[EDIT: 12:03PM — some folks have brought up that other voices have made good points on the subject, particularly the voices of, frankly, women smarter than I am. I do attempt to boost other voices when possible, so here are some I found valuable on the topic: Marni Bates wrote a great post about Stacey Jay, Kickstarter and Veronica Mars. She really nails it. Also: Justina Ireland: Suffering For (And With) Our Art. And for a differing perspective (one I don’t quite agree with but I like Jenny Trout’s blog a lot in general): Jenny Trout on crowdfunding.]
[Edited, too, to add Natalie Luhrs’ take — Kickstart This: Asking For Money.]
* * *
Catchup reading homework: Stacey Jay’s latest post, which she (rightly so) gets mad and discusses the transparency surrounding her Kickstarter (and also the fact that, ohh, someone sent her aerial photos of house as a response, which is not fucking okay). Also, the tag-team post between Laura Lam and I here: Kickstarter: What’s Asking Too Much?
(Also, as a disclaimer, I received some commentary that me interjecting myself in this discussion was sexist — the justification being, because this was an issue between Stacey Jay and Other Women, it was a women’s issue. I’m a white guy who is, honestly, pretty lucky to be a white guy because we can get away with like, actual murder, and I recognize that my privilege is blinding. So, if you feel that I’m being somehow misogynist in my criticism or in the very act of talking about this topic, feel free to talk to me about it. I’m having a hard time seeing it, as I think this is an issue of art and commerce and audience, but “having a hard time seeing it” is sometimes the very sad and awful nature of privilege. Happy to discuss!)
In the days following Stacey Jay’s Kickstarter, I continue to see criticism of the model and of the authors who use or have used it, and so I thought: well, let’s go through some of these criticisms. This is a good discussion to have, because it gets to the heart of the question of how we make art and how that art reaches audiences. Right? The model has changed over the many moons and epochs and up until fairly recently, you had one primary path and it was a well-trodden, muddy one — you went to a publisher, and they gave you some kind of advance big or small (or sometimes non-existent), and then you wrote a book for them and then it landed on shelves and — well, you know this, already. Because this is recent history. Dinosaurs didn’t do this. This wasn’t a problem of Cro-Magnon man figuring out how to publish his cave paintings of that romance novel between Caveman Thog and that one saucy antelope. This shit just happened.
Then the Internet came along and it disrupted everything.
It is so disruptive it continues, in fact, to disrupt itself. Like a snake eating and barfing its own tail.
And suddenly writers and artists and, in fact, People Who Make All Kinds Of Shit had options and opportunities that simply didn’t exist before. The priests of the old religion went scrambling, trying to figure out when the commonfolk created a pipeline to talk directly to God instead of going through a passel of divine intermediaries.
That’s not to say traditional publishing is bad or dying or any of that — just that it was not a perfect system and it remains imperfect and for Creative Types, it’s nice to have a new way to shake hands with the audience and slip some art in their eyeholes.
You know all this already.
Point is, one of the options that has arisen is crowdfunding Cool Shit. Cool Shit that sometimes includes books — novels, novellas, art books, short stories, serial stories, etc.
Kickstarter launched in 2009.
It has successfully funded almost 1500 novels in that time.
(The amount not funded? ~3-4 times that.)
About 50 of those successfully funded were young adult projects.
Some Kickstarter novels have done very well.
I’ve been involved in several Kickstarter campaigns: one for my own original book, Bait Dog. One for a novel line created specifically for Evil Hat Productions. And also for a few anthologies and literary magazines (like Fireside).
So, let’s tackle some of the criticism I’m seeing going around.
It puts all the risk on the reader.
Maybe not all the risk (the author still has to write and publish a book), but it certainly moves some of that financial burden to the audience side, yes. Some people are understandably not interested in shouldering any of that burden, and they shouldn’t be expected to contribute to Kickstarters if they feel such discomfort. On the other side, if one’s fans and audience are interested in having that relationship and are comfortable shouldering some of that risk, then crowdfunding is a very nice way to capitalize on that relationship for both sides. Because it is a two-sided equation — this isn’t just an author getting rich, rolling around in caviar (ew), and then fucking off to the Caribbean. This is the author doing work and giving the audience something the audience specifically asked for. Riskier, yes, but also a direct exchange.
It’s not an investment.
That’s true, it’s not. And there are admittedly a lot of analogies that get thrown around as to how this works, and I’ll tackle some of those (with the explicit understanding that all analogies fail and crowdfunding is its own unique thing). But no, the audience gets nothing financial out of it.
They may get rewards — swag, a short story, a Tuckerization, a jar of bees, or whatever.
You might argue that there is some kind of investment going on, and that is to say, emotional and creative investment. That means you put in money and in the process get an emotional and creative stake in the creation of something. Something that, very likely, wouldn’t have existed before. Crowdfunding allows projects that wouldn’t have existed to exist. It applies early proof-of-concept. When I put Bait Dog out there as a KS campaign I didn’t know if I had enough audience to support the writing of the book — meaning, taking the time to write that book would have taken me away from other work. Crowdfunding sent a very clear signal that I did have the audience to support that book. And, the book and character only exist because of Kickstarter.
It’s a donation / it’s a gift.
It’s definitely not a gift. A gift is like, “Here’s a pony.” And then I take the pony and you don’t expect anything in return and then I eat the pony because I’m a monster.
(You shouldn’t have given me a pony.)
So, is it a donation? Ennh. Well, I can see the logic — like, if NPR/PBS goes on a pledge drive, they’re saying, “Hey, we can’t really keep existing unless we raise funds from you.” And they call them pledges but they also call them donations. You give money. You get a fucking tote bag. And what’s happening with Kickstarter is similar — authors are saying, “This book won’t exist except for you funding it.” And the interjections of money are called pledges.
And you sometimes get tote bags.
I have a little discomfort in that NPR tends to fund itself in perpetuity this way, where as Kickstarter is ostensibly (though some bigger campaigns have skirted this) meant to fund individual projects — so, you’re not throwing money to support an overall existence but rather, the creation of a given thing. Just the same: donation isn’t the worst definition for what’s happening here, though the connotation is a bit wonky and too much like charity.
(Hint: this isn’t charity.)
It’s not an advance.
It’s not. Though, a lot of the criticism over this term in this context seems to be overly pedantic in that what they mean is, “It’s not a traditional publishing advance by which a big publisher fronts a bunch of money and gets a return on that investment and then the big publisher becomes a giant robot and fights the Amazon Kaiju in the streets of Chicago and –”
Well, you get the point.
No, strictly speaking, it is not an advance.
But you do have to allow us to say, “It’s like an advance,” because it kinda is.
The audience advances money. The author is expected to produce the thing that was a part of the original deal — meaning, the Kickstarted Tale of Debauchery and Woe or whatever the floppy fuck it is. The advance is the publisher saying, “I’m paying you to write this book or to stake my claim on a book already written.” And here, the audience is saying, “I’m paying you to write this book or to stake my claim on a book already written” (Some folks do after all run Kickstarters for novels that are already written.)
So, it’s not an advance.
But it can feel like one and act like one in some ways.
You shouldn’t use it to fund your life.
Strictly speaking, that’s correct. Kickstarter in particular frowns upon and usually forbids funding-of-life projects — meaning, “I want to be paid to learn to play the violin, so pay me.” That’s a different service, like Patreon or GoFundMe.
Kickstarting a novel isn’t that, though.
You pay into the novel and get the reward level pledged.
That specifically funds the creation of a specific thing.
