My Unbound Diary Part 4 – Crowdfunding Confidence

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crowdfunding, In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous For Fifteen Minutes, Philip Pullman, Ros Barber, self-publishing, short stories, The Bookseller, Unbound

I’m now on week four of my crowdfunding project and I have had a bit of a confidence wobble. My short story collection is available for presale through Unbound Publishing, an innovative and prestigious crowdfunding publisher. I was 11% funded last week and this week I’m only 13%. I need to get 313 pledges for my book by the end of May. Right now that seems like a daunting amount. I have sent out emails to my entire address book, people on Facebook and Twitter must be sick of me posting about it, and still the pledges are coming in a drip feed rather than a deluge. I need to make a plan for getting the word out to more people and making it clear that I need pledges for the project to go ahead.

I admit I’m feeling a little despondent. This feeling wasn’t helped by Ros Barber‘s article in The Guardian this week about self-publishing. I know that crowdfunding is different to self publishing and a lot of the article was irrelevant, for example, Unbound are selective in who they offer to crowdfund. You need to submit and when (if) you meet your target your book gets a full professional edit. This means that books that are out of the mainstream get a chance that traditional publishers wouldn’t give them because they don’t fit into the usual marketing models. It’s all very modern and positive and looks like it just might save us from the same old dross dolled out in the name of sales. However, some of Barber’s observations are extremely pertinent. I do need to attract supporters and so I am spending all of my time marketing rather than actually writing and I do worry that people will get fed up with me begging. In the article Barber says this;

Self-publishing can make you behave like a fool. Imagine we have just met. I invite you into my house and the first thing you do is show me the advertising blurb for your book and press me to check it out on Amazon. Then you read me the blurb for someone else whose book you’ve agreed to promote if they’ll do the same with yours.

This is so true! The thing is though, ALL authors have to self promote, unless you are mega famous and even then, pretty much everything you do is an act of self-promotion. You are only as popular as your last book. I have heard so many stories recently of fellow authors being dropped by publishers and agents because the last book didn’t perform as well as expected, or because the current novel doesn’t fit into the genre they had in mind. I am publishing with Unbound because I write literary short stories and publishers won’t even consider them unless you are already a name.  But I need sales.

I wonder if people think crowdfunding is somehow inferior to traditional publishing. Today in The Bookseller came the news that philospher Roman Krznaric turned down an offer from a major UK publisher to publish with Unbound. Philip Pullman is quoted as saying,“Unbound is a marvellous way of publishing.”

I really think Unbound could be an alternative to both traditional and self-publishing. I’m hoping I get enough pledges to find out for sure.

To pledge to In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes go to https://unbound.co.uk/books/fifteen-minutes

It has just come to my attention that, as well as reasoned argument, Ros Barber has been getting some awful abuse on Twitter for her article on self-publishing – get a life losers!

My Unbound Diary Part 2 – Crowdfunding a Book

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A Spool of Blue Thread, A Visit From The Goon Squad, agents, crowdfunding, In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous For Fifteen Minutes, literary agents, Olive Kitteridge, publishing, Rattle Tales, rejections, short stories, The Tenth of December, Trigger Warning, Unbound

It seems like a lot longer ago than a week since I wrote my first post on crowdfunding my short story collection. In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes is now open for pledges on the Unbound Publishing site. I decided to publish with unbound because agents and publishers generally don’t go for short story collections – they don’t think that short stories are popular with readers. I think they are wrong. I think if you market it right they are very popular. Lots of best sellers are actually short story collections masquerading as traditional novels, Olive Kitteridge, A Spool Of Blue Thread, Welcome To The Goon Squad, I could go on. Then there are the ultra-popular collections like The Tenth of December or Trigger Warning. Suffice to say that in my experience people love short stories (I have blogged about this many times) and are just as willing to buy them as they are any other type of fiction. Anyway, until the traditional publishing industry wakes up to this potential, I am crowdfunding my book with Unbound.

On Sunday I made a video about the book to encourage people to pledge. Unbound recommend doing this as a way of drawing attention to the project.  It was a hilarious way to spend Mothers Day, I sat at the kitchen table (which, incidentally, inspired one of the stories) and my husband filmed on his phone while I read from a script written in big letters and held up beside him by my son, this is why my eyes keep drifting off to the right. I’m not great at reading from an autocue but I didn’t have time to memorise what I wanted to say. At one point we had to take a break because we were all laughing too much. It’s done now and it serves its purpose and I hope to have another more professional one made later.

I started to publicise the book on social media by sharing last week’s blog on Facebook and Twitter several times a day. Making sure to #crowdfunding and #shortstory and whatever else I could hang it on. I managed to gain 120 new Twitter followers and lots of lovely supportive comments on Facebook. I also made a postcard using a free stock image from Gratis Photography, a tip from my friend and co-tutor Bridget Whelan.

Unbound wanted me to come up with some pledge options, the standard ones are Patron (copy of the  e-book), Super Patron (copy of the e-book and name in the front) and Limited Edition Cover Art (my sister pledge for one of those!) but the author can add a few more. As I co-run Rattle Tales I am able to offer tickets for two to one of our shows with wine and as a tutor, editor and mentor I can offer services in these areas. Also on offer is a book group deal which includes up to ten copies of the book and an appearance by me at your bookgroup to discuss the book, tickets to the launch and many other rewards.

On Tuesday I got my first progress report from Unbound. Thanks to some very lovely friends, relatives and the editor of a journal who published on of the stories last year,  I was already 4% funded. Yesterday I set up a Facebook page for the book and invited all my friends to like it. Today I am 6% funded! A big THANKS to all of you. I’m beyond excited to be off on my crowdfunding journey but there’s a long way to go. I still need 121 pledges in the next 90 days or In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes won’t get published at all. So please please pledge and if you can’t please please share the video.

I’ll be posting this time next week to let you know more about the project.