers. … that is a silly analogy. But, you get my point. All you’d need to do to enjoy the Secret Cow Show is fill out a short form and drop me an email. And I can trust you guys on the honor system not to spread your login/passwords around.
WHY NOT KICKSTARTER OR OTHER CROWD FUNDING? Well, my expenses just aren’t high enough to justify it, and I couldn’t do reward tiers with physical books in them without monkeying around in Amazon with varying shipping costs and more weirdness. About all I could fund would be purchasing an ISBN, hiring a fanartist to do character profiles, and… um… that’s about it. I don’t think this is a good match for that.
WHY NOT SEEK A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER? Partly because I value my independent spirit, partly because I can’t be arsed to go through all the rigamarole of agents and solicitations and whatnot, partly because I doubt any of them would care, partly because I fear rejection. I’d rather stay in control and forge my own path. It won’t lead to megabucks but it’ll enable me to run the show however I please, including allowing prereaders at all.
…
So, what do you think? Good compromise? Points you disagree with? Suggestions for how best to handle it?
BTW, this would probably not be for the “postmortem” project. I still dig that idea but I don’t think it’s what I want to write right now. I’m still kicking around ideas for what project I’d apply this to.
pixeljen says
I keep waffling about whether I even gave you the right advice. I remember that old essay, Better than Free, and this is the opposite direction.
Whether you did it through this approach or through a patronage kickstarter/subscriber type scenario, I do think you could do more goodies for your fans. Whether you get an artist on board or not, you could do stuff like a monthly wallpaper with an excerpt over a different, relevant photo background. Some digital reward. And WITH an artist on board, there are a lot more options.
For example, I know I’m no character artist, but even with line art from someone else, I could color/composite all sorts of permutations and such for your fans.
I do see why you want to keep your writing process separate from the rewards, though — no pressure about the pacing of your writing that way. Offering a preorder as a reward would inevitably result in stress considering it can take over a year to finish a project and you need the freedom to stop and take a breather whenever you need one.
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
Promising a specific pace of writing in exchange for money is a very dangerous game, and one I am not going to embrace. Providing bonus content for money is not the problem — I do that already with the books. Telling them I WILL produce X amount of bonus content in Y time is a problem.
As for “Better Than Free,” it’s already Free, with a Better option. That’s apparently not working as well as hoped, as my readerbase shrank by 75% even between when I started writing and when I finished.
loopychew says
I’ll follow your work to the ends of the earth and will sign up with bells on if you do this, but I don’t think this isn’t going to work without serious advertising. Do you have the metrics about people downloading the sample from the Kindle store versus the people purchasing it? That’s more or less the model you’re following, with the added middle tier for pre-readers.
Lirazel says
I’m up for anything you want to try, naturally. But would this mean you’d have to offer some sort of security for user info that you don’t have to offer now?
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
I need to research more, but odds are I’ll make up a password for you so it can’t possibly duplicate your bank password or anything crazy like that. If someone does get their hands on the PW file, I can just scramble ’em all and email out the new ones. Your email or real name would not be anywhere on the site, it’d be in my personal files — just your username would be up there.
Raigne says
Raigne from LJ. I know I have been mostly a lurker in the blog for quite awhile, but I’d like to put in my two cents. Your idea is a neat one, but I wanted to relate this: Another self-publisher whose work I read has what she terms ‘Patrons’ which is a term for the faithful of the gods in her books. These are people who pay a low monthly subscription fee for bonus material (stories she publishes in anthologies, bonus stories for her two series, wallpaper). These are the funds she uses to pay for advertising, official illustrations, and professional editing for her books. Additionally, she allowed people to preorder the printed copy, putting their name or web handle in the acknowledgements page, which is how she funded printing it (through the same service you use, actually). The full novels are posted chapter by chapter, once a week, after the print version is published. However, her books are about three times the length of yours and her chapters are a lot shorter (I own print books from both of you. They are currently in a box somewhere, since I just moved, so I can’t compare typesetting, I’m just going by book thickness).
The second time around she did use kickstarter, and she was shocked at how much money she raised. She actually had to think up ways to use the additional funding, which she decided to use to buy some decent audio equipment for when she starts doing the recordings for the audiobook versions she has planned. She’s considering commissioning some merch she can’t get through the on-demand site she uses for her t-shirts and totes, and she got more reward items made up for contributers, like bookmarks and posters of the world. Kickstarter made her project more visible, and people trust it.