Now, here’s where it gets sticky, and here’s probably where some authors (like myself, admittedly) are going to get their codpieces in a contortion about the whole thing — you don’t want to pay for living expenses for the writer. (A quote from the Dear Author post on the subject: “As to why other people are talking about living expenses, it could be because living expenses are something we all have to pay regardless of our avocations or jobs whereas the hard expenses are something that are above and beyond living expenses. The truth is in every fundraising organization, the hardest thing to get anyone to donate money for is a general fund that pays salaries. People will give money for libraries, monuments, science labs, but they do not like to donate for salaries. Readers work hard and often work at low paying, thankless jobs. To see a person ask for donations to live when that person is able-bodied and can hold a job, then it becomes less obvious why they need donations for living expenses.” That post actually screencaps this blog but does not name it, so there you go.)
Here is a reality: when you buy one of my books, you’re paying for my living expenses. That’s true if it’s at Amazon, on B&N, from Payhip direct, or in a Kickstarter. Sometimes this money directly hops into my bank accounts, sometimes it goes through various pipes and tubes and filtering processes where it’s winnowed down.
I worked for a library and I’ve worked for a non-profit and in each, the first place the money goes is to keeping the lights on and to paying staff. That money is not always golden money, but it’s not bare minimum stuff, either — yes, the organization takes cuts and makes sacrifices when necessary, but the money goes toward those things first. So: if you’re involved in giving money to an author however directly or obliquely, assume it’s going first toward keeping the lights on and paying staff (meaning: the staff of one, which is us). (Also, “The Staff of One” sounds like something in a D&D game. Or a sci-fi porn movie? Never mind.) These things are, quite literally, living expenses. Being alive is a prerequisite to writing books.
I mean, I’m sure some zombies do it, but it’s all CHAPTER ONE: BUHHH BRAINS ONCE UPON A TIME BRAINS ROPES OF VISCERA CHAPTER TWO EAT YOUR FACE BUHHHHH.
Also, it’s a bold assumption that an author is able-bodied and can hold a job. Also a bold assumption that they are able to even get a job, as that can be kind of tricky.
Oh, and also a bold assumption that writing isn’t a job in the first place.
(Spoiler alert: it is! It’s actually my job! My whole job!)
As to readers working hard at thankless, low-paying jobs: sure, that can be true. And I wouldn’t ever expect or ask such a reader to contribute to a Kickstarter campaign. Hell, I wouldn’t expect or ask a wealthy reader to contribute, either. Kickstarter is voluntary. No one should feel shame at not contributing. It’s okay to wait or not to pay at all. No guns held to heads.
But some readers want to contribute. They are offering enthusiastic consent and want to be a part of that relationship. Some readers — as I have done as a Giver of Money — dig the idea that a creative project exists in part because of their will to see it made. Sometimes a project is Too Weird To Live. It’s too uncertain — a strange format, an odd topic, a difficult subject. And Kickstarter can be a place where those voices can find a megaphone. Where those projects can be conjured as if by some divine summoning.
Now, back to the funding-of-life thing:
If you see an art studio on Kickstarter, it’s assumed they’re going to use that money to keep the lights and heat on in the building. If you buy a book from a publisher, that publisher will use that money for lights and heat and to pay staff and writers who will also use that money for — YEP YOU GUESSED IT — light and heat.
Living expenses are part of the deal even when not explicitly stated.
A writer should have to shoulder all the cost as a small business would.
Well, no, not really.
First: should is dubious and depends on literally nothing except the old saw of, “That’s how things used to be done.” The disruption that’s been ongoing in all industries and sectors has made hashbrowns out of the way things used to be done.
Second: why should a writer have to do that, exactly? Because others have done it? Mm — *sips* — this Kool-Aid tastes like sour grapes. As I said before, wanting things to be bad for other people because they were bad for you doesn’t make much sense. We should strive to see things be made better. We should want new doors opened — doors that were closed to us in the past. So we can collectively explore whatever waits beyond. (Though in publishing, a pro-tip: it’s probably a grue.)
Third: small business do not uniformly have to shoulder all the costs. They get investors (which is not an option for many writers). Or — they go to Kickstarter! Kickstarter isn’t just for novels and in fact it’s barely been used for those. But for games? Tech? Coffee roasters, craft brewers, thingies, whatsits, widgets, dongles, dildos, and more? Yes! It’s all there. In a town about 45 minutes south there sits a frozen yogurt place that exists only because of Kickstarter. I gave a little money and got frozen yogurt and now they exist.
IT’S BASICALLY MAGIC.
Why do we want things to keep working the same horrible way they’ve always worked?!
It’s an insult to readers.
It’s not. It’s not!
It’s an opportunity for both author and reader.
It is never an insult to ask to be paid for your work.
And I don’t think readers feel insulted, either.
It’s not sustainable / it’ll change everything / a rush to money, etc.
This has been going on for many years now and we’ve seen, as noted, around 1500 successful novels. On Amazon, there now exist — what? Three million e-books? Kickstarter isn’t taking over or it would’ve colonized us by now like drug-resistant staph bacteria. KICKSTART THE HIVE MIND BZZ BZZ BZZ. Ahem. It won’t change everything. It won’t ruin everything. People aren’t rushing to it because for the most part they’ve realized that to run a successful Kickstarter you need some things already in place.
But it is one option for some authors.
That’s a good thing. We like options.
Readers like options, too! How is this bad for those readers who are interested?
Some books exist because of Kickstarter and other crowdfunding efforts.
How fucking rad is that?
This is not anti-author / authors hate bloggers / authors hate readers, etc. Also, we should be allowed to criticize Kickstarter and crowdfunding and those authors who use those services.
I’ve seen the rhetoric kicked up on both sides of this debate, and from where I’m sitting, this isn’t a blogger issue. Or a reader issue. Authors love bloggers and love readers, sure as we love booksellers and librarians and publishing people and anybody who shares the warm, fuzzy virus known as ragingly contagious book-love.
If we seem prickly about the subject: apologies. But let me try to get at the heart of it a little bit: crowdfunding is an option on the table. One lots of authors have used. It’s a new way for books to exist and so, when you criticize them — sometimes in ways that seem to misunderstand how it even works, and sometimes in ways that suggests you’re uncomfortable with us paying living expenses — we’re probably going to see our hackles raise a little. Nobody was explicitly calling for authors to not be paid or asking for books for free or any of that. But at the heart of this discussion is an ancient question of how do we get paid to make art — ? How does the writer survive? We should be encouraging a world where fewer authors have to take the dreaded day-job and where their writing alone can support them. That’s an amazing world, and I’d rather see that money go toward creative people than toward, I dunno, oil companies or anybody else. And Kickstarter is one way forward for that.
Kickstarter is not perfect. Of course criticism of the process is valid. And some campaigns do it poorly (and usually perform poorly as a result). This is all a vital discussion about how art is made and how it reaches audiences. We just want to make sure that the criticism isn’t geared toward closing this door. Because it’s open now, and we want it open. Not because we’re Big Exploity-Faced Mine Bosses who want to give pick-axes to our readers and have them do the work while we sit back on toilets made of hundred-dollar bills, but because this is a super-cool thing for us. To interface directly with readers, to be able to say, “If you want this, my 1000 true fans, I will make this.” And they say yes. And a book is born! In a manger! Okay maybe not in a manger!
There was much rejoicing.
(On the Stacey Jay Kickstarter, I stand by the idea that some folks made it personal. In other words, not criticizing just the nature of crowdfunding but choosing to yell at her — and as soon as you start bringing up her groceries or, worse, where she lives as if that’s a justification for anything, you start making it less about crowdfunding and more about that individual person. As I said before, it’s like being mad at the ocean but yelling at one woman in a boat. A commenter on my last post demanded proof that anyone had gotten personal and in the same comment literally said: “Chuck, I really think you’re doing that think mend [sic] do when a girl cries and you rush in to save her. Where is she to speak for herself? If you can’t defend yourself then you don’t deserve to be an author. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it-don’t run away and quit. And I’ll take this time to remind everyone that Stacey Jay was a professional actress. Drama is literally what she is good at.” Which is the very definition of personal. Oh and SHE WAS DOXXED.)
