cornerofmadness

The weather is now cool but rainy and it woke me up with a migraine at 330 AM. So yay for two hours sleep and the rest of the night rolling around waiting for my head to explode ala Scanners.

Went out to look at eclipse. It was the only thing visible on this cloudy night. I could stare at the moon every night really. Thanks to ELD for reminding me.

I did my weekly what's happening post on Jana’s blog right here though the longer the day has worn on the more convinced that bad review is right: I have no business writing romance.

The thing I wanted to talk about today is crowdfunding a novel. I don't know that much about it. I know some people who've done that to get an anthology off the ground. There's an author on one of the FB groups I belong to who does it exclusively. It was her comment that got me thinking. She mentioned she only buys crowdfunded books these days because they're the only ones worth reading. Setting aside the arrogance of that statement (I know this particular author sees no value in traditional or even indie publishers) and how wrong it is, it got me thinking about crowdfunding.

I'm not sure it's for me but first some links on what it's about.

#1

#2

#3


crowdfounded book wins award

the down side

The Stacey Jay 'scandal' in the down side link is just one of the reasons I'm very hesitant to crowd fund anything. This is not the only case out there where the author used the funds for something other than publishing it.

But to me the bigger downside is in finding the investors in the first place. I can't even convince friends to read and give reviews when I offer the books up for free. I can imagine the results of asking friends and strangers to pony up money in order to get me writing something.

I know it can be done. The above mentioned author who started me thinking along these lines says all her stuff is done this way. She talks like she has plenty done this way (she does have about 30 books to her name but half are thru Llwellyn press). How do you get people interested in your work? I have a twitter, a facebook etc TRYING to network with people and I can barely get them to acknowledge when I have a release.

Maybe my reluctance for this sort of thing goes back to my entire lack of salesmanship. I have never been much of a salesman in spite of years of fundraising for band and girl scouts and if I couldn't get people to buy stuff when I was young and cute...

I'm not sure how I feel about this being a way to get books out there. I can see it in a way for anthologies more. Those are a harder sell and there are enough anthologies out there that many people aren't willing to do it 4theluv like they did in the 90s. There's one big name erotica publisher I stopped submitting to since the pay was 1990s rates and I could make three times that with presses like Dreamspinner and Wayward Ink. So I could see crowdfunding in order to get a decent flat rate for the anthology authors.

On the other hand, let's forget me and my inability to sell shit. Would I personally look at a story idea and go ooo let me fund this and see what happens? Honestly, no. I just don't. I would more likely do it for musicians who depend on patreon and even then I just don't seem to do it. I think there is a level of mistrust there. If I hand over my money I want whatever it is I'm getting for it immediately. I don't want to take a wait and see attitude because what happens if the crowdfunding is a go and there is nothing produced (good question, I didn't see an answer to that). What if I just funded a steaming pile? Well I could forgive that more. It wouldn't be the first book I've bought that blew.

I'm not sure what to think. How about you? Would you try it? Would you give to someone to fund their work?

Yearly Word count -

And I've done dick on writing Blood Red Roulette. Gah, starting to hate myself