Dear authors and readers,
Thanks again to all who completed our recent surveys. Your feedback, experiences, and insights continue to inform how we advance Inkshares as a community, publisher and creative IP marketplace.
In the first survey, a vast majority of you stated that you found credits helpful, but with caveats. Many communicated that the credits policy is confusing and needs to be more strict, and that overall it’s too generous a system to continue in its current form. We agree.
The intent of the credit system is to encourage engagement with the platform. Specifically, we want to incentivize readers to re-engage with the platform after their first purchase and to reward readers that bring new users into the Inkshares ecosystem. At the same time, it’s important for us to be proactive in preventing harmful uses and abuses of this system.
To that end, we are updating credits to make them more sustainable. Starting today we will issue two types of credits:
Referral Credit for referring someone who buys a book (one credit per book): $2.50
First Order Credit for first-time users only, earned after their first purchase: $5
As always, we welcome feedback and questions.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Hello, everyone!
So, as you know, this campaign ends on August 19th. We need to hit 250 pre-orders by then if we want to make Quill.
We’re not going to do it.
This isn’t me giving up—in fact, it’s the opposite. This is me changing our battle plan, because this little skirmish of trying to see The Last Faoii in the hands of the fewest number of hands required to see any sort of publication at all is not nearly as big as the war we’re about to face. It was a worthy goal, and I would have been happy with it, feeling like I had brought The Last Faoii to a noteworthy and honorable end of reaching 250 readers.
Until your sudden influx of letters and support yesterday convinced me that that’s just not good enough.
Honestly, everyone—I thought that I’d had support before. I saw the 110 pre-orders and my heart swelled with honor and humility. I didn’t think I could feel more loved. Until suddenly all of you donned your battle gear and swore we were going to bring The Last Faoii further than even I dreamed possible. Until you told me to stop aiming my sights on this little hill I’ve been trying to surmount and instead to focus on the glorious mountain that’s in the distance. The Geek and Sundry Contest. Not a Quill Goal of 250 but a full publication goal of 750. You all said yesterday that you wanted to make it. So we’re going to.
That’s right. This little skirmish just turned into a war. And I’m granting every single one of you the title of Faoii (or Faoli) as of now.
In 17 days you’re all going to get e-mails that say we didn’t reach Quill. You’re going to get your money back and The Last Faoii will stop taking pre-orders. For a lot of people, that would be heart crushing. A huge disappointment.
But we’re not regular people, are we?
Because in 18 days, this Inkshares campaign going to start back up again, but this time every single pre-order is going to go not only to a Quill goal, but to the Geek and Sundry Contest. To full publication. Every pre-order is going to make The Last Faoii that much more noticeable to the hundreds of people who are following the contestants. And each pre-order is going to bring us one step closer to the top spot.
I’m not going to lie—we’re going to arrive late to the battle. The contest started yesterday and I can’t even enter until The Last Faoii has a clean slate. That’s 20 days late to a fight that dozens of books have already entered. But those dozens of other books haven’t been advertising and spreading the word for 90 days already. Those other books aren’t going to be able to start day one with (conceivably) 110 pre-orders. Those other books don’t have an entire army of honorary Faoii fighting for it.
Those other books don’t have all of you.
So, are you ready, Faoii? Because I’m drafting you into this fight right now.
You don’t have to take the title. I’m not forcing you. If you choose, in 17 days, you can take the investment you put towards this novel and you can choose to take it back. You can take your significant other out to dinner or buy that thing you’ve had your eye on. I wouldn’t begrudge you that. I’m just honored you stood by me the first time around.
But you can also choose to put that money right back into the place you already decided once it should belong—The Last Faoii’s future. You have the next 17 days to decide. I’m planning on using that time to make our battle plan. To figure out how we’re going to spread the word about The Last Faoii and create the army that will lead us to victory. And I need your help to do it. We’ve got 17 days before the REAL campaign begins.
Faoii, let’s go to war.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask people to support yourself, not your book. It’s a small division, but it makes a big deal. Ask people to help support you get published and back that dream. It will take 2 years before they have a book and there is a lot of editing that goes into it. Your story may look completely different, so focus instead on your idea, and who you are and why it’s important to you.
5. Focus on your own extended networks, family, and friends first, then turn your attention to crowds and other Inkshare authors. Yes, there is a community here, and everyone is trying to get their books funded. At some point, it’s about playing match maker and cross pollination of reader bases. That is a good and healthy thing. It’s okay to market each others books to your crowd. That’s why you knock your people out of the way first. Then you can help others and others can help you.
6. Passive media: Ads, cards, fliers, these things help you build your author brand and focus your vision, but they don’t help with crowd funding in a contest. They won’t net you any sales. What they will do: Is polish your writer brain into a fine-tuned 15 second selling machine.
So, those are some of my quick tips. Inkshares had blogged about it before: and Tal Klein wrote his tips. I’m willing to help and offer advice to anyone, just send me a PM.
~Rick Heinz