(I mean, what the fuck.)
(God, people can be shitty.)
Anyway, so, there you go.
My thoughts on Kickstarter and why it’s a vital resource for some authors.
Discuss.
Christi Frey says:
“this Kool-Aid tastes like sour grapes”
You made me snort my coffee this morning. Thanks, Chuck.
January 12, 2015 — 8:47 AM
Kevin says:
Sending aerial pictures of your home is a frequent tactic these days. I am disabled with MS and my wife has terminal cancer. I have asked for donations on my blog to help pay her medical bills. I have asked for donations when we were within days– if not hours — of being evicted from our apartment. While some folks were very nice, others have told me that we are what is wrong with America, that we are parasites on society, and other horrible things. Some have gone so far to send threats attached to aerial pictures of our apartment building. The intent of such messages was pretty clear.
While I think the author did nothing wrong, I think this deal goes far beyond whether the author did anything wrong in the minds of others. These days it seems that most folks are in the “judging of others” business like we all live in an American Idol world. While some will limit themselves to throwing a verbal rock, others seem intent on beating the hell out of folks through social media attack.
January 12, 2015 — 8:48 AM
mattblackattack says:
Reading through all these arguments, I still don’t get it. If you don’t like… wait for it… *drumroll*… Don’t Contribute!
Also, anyone who would post pictures of someone else’s house online is undeniably the lowest form of human.
January 12, 2015 — 8:51 AM
Melinda Primrose says:
Dear Chuck,
As a woman, I don’t see this as sweeping in and standing up for someone who is defenseless. I see this as bringing your readers an important conversation. I think what happened to Stacey was so terribly wrong. Not because she’s a woman, but because she was trying to do the right thing. I don’t think there would have been any uproar if she had called the money she was asking for living expenses anything other than living expenses. Call it overhead, call it administrative costs, and this conversation wouldn’t be happening.
The only thing that raised my hackles a bit was this statement by you:
Stacey Jay was a professional actress. Drama is literally what she is good at.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to imply that she was being overly dramatic in light of what’s happened to her. Maybe I just read it wrong. I don’t think Stacey was being overly dramatic at all! If I had been doxed, I know I’d want to run and hide.
Anyway, thanks for the thought provoking article. Enlightening as usual.
Melinda Primrose
January 12, 2015 — 8:51 AM
S. says:
The ‘Stacey Jay was a professional actress.’ bit was a quote from a commenter on a previous post.
January 12, 2015 — 9:03 AM
terribleminds says:
Oh! Sorry if I was unclear. The actress comment was made by a commenter at my last post, not by me —
‘A commenter on my last post demanded proof that anyone had gotten personal and in the same comment literally said: “Chuck, I really think you’re doing that think mend [sic] do when a girl cries and you rush in to save her. Where is she to speak for herself? If you can’t defend yourself then you don’t deserve to be an author. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it-don’t run away and quit. And I’ll take this time to remind everyone that Stacey Jay was a professional actress. Drama is literally what she is good at.” Which is the very definition of personal.’
In other words, this commenter a) said nobody was getting personal and then b) immediately got personal.
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 9:03 AM
geraldhornsby says:
ENOUGH ALREADY!
Not you, Chuck, but everyone else. No one is forced to fund a Kickstarter. You can choose. If you don’t have money, you don’t fund, you don’t receive the ‘rewards’, and you’re back where you started. And all that personal stuff? Really, the internet is a scummy place, sometimes. People who are nasty on the internet just because they have The Internet and No One Can See Them should get back under a rock from whence they crawled.
I think some people see writing a book as an easy thing to do. Hell, I’m sitting in a warm house, on a comfortable chair, listening to my favourite music. AND I have clothes on today (it is Monday, after all). Because writing is just words, and anyone can write just words, and do it a lot, and make one of these book things and make a ton of money. That Harry Potter woman did it. How hard can it be? So you want paying to write a book? Get the hell out of here, and off My Internets. The Internets means that everything can be free, and should be. *heads off, mumbling, to a Torrent site to see what they can download for free and never use*
January 12, 2015 — 8:56 AM
Stacy Chambers (@stacy_chambers) says:
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the complaints about Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. If you don’t like the concept, if you don’t like a project’s use of the concept, if you don’t feel a writer “deserves” to have her project funded, you can just… not donate.
January 12, 2015 — 8:56 AM
geraldhornsby says:
Melinda – that comment about being an actress was a quote from a commenter on Chuck’s post. Chuckie-boy wouldn’t say anything like that. At least, not while we were listening.
January 12, 2015 — 8:58 AM
Misa says:
I still cannot understand the sexism claim. I believe that standing up for a fellow human being who’s being bullied is exactly what we should do, regardless of gender. That you, Chuck, were expected to stand to one side simply because you’re male when the victim and her bullies were female is frankly ridiculous.
As to the “mansplaining” accusation… well, if someone is going to fire hate at someone else over a Kickstarter project, then it does need pointing out that YOU DON’T HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE. It’s not mansplaining, it’s bloody common sense. Sheesh.
The doxxing is truly appalling, though. Dare I even consider Kickstarter when there some who will clasp at their pearls and yell things like “I DID TWO JOBS AND RAISED CHILDREN AND COULD ONLY WRITE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT – HOW DARE YOU ASK FOR SOMETHING BETTER?!” at me?
Being a female author is hard. We’re the one who get dismissed as “hobbyists”, asked about balancing family life and writing, who struggle to get recognised for genre novels (either dismissed as romance authors or berated as sci fi/fantasy authors). So why the fuck are some of us trying to make it harder for others? The fact we’ve struggled is EVERY REASON to give our fellow authors whatever help we can.
We should be holding out our hands to pull each other up, not slapping each other down.
*drops mic*
*walks off with everything exploding behind her*
January 12, 2015 — 9:00 AM
mattblackattack says:
I believe that standing up for a fellow human being who’s being bullied is exactly what we should do, regardless of gender. That you, Chuck, were expected to stand to one side simply because you’re male when the victim and her bullies were female is frankly ridiculous.
I was going to say something like this, but then I realized I might fall into the same “you don’t get it because your privileged viewpoint blinds you from seeing it” trap that Chuck was talking about. Glad I would have been wrong, thank you for you post.
January 12, 2015 — 9:18 AM
Jenn Lyons says:
God damn tall poppy syndrome. Someone’s being even marginally successful? Tear them down! I really hate that we do this to each other.
Also, cool explosions.
January 12, 2015 — 9:21 AM
Anthony says:
I said this before, and I still don’t get it. Why are people upset that the author is putting money towards food/light/heat/etc? You are paying the author to take the time to create the book. The actual creation of the book takes time. So you are paying the author to take the time to create the book. In other words, you are paying the person to give that book priority over other things that could use that time…like a job which would pay those bills.
As long as you get the book/videogame/movie/new sex dildo what do you care what happens to the money? You put in the amount you’re comfortable with, for the amount of reward you want, and that is all you are doing. If you don’t like what you can get for the reward you’re comfortable with you don’t do it. But at the same time, realize the creator is doing the same thing. A kickstarter is literally saying “we need to see this much financial interest to make this worth our time.” The crowd then either shows said interest or not. When the crowd shows a lot of interest you get stretch goals, which are the same thing “show this much financial interest and you also get a cool elephant head for the dildo” and then the crowd either does or doesn’t.
“I don’t like that the person is buying a hamburger with my money!” is just a weird position.So let’s say you get to stop them from buying a hamburger with that. Now they spend your money to buy a bunch of printer ink (you’re happy, they bought ink with your money) which frees up other money to buy the hamburger…so you just bought them the hamburger anyhow.
People get hung up on the weirdest things.
