First time poster, long time lurker. As many of you may know, I am author of
The Astronaut Instruction Manual. Seeing as this change in author royalties has a rather profound affect on me, I feel qualified to interject on this topic.
Essentially, the change is active immediately. And in nearly all cases–including for the larger part my own–this will be consensually retroactive.
Meaning, new terms have been created for authors and funding writers and they are going to affect new deals as well as established successes.
So you would think I’d be upset about that, right? Well, surprise, I’m not upset. In fact, I’m thrilled.
In a past life I did businesses. Lots of them. Some losers. Some winners. Some even lucrative. All–and I mean all–were great learning experiences.
When I got my deal with Inkshares I thought this is crazy. It was literally too good to be true. You cannot run a company on those margins. It is impossible. After the process of creating my funding book, I knew I was right. There is no doubt in my mind, Inkshares put around $30-$50k into my book while pulling only about $10k in funding and pre-sales. I’m no math genius but I’m a whiz at addition and subtraction, and those numbers don’t match up.
Retrospectively, even now, going into our third printing of The AIM, I know Inkshares hasn’t made its money back. Yet.
Of course, if I were an evil genius I’d being going BWAA-HAA-HA-HAA-HA right now. However, I’m not an evil genius. I’m not even a genius. I’m an astronaut teacher and author and Inkshares is my publisher who has done an absolutely astounding job of impacting the marketplace with my book: Third printing, audiobook deal with Penguin Random House, and of course the tv series deal with Legendary. Plus the creative freedom and rights I retain as writer and creator? Plus we are now working on THE COMIC BOOK (!!!)?
Wow.
To quote from Kurt Vonnegut, "If this isn’t good, I don’t know what is."
Without Inkshares, I would have none of this. I LOVE INKSHARES. I WANT INKSHARES TO SUCCEED EVEN MORE. So if I have to make fair adjustments to secure and guarantee even more and greater success, I’ll tell you what I told
@Adam Gomolin:
“Count me in.”
And Adam had made it very clear. If the deal didn’t look good to me or if I thought I could find a better deal somewhere else, he’d help me with an exit strategy.
PFFFFFFFFFT.
Me exit
Inkshares? Yeah
right! No sir-ree-bob,
I’m here to stay. I love the culture, I love the attitude, I love my fellow authors (
@JF Dubeau,
@Jamison Stone,
@Gary Whitta,
@Jim McDoniel I’m talking to you), I love the camaraderie, I love the community, and most of all I LOVE BEING AN INKSHARES AUTHOR.
The most telling fact I can share is everyone I know and love is staying put. What more, last week I think Inkshares had over 1000+ new book campaigns started. That means even more new awesome authors to share in this wonderful new model. ("Traditional publishing with crowdfunding front-end" I tell my friends.) We started Inkshares together. We have succeeded together. And we are now evolving together. Yes, I’m staying.
Heck, where would I go that is any more fun (and profitable and empowering and authenticating) than Inkshares? Like Montgomery Scott says in JJ Abram’s 2009 Star Trek reboot,
"I like this ship. It’s exciting!"
–
PS one last thing. Speaking of awesome new authors, while I’m here I just want to shoutout a book and author being funded that has caught my (generally behind the scenes) attention. It is
@Evan Graham’s Tantalus Depths.
Being an established author around here means you get to call the actual Inkshares’ Head Honchos and say, "Hey, I think you should take a look at this project." Which I did today about Tantalus Depths.
And like I told Adam, and while it may be early and maybe I’m wrong what do I know but in my opinion I think Evan writing and dialog is terrific and I think Evan has what it takes to win a Hugo.
We’re Inkshares. Like a big extended family or even a non-sucky high school. Let’s see what we can do about getting Tantalus Depths funded, ok? He’s close! Back Tantalus Depths and then spread the word on FB and Twitter.
Alright. Thanks and keep up the good work, everybody!
The one thing I do find discomforting is the lack of communication about this. It doesn’t sit particularly well with me that news regarding changes to author royalties didn’t really come to inkshares’s own site until it trickled there through the grapevine from other sources. Usually the Inkshares staff is very open and communicative, and engages directly with the community, which is one of the things I really love about this company. Yet if there was any kind of official announcement about this change on Inkshares itself, I must have missed it. I can’t help but feel like something of this nature should really be brought to our attention more transparently. Again, I don’t have any real issue with the changes that have been made; it’s just the lack of communication that’s bothered me.
Also, @Mike Mongo, you’re too kind. I really hope Tantalus Depths gets a proper chance to not quite win a Hugo award, so you won’t be proven terribly wrong. Aim high, right? :)