Modern Developments

I recently posted that, "Nobody cares until the whole thing's done."

There have been some recent developments in publishing and self publishing that seem to change that. One thing in particular that I'm talking about is kickstarter.

There are those who may believe that with kickstarter you don't need a final product, but an idea. That's true to some degree, but it's also false. Kickstarter is an investment program. You are trying to get customers to invest in your work with the promise of some reward. They aren't investing for money, but for a product and, more to the point, the chance to be "involved" in something.

Look at indie music, where everything is most popular before it is popular. It is always nice to be one of the fans that saw the band before they really developed their skill so you can say, "I like them until they went mainstream."

But when you are looking for investors for a project it's because you don't have the money upfront. You are essentially advertising either:

• a) the full product when it is finished (i.e. The published book if you've already written it, or the published book that you haven't finished it yet.) or...
• b) the idea of an amazing book that you're going to write.

The outcome is the same. You're trying to get someone hooked on your book. Where kickstarter has an advantage is that you have a venue where people can look over your stuff and buy right away. They can act on their impulse. The idea of buying things online has fed into this. If you just tell someone "I'm writing this awesome book and here's the story." You're selling the idea of the finished story to them. But only if the idea is fully fleshed out. They're still willing to put out money for a finished product. They want to read it, but they don't have it so they lose interest. With kickstarter you're just saying the shipping will take a while.

It's easy to take advantage of this system and sell an idea that will never see daylight. But you'll only do that once. Just like big publishers your readers will stop investing if nothing comes from it.

So, if you're selling a thing, or the idea of a thing, just remember: even with modern changes, people are paying for the finished product. Make sure it's worth their money.

Paradoxes

The curse of a writer is that you are never really alive unless you're talking about things that no one cares about (partly because those things are not in finished form). Our only hope is to write those things down and hope that there is some transformation between the written symbols and your voice, and that some day in the future the misconstrued wonderings of some distant relative will give our ramblings some wise meaning.

Get writing.

Cheers!

Nobody Cares Until the Whole Thing is Done

I recently looked over a friend's project. There were some positive and negative points to the project and,  as I always do when asked to critique, I focused on the negative (though I do try to do so with an eye toward improvement and not destruction, but that's another blog...in fact there are about a dozen blogs on feedback just waiting to happen). But the one thing that stood out to me was his explanation of the project.

"I want you to know." he said, and then he explained how he had insisted on following a certain method to assure a quality product. And though the product was quality. That's not the issue at hand. I want to address instead, the basic psychological issue that causes us to think that other people care how we do things. I want you all to know that no one cares how you go about your artistic process. They only care about the final product. It may sound harsh, but it's true. Why? Because until there is a final product, then your process is meaningless. You didn't make anything, and so it doesn't matter what you did.

Now I'm not sitting here and trying to say that process doesn't matter. I've got a theatre education background that screams at me every time I even think that. It sits in the back of my mind and tones, "It's the trip that's important!" "The end product doesn't matter as long as you've learned something!" "Everyone is happy and nice and you should invest your money with false smiled strangers!" Well, maybe not the last one.

But that's for students. That's for the artist. The process is only important to people who are A) trying to duplicate your success, or B) learning how to avoid your failure.

If you have an audience, or if you want to make money, then the end product IS what matters.

This whole situation reminds me of the first play that I wrote. I finagled my way into having it produced at a local community theatre and I thought I was on top of the world. I still think the play was good, but it was a first play. And when a writer for a local newspaper contacted me asking about myself I gave him an autobiography. I didn't realize then that people just don't care. My mother cares. My family cares. My friends care. But they don't care because of my project. They care about me.

Your readers will not care about you. They will care about your books. They will care about your characters. They will care about the stories that they have shared because once they take part it is their story and not yours. They will care about you because you are connected to their stories. But they're not your family. They don't care about you.

This may sound difficult to some people, but it's a good thing. You are writing something for someone else. Give them a product that they'll love. Then step back and let them love it. If they ask you about how you did it, then give them the short answer. If they want to study your process, then tell them.

We are all selfish in this world. We think so many things about ourselves. I thought everyone wanted to know about this little playwright they'd never heard of. They didn't. The people who enjoyed my play enjoyed it for what it was, not who wrote it.

So, write your book. Write your play. Write your poem. Then share them. Because people will love your project. But nobody cares until the whole thing is done.