January 12, 2015 — 9:03 AM
La La in the Library says:
Do you want to know what really made people angry. First, she didn’t let them know she has a series of lucrative Adult Romance novels, and secondly when she said she was quitting writing she let people believe she was quitting writing, period, zero output. I had the initial Twitter interaction with her when she tweeted about “quitting” a few days before her book came out. When she said she was being forced to quit because she couldn’t support her family of four on writing books, I told her I was a musician and I have never been able to support even my family of four on my music alone, but I never quit. That is when she confessed she wasn’t totally stopping, only getting out of YA Fantasy because there isn’t enough money in it. She was asking people for living expenses when a majority of them don’t live as well as she herself does. And that, my friends, is the real reason people were mad. She has also removed those money making Adult books from the sidebar of her YA blog, so it looks like they don’t exist.
January 12, 2015 — 9:08 AM
terribleminds says:
Many YA writers who also write adult separate out their work. Sometimes the publishers want this, sometimes they don’t care.
Also, until I actually see her bank statements (to which I am not privy to nor should I be), it’s not really my business if she has lucrative books on the side.
A twist on this variant would be, if she was a lucrative lawyer (as many have suggested she should have a day job) and Kickstarting this, would that make a difference?
Also, her right to quit is her right. Meaning, it’s her life, her career, and she can do or say whatever she wants in support of her own autonomy. It’s not our business. I understand being dubious of wanting to support her — at which point I’d argue that the easiest way forward is simply not to contribute to her Kickstarter.
See, here’s the thing: some of this stuff, some of this BUT SHE SAID and BUT HER LIFE IS sounds an awful lot like the same shit you get out of GamerGate. BUT THAT GAME DEVELOPER IS DATING XYZ. BUT THAT GAME REVIEWER ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THIS OTHER PATREON. It’s shouldering into “not really your problem or your business” territory all under the guise of consumer clarity and “ethics.”
“She was asking people for living expenses when a majority of them don’t live as well as she herself does.” — I mean, do you live with her? Do you know her bills? Her rent? Her mortgage? Her life? Let’s say you do (though again: you shouldn’t). Who cares? I could literally put on my Kickstarter, “And $1000 will go toward my liquor cabinet.” Some people would donate because of that. Lots would avoid donating because of that.
A lot of this makes very bold presumptions based on what she was going to do — and worse, what she has the RIGHT to do as an author and as a publisher.
Honestly, I find it very judgmental and more than a little creepy.
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 9:15 AM
christophergronlund says:
Definitely judgmental and creepy. The strangest thing to me is that even if she made a bazillion dollars a year writing books, no one is forcing anyone to contribute. It’s not just telling an author what to do, but those contributing what to do.
How I choose to spend my money is my business, and if I want to fund even a rich person’s project, what does it matter to others? I know the argument made is, “They can find funding or fund things on their own, without asking!” but if they choose to use a crowdfunding site and I choose to put my money up, it’s really just between the author and those willing to fund something.
Authors have more than enough hardships without being attacked because they might be seen as already making money and — apparently — not allowed to seek alternate ways of doing things. Any way an author (even a genuinely well-off author) can reach an audience and make money is good for writing.
January 12, 2015 — 11:40 AM
ivy says:
More to consider:
People also presume that just because there is a lucrative adult product, that the proceeds from this business can automatically be available to tip the other, YA product. She is attached to both products as author, but it’s quite probable (as elsewhere in the arts) that each functions as an independent business – or, ‘dynamic business system’. It might not just be a matter of which project sucks or makes money – they might even be legally separate.
January 12, 2015 — 5:38 PM
Jenn Lyons says:
So, you’re saying that since she was asking for money to write a YA novel (time she obviously couldn’t use to write those lucrative romance novels) that she was wrong to want to use kickstarter to make up a portion of the difference?
“Hey Guys, I want to do this cool thing! But to do it, I’m going to have to take time away from my normal job. Help me?”
Am I missing how this isn’t exactly what a kickstarter should be used for?
January 12, 2015 — 9:33 AM
decayingorbits says:
I looked all over the Kickstarter website and could not find anything that speaks to what KS funding should be used for — at least I couldn’t find anything that says “KS funds shall not be used for living expenses to create your KS-funded widget.”
If you have a link I’d love to read it.
January 12, 2015 — 9:45 AM
UrsulaV says:
And…this forces people to donate to her Kickstarter how?
You don’t think, for whatever reason, that she deserves the money. Why do you care enough to follow it, track her comment section, and comment here? Some author you aren’t backing is making career plans that you wouldn’t make.
And…why do you care?
January 12, 2015 — 11:31 AM
pstaylor (@pstaylor) says:
I make a lot less than most CEOs, and yet I buy their products. I’m pretty sure Meryl Streep makes more per movie than my entire family will make in our lifetimes, but I pay my 10 bucks to see her movies. Sir Paul McCartney is a knight, for chrissakes, and I still plop down my $15.99 for the Beatles reissues. I’m pretty sure George RR Martin has more in the bank than I do, and yet I paid full price for his novels.
There are entire industries and careers built on young people’s disposable income. Some of the highest selling records of all time are groups that appealed largely to the underage set. American Girl dolls are a hundred bucks a pop, and they are marketed to girls under ten. What girl under ten has a spare hundo to spare?
The point is that a lot of the people we willingly give money to have more money than we do. On that front, Zac Braff and the people behind Veronica Mars funded multi-million dollar movies on Kickstarter. If it was ok for a famous actor to do a kickstarter, why not a mildly successful author?
January 12, 2015 — 12:55 PM
thesexiestwriter says:
I’m pretty sick of the whole “You don’t have a right to talk about this” attitude that seems to have swept the nation in the last oh, ten years or so. Saying someone is sexist/racist/condescending because they have an opinion about something is the very height of assholery and does nothing for me. This whole argument is a perfect example of how our nation has taken the whole Thoreau/Emerson attitude of “Be true to thyself” and stretched it beyond any rationality to the point that it says “If something seems a little out of your experience or belief, yell from the rooftops and start a riot.” People need to relax, man. Have a drink. Stop believing that they are the only one with the privilege of an opinion or relevant knowledge.
January 12, 2015 — 9:09 AM
La La in the Library says:
Also, it seems that no one saw those internet photos. One story is someone tweeted them, and another version is they were sent to her email. She also said she was being forced to close down all social media, but she is still tweeting. She said in one “conversation” that she should be able to have a career in what she went to school for, but her author’s bio says she has a degree in… wait for it… ACTING!! Ha ha. This is the last I am saying on this subject and if you still want to drink her Kool-aid, go right ahead.
January 12, 2015 — 9:16 AM
terribleminds says:
And this is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re saying the same things that the commenter to which I referred said.
Me, I’m going to go ahead and believe she was doxxed. Also: why exactly would she publish the photos people sent to her? “Here, someone doxxed me with these, now I’m going to release them publicly to prove to naysayers I was hurt.” Do we need to also ask what she was wearing?
I’m not drinking Kool-Aid, I’m choosing to believe that someone who claims to have been threatened and doxxed has been.
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 9:20 AM
UrsulaV says:
…for the love of god, if someone sent me photos of my house, WHY would I put them on the internet? Would I really want to roll out a welcome mat to stalkers when I’ve already got people yelling at me? When people are doxxed, they don’t respond by putting their address and grandma’s phone number online to “prove” it happened, because that would be absolutely bonkers.
Kool-aid shmoo-laid, you can disagree with how she handled things, but that’s a completely unreasonable request.
January 12, 2015 — 11:44 AM
rochrist says:
Yeah, this is just so very #gamergater of you. Hopefully, this IS that last you’ll say on the subject, but somehow, I doubt it.