I am not saying these ideas would work for what you want to do, since you prefer the beta readers, but maybe her experience might be useful to you for refining your own idea, and while kickstarter might not be for you now, I wouldn’t dismiss it completely.
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
Yeah, my methodology works with beta readers, first and foremost. It’s an important part of the process and believe me, anachronauts would NOT be in the shape it’s in without them. I don’t just mean because of typo fixes and such, but because interacting with them sets my mind thinking down avenues it otherwise wouldn’t have found.
Kickstarter, I’m not sure I’d have use for. See, CreateSpace has very little in the way of actual fees. There’s a $40 + $5 annually fee to earn maximum royalties off your book, and you have to buy an ISBN to keep it author-controlled, but that’s piddly and not worth kickstarting. There’s artwork commissions, but I don’t relish having to invent things I wasn’t planning on if it exceeds that amount.
Charging for prereading access (“patrons”) is possible. But given the amount of people who did NOT buy the books, who didn’t even do the paypal donation thing, I think a lot of even my diehard readers would balk at that. (Probably not because they hate the idea of giving me money or are jerks — more that they refuse to sign up for Paypal or Amazon or simply have no digital means of transferring cash at all.) Also, if it was an ongoing fee, I’d need to seriously pump out the bonus materials — and pumping out the stories alone is hard enough.
I’m not saying I’d never consider Kickstarter or subscriptions. But they’d have to mesh with what I’m capable of producing, what I actually need funded, and the methodology I’m using. That’ll take some thinking. Given how I did anachronauts, any ideas on how to monetize without changing the process excessively?
Raigne says
That’s the thing though. Her stories are free all the time. Donators just get a little extra. It might be more micromanaging than you want to attempt right now though.
Before she had patrons, she had donation levels. Basically, you hit the target and you get a bonus story sometime during the week. For you, maybe once a month would be better, since I know you stick to the schedule you have because the rest of it is already pretty full.
Other than that there’s book related merchandise. Not just the logo, pithy quotes, illustrations, that kind of thing. I kind of wish I had finished the one I was doing as fan art. It would have made a cool poster, and I’d release the rights to use it on stuff to you for free. If you think you’d want to go that route I do still have the high-res PSD of just the pumpkin carriage if you think you can do something with it. This one: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v517/raigne/?action=view¤t=anachronautspreview.jpg
The background’s a separate layer, so you can stick the pumpkin on whatever color you want.
Raigne says
I realize you meant going forward with new products, but figure there’s no harm in doing stuff with the older ones too.
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
The thing is, all that stuff is doable with print-on-demand. No kickstarter needed. And given the incredibly small readerbase I have (and I’m all ears for ways to improve that situation; apparently giving away the story for free doesn’t do it) I don’t think making a swath of mugs, bookmarks, t-shirts, baby onesies, and Y-fronts adorned with a book logo would really benefit anyone.
As for bonus stories… as noted, I have enough trouble cranking out the actual stories, much less bonus stories. I’d prefer not to have people beating down my door going “HEY! I paid good money and I want a rgular flow of bonus stories or I’mr eporting you to the Better Business Bureau!” eek.
Raigne says
I meant in terms of the variety of merch you offer. The designs. And I know you don’t need kickstarter for that.
To improve your readership, consider getting involved in the self-publishing community. Stuff like Topwebfiction, webfictionguide, weblit, submit to web fiction awards, etc. Authors talk to each other, they collaborate, and they talk to their own readers about people they collaborate with.
And advertise. Every web serial apart from yours (which I found through your other work instead) that I read I found by clicking on links from popular web comics I read. Questionable Content and Something Positive specifically. That would require an advertising budget. To grow a community around your work will help, and while interacting with you through the blog is awesome, and you should absolutely keep it as a major part of your setup, having a forum will let people interact with each other too. It doesn’t even have to be focused on your stuff.
Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne says
Problem with self-pub communities is that they’re 90% comprised of other writers. You don’t get READERS from them — people keen on reading, rather than reading with the insistence you read their work in return. I’m also not up for co-writing anything.
I agree about advertising. I wanted to advertise in the networks that webcomics use, but anachronauts didn’t have enough artwork of cute girls to make that work. I’ll likely be commissioning character art this time around on a professional enough level to work for ads.
pixeljen says
“backstage access to the cow” XD … “secret cow show” baahahaha
Ahem, no, seriously, this sounds like an interesting experiment to me. And since all your loyal blog readers can still get the same amount of access they had before, why not give it the extra veneer of exclusivity.