I've been a full-time professional writer and author for about 15 years now. When I started out in the business, if you wanted to get published, you had to convince an established publisher to take on your book. In return for giving them the rights to publish your book for as long as they wanted, they agreed to pay you an advance and royalties. Aside from some marginal vanity publishers who you would pay to get your book published, this was the way the game was played.
Today, this old publishing model is in disarray. Publishers are taking fewer chances on authors who don't bring a large built-in audience of potential book buyers along with them, and they are paying smaller advances. At the same time, it has become easier than ever to self-publish -- creating ebooks that can quickly and easily be sold on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iTunes.
But there's a new publishing model that I just ran across, and this one has me interested.
As you may recall from some of my previous posts, I am a fan of the groupsourced business startup funding website Kickstarter.com. As a quick reminder, anyone with an idea for a new product can post their idea on Kickstarter, and ask site visitors to help fund production. Okay, fine. So what's that got to do with publishing? Well, a woman by the name of Kio Stark in Brooklyn, NY came up with the idea of funding his new book -- Don't Go Back to School -- using Kickstarter.
Now, why didn't I think of that?
According to the item description, Stark's book is a handbook for independent learning that shows you how to learn almost anything without school. Her original goal was to raise $14,500 to fund the publication of Don't Go Back to School, however, Kio has exceeded that by a large margin -- raising almost $39,000 to date. In these days of tight publishing agreements, that's a pretty healthy advance.
So if you've ever considered writing a book, and you would prefer not to go the usual publishing route, then consider giving Kickstarter a shot. And don't be surprised if you see MY next book over there.
Glad to see the project mentioned here! I'm thrilled to be publishing Don't Go Back to School with financing from Kickstarter backers, and I encourage everyone with a good book idea to consider crowdfunding as a viable option. In that spirit, I wanted to add a bit of detail about the economics. It's true that $39,000 would be a pretty nice advance from a traditional publisher--but it's not pure profit in the self-publishing scenario, and for anyone who is thinking about doing this, I thought it would be helpful to understand what's involved. Kickstarter and Amazon Payments get about 10% off the top, you have to pay taxes on what you earn, and then, in my case, I'm paying a book designer, paying a printer, paying for postage to mail 1000 books, paying a transcriber, a proofreader, and a few other miscellaneous expenses. It's pretty exciting to be providing employment for people in addition to writing the book!
Good points, Kio -- thanks for the additional info. Congrats on your book and all best wishes!