January 12, 2015 — 3:32 PM
smithster says:
At first blink, this sounds like another case of “Artists should be doing what they do for the love of it, and if you expect to be paid you’re selling out.” As to whether she already had books published, so what? I’ve funded a kickstarter or two for authors I know _because I’ve read their published work_ and that’s why I’ve funded them. I’ve funded the equivalent of ‘create a bear’ for a company that makes stuffed toys even though they’ve got other stuffed toys out there they’re selling. I like what they do, I’m okay with supporting them doing more of it. I don’t necessarily expect it to happen. Once or twice it hasn’t, but I never invest more than I’m okay with losing. I believe that’s one of those ‘Rules for investing’, because sometimes they don’t pay off.
Doxxing is never okay, m’kay. It’s an explicit threat. It says “I know where you live, and if I’m not happy with you (which I’m not coz I’m doxxing you) I can leave a dead bunny on your doorstep.”
January 12, 2015 — 9:20 AM
Waymon Warnell says:
I’ve contributed to a novel being KS’ed and I’m excited that the book is being written and will come to life. Because I loved the premise and I’ve read and enjoyed previous stories by the writer I hope indeedly do that my small (pre-purchase?) will support them.
January 12, 2015 — 9:20 AM
mattblackattack says:
I am getting extremely sick of the “Drinking the Kool-Aid” metaphor. Because I want some kool-aid. It is delicious and fruity. STOP SLANDERING KOOL-AID!
January 12, 2015 — 9:25 AM
Gareth Skarka says:
It’s definitely slander, because the Jonestown loonies (the event which was the etymological source of “drinking the Kool-Aid”) were actually drinking Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid. But y’know — Xerox, Kleenex and all that.
January 12, 2015 — 2:39 PM
La La in the Library says:
To answer what you said in reply to my original comment the knowledge of her having money-making Romance novels was no secret to the non-YA blogging crowd. It wasn’t learned from any creepy stalking, she has actually bragged about her “20 published books in five years” in interviews and has even written “how to be successful like me” posts. So no, people weren’t being creepers, it was just that the YA bloggers didn’t know at first.
January 12, 2015 — 9:27 AM
terribleminds says:
She should brag about those books. Twenty books in five years is pretty amazing, and also serves as pretty good evidence that, ohh, I dunno, were she to run a Kickstarter she’d make good on it.
The creepy part wasn’t about stalking, it was about all the judging going on. There’s a point where criticism ends and it starts to get just plain judgey.
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 10:10 AM
Yvonne says:
Unless she said “I have TWENTY published novels, you groveling wannabe peons, TWENTY in FIVE YEARS, so suck it!” she was probably just stating a fact, not bragging, no matter how frustrating it might be for writers who are still struggling to hear about them. More power to her. As Chuck notes, she has a right to brag. It took me 20 years to publish my 20 novels 🙂 Wait, was that bragging?
January 14, 2015 — 1:58 AM
mckkenzie says:
Having trouble commenting directly on Stacey Jay’s blog for some reason…I would like to suggest that she (and you, Chuck since you link to her) add a trigger warning at the top of your posts. That said…Jesus, what a load of shit this is. I hope she does another Kickstarter so I can support it.
January 12, 2015 — 9:27 AM
Selu says:
At the heart of this issue is the thesis that everyone can write a book that people want to read… if they had a bit of time or a bit of money, so who is this Stacey Jay woman asking for money to do what everyone else could do if they have said money (and time). I consider that thesis to be complete bullshit, because not everyone can write a book people want to read even if they have massive amounts of money and massive amounts of time. Writers have a talent, writers have a passion; writers work hard to develop that talent and passion into a craft (if they’re doing it right), and even if every single one of us came programmed with the talent and the passion, it’s still mostly work to write a book – so, no everyone can’t do it because everyone doesn’t do it. We writers are not special snowflakes but we deserve to be paid for our work as much as the next person who gets up, caffeinates, and gets their ass to the chair (or the sales floor or the factory machinery) and makes stuff (happen).
January 12, 2015 — 9:31 AM
Jenn Lyons says:
Well said. People CAN write books. Most people don’t (and arguably, shouldn’t.)
January 12, 2015 — 9:40 AM
decayingorbits says:
Gong back to my post in the original discussion thread, this seems awfully simple. Some author starts a kickstarter — as long as that author is transparent about why they want the money, then people can either contribute or not.
What has everyone’s skivvies in a twist about what happened to Stacey Jay is that this particular kickstarter was an opportunity for that wonderfully disruptive thing we call the internet to expose it’s scabby, pus-dripping, underbelly to expose itself.
People who write threatening emails, posts, etc. because they disagree with Stacey’s KS campaign aren’t trying to protect the virginal purity of the KS process, they are fucked-up bullies using this as their opportunity to show how pathetic they are.
It doesn’t make things any easier for Stacey, though. The internet, like the real world, can be a really fucked-up place.
January 12, 2015 — 9:33 AM
ivy says:
Hear hear!
January 12, 2015 — 6:51 PM
Moriah says:
It’s not like she was asking someone to fund her making a potato salad, which actually got funded on one of the cloud funding sites. I do not see what the issue is. You like what she wrote up, you give money, you don’t like, you don’t give money. You don’t like kickstarter complain about the platform.
January 12, 2015 — 9:39 AM
trillian4210 says:
Jesus Christ, if people don’t think Kickstarter is how she should fund her book, then they don’t have to donate. Or pledge. Or whatever. As it usually is with the internet, angry people made the situation about THEM. It’s always about THEM, not HER and by god they’re going to rant about it because reasons.
Makes me want to donate and I don’t even read YA.
January 12, 2015 — 9:54 AM
abillyhiggins says:
Who uses the term “big girl panties” and thinks that they’re making a genuine contribution to a conversation? Like, what is the mental process behind that?
“Well, if I tell her to put on her big girl panties, she’ll remember that she’s currently wearing her little girl panties, which means she’s just a little crybaby. Ha! That’ll show her! I am a good argumenter who isn’t a sexist d-bag at all! Ha! Big girl panties! Nice wordplay!”
January 12, 2015 — 10:04 AM
Jenn Lyons says:
I like to call it “bullying,” personally.
But while we’re on the subject of nice wordplay, when did a degree in acting equate with “drama queen liar who lies” anyway? Have all these people forgotten that fiction writers are, first and foremost, people who make up things? Facts? People? Worlds? When did writers become such paragons of honesty given that (much like acting, in fact) we manipulate emotions professionally?
As a writer, I feel slighted that ‘acting’ is hogging up all the street cred on this.
Seriously, I’ve seen two people on these articles post ‘but she’s an actress!’ as some kind of irrefutable statement of her inherently deceptive nature, and it’s just about one of the most ridiculous, ludicrous premises I can recall seeing. Folks are going to need to try a lot harder than that to convince me that I shouldn’t take her at her word.
January 12, 2015 — 10:35 AM
Paul Anthony Shortt says:
Hell yes, Chuck!
January 12, 2015 — 10:07 AM
addy says:
god damn it if someone can get a ton of money for making a potato salad why not a book.
also people use this funding for games, movies and music, why are these things different from books. they are all for entertainment.
January 12, 2015 — 10:13 AM
Hallie Ephron says:
Wondering if you’ve kicked around what seems like a parallel track (sorry if I missed it and you did)… bookstores ASKING published authors to donate to defray the bookstore’s expenses? James Patterson started it.
January 12, 2015 — 10:29 AM
terribleminds says:
Really? No kidding. Do you have a link or something?
(And now I’m wondering: have any bookstores in financial danger tried the Kickstarter route?)
January 12, 2015 — 10:29 AM
Paul Anthony Shortt says:
Had I the means,I would definitely back a Kickstarter to help out a bookstore.
January 12, 2015 — 10:32 AM
Jenn Lyons says:
Do you mean this, Hallie?
http://www.jamespatterson.com/booksellers/#.VLPqZNXF92Q
January 12, 2015 — 10:38 AM
Hillary says:
I supported an Indiegogo for a small bookstore that was in trouble, so yes, I’ve seen it happen just not on the KS platform. I wish I could tell you the name of the store but it was a year or so ago.
January 12, 2015 — 11:14 AM
Jeffrey Howe says:
This bookstore’s Kickstarter campaign was successful:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1338431583/help-build-the-book-house
Great place BTW, and a great fit for the community.
January 12, 2015 — 12:26 PM
Angelica says:
While I’m not inclined to ever give to a KS campaign like this (because frankly, I can’t imagine ever being that big of a fan of an author or series), I’m not against the whole idea. However, I find it disingenuous that you criticize people being overly pedantic about the meaning of “advance” and then go on to say:
“when you buy one of my books, you’re paying for my living expenses.”
Um, yes? Everyone knows that, and yet you and others have continually (and condescendingly) made that point as if people criticizing that KS are too stupid to know better.
January 12, 2015 — 10:36 AM
terribleminds says:
I’ll grant that it probably reads condescendingly, and I apologize for that.
My point is merely — if that’s so obvious, and everyone knows it, then I’m having a very serious disconnect of where that’s a problem. Because if we’re to assume that authors are small business owners, and we assume that small businesses pay their employees and fund production, and the author-publisher is both an employee and a producer in that chain of creation, why are people objecting to their money going to things like groceries or mortgages?
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 10:39 AM
Angelica says:
I thought Jenny Trout’s post explained that perspective well. There IS a difference between buying a finished product and the creator using the profits for living expenses, and asking for the profits for those living expenses upfront. Whether it’s a bad thing or not, well, it’s fine for people to discuss and argue about it, and no one should complain about those discussions by saying, “If you don’t like just shut up and don’t donate.” It’s pretty obvious that no one is actually complaining about writers using money to buy groceries. Rather, it’s about publishing as a whole and what happens if/when crowdfunding because the norm or even a significant minority.
January 12, 2015 — 11:09 AM
Hillary says:
Patronage in arts is a thing that does exist and has long before any of us were around to discuss it, though. People have been/are genuinely paid to make art. In some countries, writers are given grant moneys up front, while they’re drafting, to further culture and, yes, pay their living expenses. No finished product in hand, just a resume of past art that has been produced and appreciated. People pushing back against what they view as the changing face of publishing aren’t acknowledging this by and large, nor are they acknowledging how late they are to the party. Crowdsourcing is already an establishment, and while people can have opinions on the matter, there’s something odd about screaming at the kids to get off their lawn when they’ve had years to colonize the backyard.
January 12, 2015 — 11:47 AM
UrsulaV says:
Believe it or not, I’ve read at least two blog posts about how mentioning this fact–not that it was true, but that it was brought up at all–was what broke the unwritten rules. So yeah, for a chunk of the population, it apparently DOES need to be said.
Sucks, but there it is…
January 12, 2015 — 11:38 AM
Phil says:
This feels like fake outrage to me. I really don’t get it, but, I suppose, I don’t get much of the faux indignation that transpires on the interwebs. I wonder if this truly an issue and there are multitudes of people really bothered by this, or if it’s yet another example of a small but vocal minority won’t shut up about it, where once again the assholes have taken over the kingdom.
I’m not the biggest kickstarter patron, but I’ve funded a handful of projects and every single time it for something I would have spent money on in the first place. It’s either projects for artist I know and like or something that looks cool enough that I, yes, would have taken a chance on it if I saw it out in the world. I think it’s similar with most people. If I understand this correctly, people would be perfectly willing to fork over five or ten bucks for a book or e-book already written but asking for this money in advance to pay for the shit required to actually write the book is somehow crossing the line? That’s really the issue? And what’s the alternative? You would prefer the book not exist at all? None of this makes sense to me. This might be a radical idea, but if the notion of an author raising funds via kickstarter is such an affront to your delicate, hot house flower type sensibilities you can, oh, I don’t know, not fund the thing. I would think that’s a fairly self-evident response but apparently not. It’s mildly humorous that Mr. Wendig and others have had to expend so much time and effort addressing this issue, but it’s ultimately sad. Even worse would be if this idiot’s ruckus stopped another writer or artist from at the very least considering crowdsourcing as an option for their work.
January 12, 2015 — 10:59 AM
ina says:
“once again the assholes have taken over the kingdom.” I need the bumper sticker. Sigh.
January 12, 2015 — 12:08 PM
pooks says:
The way things used to be…
I am tired of seeing writers get flipped off with a “things have changed, get over it” when bemoaning the loss of the traditional publishing advance system for most of us, but the same people flipping off new models. Meh. I’ve got writing to do.
Thanks again, Wendig. You rock.
January 12, 2015 — 11:01 AM
Kay Camden says:
The attack of Stacey Jay over starting a Kickstarter was already beyond baffling to me. Now people are saying it’s sexist for men to comment on this already baffling uproar, simply because Stacey is a woman and the main attackers happened to be women? I think I just OD’ed on bafflement.
I mean, is it really necessary to divide the sexes at EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY? Even those that revolve around completely gender-neutral things like books and Kickstarter? Or did I miss something, and this uproar is actually about childbirth, or driving a stick shift in heels, or, I dunno, the fact that women doctors are simply called “doctors” but male nurses are called “male nurses?”
If Stacey Jay was a man, and the attackers were mostly men, would women who commented be labeled as sexist?
I think I need my stomach pumped.
January 12, 2015 — 11:08 AM
Meg Watson says:
Regarding the misogyny: dafuq? No, you (Chuck) didn’t appear misogynistic in your comments to me, but I am a white woman/single mom (not sure where that puts me on the privilege scale. Not too high, I suspect.) People who insist you should stay out of this as a “women’s issue” are maybe a little misguided in their zeal. I say: bombast on, you crazy diamond.
OT: Hey are we gonna discuss the Bite Me that was heard round the blogosphere soon? I’m really looking forward to that.
January 12, 2015 — 11:13 AM
Patrick Dorn says:
Somewhere between the Cro Magnon man and the publishing industry are the Benefactors: wealthy aristocrats, churches and courts that commissioned art, paid for specific works, and maintained power of approval. And don’t forget the National Endowment for the Arts, using taxpayer money to fund (sometimes dubious) art, which is way more controversial than a strictly voluntary Kickstarter project.
January 12, 2015 — 11:19 AM
Andy W says:
What!? Fund a novel on Kickstarter!? You must be insane Chuck. Who would do that? http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/65250-publishing-thrived-on-kickstarter-in-2014.html
January 12, 2015 — 11:46 AM
Emily (@ex_cogitate) says:
The “criticism” this author got about her KS made me really angry; a lot of it wasn’t criticism, it was just mocking. Mocking that moved to DOXXing and just got completely out of control. I have to say that I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people when this happened, and the blogs and nonsense the detractors put out trying to defend the mocking they did just made them look worse.
Sure, her KS plan wasn’t that perfect, but she didn’t deserve to be personally attacked because of it. I never got the feeling that her detractors were actually trying to help her. I felt like they were trying to hurt her. I think you hit the nail on the head with the sour grapes.
I’m commenting to say that I agree with Chuck, and now, I’m even more annoyed that the detractors called Chuck a misogynist for talking about KS! They are proving once again that they don’t have a rational leg to stand on in this argument. The only good thing about all of this is that I know who to ignore on twitter now.
January 12, 2015 — 11:54 AM
ina says:
Thank you for saying your piece and for supporting her. I am so sad that she’s not going to be publishing under “Stacey Jay” anymore. I was already hating human beings this week, and this situation is just the kind of thing that makes me want to crawl in a bomb shelter and read Burroughs and weep.
January 12, 2015 — 12:07 PM
Luke Matthews (@GeekElite) says:
I might be repeating exactly what you said in your post, so please forgive me. After several lengthy back-and-forths with people on this topic, the thing that has been on my mind the most is how every seems to want to shoehorn crowdfunding into established paradigms, and it aggravates the living shit out of me.
/rant.start
SO MANY people I’ve read and talked to make arguments against using Kickstarter for funding because it doesn’t fit the current avenues for an author raising capital. People seem to believe that an author should either a) get a publishing contract and be paid an advance by a publisher, or b) self-publish and wait to receive any payment until after publication, and all other options can Fuck. Right. Off. I’m really tired of arguments against Kickstarter being predicated on How It’s Always Been or How I Think It Should Be. How about a third option? Or a fourth? Why, exactly, are “Publisher Advance” and “Income From Self-Published Sales” the only viable options?
Why do we need to define it based on what already exists? It’s not an investment. It’s not a gift. It’s not an advance. It’s not a donation.
How about this: It’s a crowdfunding contribution.
It’s not *anything else*. It’s not defined by previous methods. It’s *GASP* it’s *own thing*. A new paradigm. A new option. Just like digital self-publishing was a brand new option a few years ago, so is this. Stop trying to cram it into boxes that are already full. Make a new fucking box.
/rant.end
January 12, 2015 — 12:13 PM
rochrist says:
The ‘self-publish and wait to receive any payments’ model is exactly the model that leads to so very much of the self-published stuff available being complete garbage.
January 12, 2015 — 3:39 PM
Laura W. says:
“The ‘self-publish and wait to receive any payments’ model is exactly the model that leads to so very much of the self-published stuff available being complete garbage.”
Which is why crowd-funding options like Kickstarter may actually be a pretty good middle ground…hmm, never thought of it that way before.
January 13, 2015 — 2:16 AM
Uriah Braden says:
This is all part of a greater societal shift in thinking towards business and profit. A lot of people think it is evil to make a profit for some reason. This group acts and feels like they are the slavemasters and anyone producing anything, especially something creative, exists only to serve their will. And those that are producing better damn well be happy with whatever scraps the almighty consumer overlords choose to gift them with, because if you complain they will use their weapons of Twitter, Facebook, Yelp etc. to crush you. They have taken the (wholly wrong) phrase “the customer is always right” to an extreme.
On a brighter note though… If you follow the 80/20 principle this group is definitely the 20% that 80% of the problems come from. The 20% that produces 80% of the $$ are much quieter, but they definitely do exist.
January 12, 2015 — 12:19 PM
Kerry J. Renaissance says:
I’m not much into KS per se, but on other sites I’ve seen the “help me survive so I can make cool stuff”, as well as the simple “help me survive”. And though some of them lay the guilt on pretty high, I think that’s because we respond to it. It’s obvious from any sad story about someone that makes the news that donations will pour in to help.
If, when I buy a book, a portion of those funds _aren’t_ going to pay for the writer’s living expenses, I’m going to be a bit upset. Because that is how we survive. We write, but we still have to eat, pay the rent/mortgage, feed our dependents, and pretty much do what every normal person with a day job does. If we can’t do those things, we can’t write. Computers and typewriters get pawned to pay the bills and feed the kids. Have you tried writing hungry? I mean, really hungry? It’s not impossible, but the brain fuzz is high. I buy books I enjoy to feed the writer so they will write more books that I enjoy.
I think, if I like and trusted the writer enough, I would probably contribute to a crowdfunding campaign to feed and house the writer so they can write more books I love. It’s at the opposite end of things, sure — I am not immediately rewarded with a book in hand. But that’s what publishers have been doing for ages. Some have even been known to pay regular stipends to keep their writers alive and writing. (Not often, but it has happened). Sure, it’s a risk I may never see the end product, or like it. But that’s a risk any time you get vested in a writer. It took 20 years to complete the Dark Tower series. GRRM could drop dead any time. This risk exists whether I’m paying on the front-end by funding the writer directly or whether I’m funding on the back-end by pre-ordering a book that does not yet exist.
Either way, if you don’t want to fund a campaign, you don’t have to. Work within your comfort level by all means. But there’s also no need to slash at people for trying to survive. It’s what we all do, in our own ways.
January 12, 2015 — 12:34 PM
Kell Brigan says:
Perhaps crowd-funding is an option for those forms of writing that are already tend to be niche hobbies, i.e. (now, alas) science fiction, fantasy or western, which already have a strong fan infrastructure to handle discoverability issues. Might work for romance someday, too, since mainstream readers who value Judeo-Christian sexual ethics are now their own niche, and are leaving mainstream “romance” as it becomes more and more pornographic and amoral, and switching to literary, horror or mystery with old school, no-sleaze romantic overtones, or finding themselves looking for genres-within-the-genre, i.e. books about the Amish. And, of course, Kickstarter itself is a niche hobby by definition. A person getting into it needs to get some sort of ancillary reward — probably some sort of “rebel” group identity along with finding niche reading. (Recommended reading: The Authenticity Hoax http://authenticityhoax.squarespace.com/about-the-book/.) For someone who doesn’t give a hoot about being a Kickster Hipster®, the lack of overall efficiency is going to be too much of a turn-off. Can’t see crowdfunding in its current guise working for literary fiction, for non-fiction (other than, perhaps, some polemics with cult followings), for mystery (whose readers tend to be lone wolves) or literary YA. Same issues as with self-publishing — anything that wastes readers’ time simply isn’t going to work. The niche/subculture/hobby stuff might work because in that instance the fans are sustained by having joined a community; the books are just one of the elements of that life. For mainstream books, that community identity doesn’t exist, and there’s just no reason for readers to spend time trying to wade through the 75-99% of dreck.
January 12, 2015 — 1:15 PM
Deborah Smith says:
I work in the genre world as a writer and publisher, primarily romance and fantasy; as I understand it, Stacey Jay writes in the nexus of romance/fantasy/YA. Which means she’s working in a community of readers and bloggers with a solid romance readership foundation–almost exclusively women, and a sizable faction of them maintain a traditional view of women’s roles. I believe they’re unsettled by authors who step outside the persona of the happy hobbyist who writes just for the love of it. Stacey did that.
January 12, 2015 — 7:03 PM
Sabrina Howard says:
I still don’t get how you being a white male could make your argument less valid. . . . Honestly, I too was under the impression that this debate was about authors and artist etc.
People quite simply ARE shitty. *shakes head*
God. . . . Maybe I ought to rethink my plan to venture into the artistic world. Scary.
January 12, 2015 — 1:27 PM
Jesse F says:
The whole “shouldn’t pay for living expenses” argument astounds me. Tons of people do this on Kickstarter. Every videogame that’s ever gone onto KS is asking you to fund salaries (that’s probably the largest expense in software development, apart form physical distribution, which most KS-funded games don’t do), and no one bats an eye at it. Hell when the Doubleclicks Kickstarted their most recent album, Dimetrodon, “Aubrey gets to quit her day job” was ONE OF THE GODDAMNED STRETCH GOALS. And I didn’t hear anyone complaining about that. Why are authors being treated so differently?
That’s not a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely interested in the thought process behind deciding who’s salaries it’s okay to Kickstart, and who’s it’s not.
January 12, 2015 — 1:44 PM
Jesslyn Hendrix says:
I say WTF and am truly mind-boggled about the whole thing. What the hell was there to get mad about in someone doing a Kickstarter for a book? Frankly, I missed the whole thing, but I am flabbergasted that someone would be offended by this.
I’ve purchased two Kickstarter writer projects and never thought twice about it.
January 12, 2015 — 1:46 PM
Justina Ireland says:
Hey, I actually wrote the Suffering for (and with) Our Art! If you have time to correct the attribution that would be swell. Thanks!
January 12, 2015 — 1:46 PM
terribleminds says:
I am a dumb person! And I fixed it! Sorry — TUMBLR BEWILDERED ME WITH ITS MAGIC. (Also: as noted, am dumb.)
— c.
January 12, 2015 — 2:00 PM
Justina Ireland says:
Thanks, friend! 😀
January 12, 2015 — 3:03 PM
John Oakes says:
You’ve hit the nail on the head like Danial-san, in a single meditative blow, driving the nail fully into Mr. Miagi’s fencepost. I would just like to add that in their anxiety/desperation/fear people easily begin to get controlling of how others live their lives or – ahem – write and market their books. I think we’ve all been there at some point in our lives, to be fair. Generally, the people least at peace with their level of love/money/self-esteem are the ones leading any charge aimed at social control. Sadly, on an emotional level, too many writers see their lack of “success” as an indictment on the success of others. I have to think some-to-much of this reaction stems from this insecurity.
Jay wasn’t on my radar before all this, but it sounds like Stacey had a shot at funding that Kickstarter because she had a group of people whose trust and fandom she had already earned through publishing in ways that have never ruffled feathers before (i.e. the hard ways, both ways uphill in the snow with no shoes…GREATEST GENERATION RAAAAAAAAR!). The truth is it is very hard to meet a KS goal without bringing around 70-80% of the funding from your established fan base. If most indies go on KS and ask for money to grow weed in their basement, we aren’t going to have a kerfuffle. Because to have a kerfuffle, people kind of have to care about you in the first place. Therefore, I argue that this is not only a reaction to her asking for money, but for her being more successful than the people complaining about her…and then asking for money.
January 12, 2015 — 1:54 PM
Graham Powell says:
I think the whole “I don’t want to do this so NO ONE MUST BE ALLOWED TO DO IT” is a primal human impulse much like hunger or sex.
January 12, 2015 — 1:55 PM
PJ Friel says:
Has no one ever heard of Patrons of the Arts? I was (and still am) completely baffled that people were complaining about her Kickstarter going towards covering her living expenses while she writes. That’s been done for YEARS. It’s nothing new or unreasonable. No one is forcing anyone to contribute money to her and no one is misappropriating any funds. So, what’s the big deal?
And that whole “She already earns a living off of her other books.” crap is just that…crap. I contributed to CE Murphy’s No Dominion Kickstarter (http://tinyurl.com/pau77sr). CE has other books as well. Frankly, it was because of her other books that I found out about and then supported her Kickstarter. I love her work. I didn’t care what she did with the money as long as I got the book. I did. It was AWESOME. It made me happy. Would I be less happy with the book if she used my $25 to buy a steak versus pay for editing or a cover? Uh. No. That’s stupid.
I can’t believe that people are threatening her over all this. That goes beyond stupid and into psycho. As far as I’m concerned, you can keep right on defending her, Chuck, because that shit’s ridiculous. People need to calm the fuck down.
January 12, 2015 — 2:33 PM
Gareth Skarka says:
Amanda Palmer, no stranger to bullshit thrown at her by critics of crowdfunding, was very smart about this very topic, in an article she wrote for The Guardian:
“The mostly-unspoken rule that artists aren’t supposed to talk about their businesses reveals plenty about how we tend to think of “art” and “business” as mutually exclusive – and have double (or even triple) standards about what artists are and are not allowed to say about their money and still be considered artists.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/13/amanda-palmer-art-business-difficult-honest-decisions
January 12, 2015 — 2:43 PM
persimmonromance says:
Aerial pictures of someone’s home (or any other kind of doxxing) is never, ever acceptable. I am also frequently reminded that the internet is really middle school, only nastier.
That said, I don’t particularly like the idea of Kickstarting novels. I’m not opposed to crowd-funding in principle, and obviously anyone has the right to request crowdfunding for whatever they think deserving of it, whether I believe it frivolous or worthy.
I’m now trying to examine exactly why I don’t like crowdfunding most writing/publishing enterprises, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because I did it the hard way myself. Or at least not just because.
Yes, courting a patron is a time-honored practice of artists, but so is believing that those with patrons have taken the easy way out and/or compromised their art.
I am more bothered by the idea of bankrolling the writing of something, rather than aiding in the production of an already written novel, but I’m not very likely to contribute to either. I might even be a little annoyed by the request, for a number of reasons, including that it is possible to self-publish without spending a red cent over and above the MS Word license. Needless to say, anyone else can do as they see fit.
January 12, 2015 — 3:23 PM
Laura W. says:
“Yes, courting a patron is a time-honored practice of artists, but so is believing that those with patrons have taken the easy way out and/or compromised their art.”
I’m not sure I would agree…For many, gaining the financial support of a patron was by no means easy. Also, their financial support actually freed them up to pursue their true artistic goals rather than “hack it” by writing the stuff that made money because otherwise they might starve and that’s not fun for anyone. Maybe that belief comes from the idea that the artist has to flatter the patron or censor their art to conform to the patron’s sensibilities? Understandable, I guess. However, I don’t think that that’s applicable to crowd-funding today, because there is no single patron that the artist is obligated to. Crowd-sourcing seems like it should diminish some of that “you have a patron? you sold out” stereotype.
I am curious as to why you distinguish between the physical production of an “already written” book — whether in hard form on in a digital file — and the creative production of the book itself. There’s something there that is at the heart of this issue of what people value and don’t value about art and why. To me it makes no logical sense to separate physical vs. creative product…if there was no creative product, there would be no physical product, so I don’t understand why we privilege the physical product over the actual making of it. To me it is like saying, I’ll pay for the sandwich, but I won’t pay for the peanut butter, jelly, bread, or knife. But without those materials, you don’t get a sandwich. I literally don’t understand, so please don’t think I’m insulting you, just trying to understand how you arrived at this perspective. I’m very confused.
January 13, 2015 — 2:33 AM
Sarah Bewley says:
Chuck, I appreciate you. I appreciate your thoughts.
With regard to this whole issue, there are people who simply live to be as mean and threatening as possible. They take pride in generating fear.
They are pathetic, sad little people with no particular talent of their own, thus must shit on everything and everyone else in order to feel good about themselves.
Kindness and fairness are highly underrated qualities in human beings these days.
January 12, 2015 — 4:55 PM
ivy says:
To-crowd-fun-or-not-to-crowd-fund-art is a discussion in which all creators have a stake. It is not the exclusive province of women. It’s not rational to suggest that it is, or that one writer objecting to the treatment of another is enacting some ‘damsel in distress’ routine because that author has a schwang.
I like the potential of crowdfunding for the arts for all the reasons you’ve already noted, and then some:
In my country the arts scene is dominated by government arts funding. I like the way that these government grants are managed for organisations. But grants awarded to established individuals have the pall of a kabal. The usual offenders regularly cash in.
As an example of this, years ago I got a phone call from a guy (most esteemed) about applying for such a grant. ‘I’m on the deciding committee! If you apply by the deadline tomorrow, I can guarantee you’ll get 20K!’ I objected. And besides, I pointed out, I wasn’t working on anything at the moment. ‘It doesn’t matter! Just make something up!’
Thanks, but no thanks. In the subsequent years I became obsessed with ‘doin’ it on my own’ and worked all kinds of jobs which helped raise my own capital for art. And there were investors. I ate, projects went forth. I got to tour abroad. It was OK. On repayment I often broke even.
They were modest business models. But it was a tough gig. And no matter how viable the work, finding your audience as part of the post production and marketing is really hard work. Arts businesses can spend a goodly amount of money in hit-miss marketing to too many people, just trying to find and build their audience.
Crowdfunding is a nice alternative to these scenarios, because instead of some arts-business kabal, the audience gets to decide what art they want to see produced. And crowdfunding is nice because that direct action produces and gathers its own audience. It’s kind of like market democracy, but for the arts. It can also act as a useful heads up for future business investment, to demonstrate the buzz around your product.
January 12, 2015 — 5:25 PM