The Sword and Laser discussion
Inkshares Sword and Laser novel contest
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This contest is pretty amazing. It's a threefold blessing: I get to discover Inkshares and run a campaign for my book - I might luck out and get published through the contest which offers a ton of cool benefits - I'm discovering a lot of cool indie writing projects that I'm very eager to learn more about (that's you guys btw).Thanks Sword & Laser indeed. :)
I have created an Inkshares project for the science fiction contest (I think)https://www.inkshares.com/projects/su...
Enjoy (possibly)
I added a book trailer to my Inkshares page.It is embarrassing.
Go make fun of me.
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/th...
Signing up appears to net you $5 in preorder credit. And using the secret HTML to sign up will give you another $10 credit more. The HTML from the latest podcast. I'm not sure if they're OK with posting it outright, so I'm trying to err on the side of caution, here.
Hi, everybody! I'm Jeremiah, and I'm throwing my book The Crown of Secrets into the mix here. It's a collection of illustrated stories - geared toward children, but all SFF in flavor, and most of them are layered enough that I think pretty much everybody will enjoy them. I'm working with illustrators from all around the world and I'm super excited to make the book - it's going to be big (page size and thickness) and full-color and all those good things.I'm really excited to be working with Inkshares, and think that the Sword & Laser collection is a really cool idea.
Anyway, check out the project on Inkshares: http://www.inkshares.com/projects/the...
And read a bunch more of the stories, and see a bunch of the pictures, at the website: http://tavinjer.com/crownofsecrets
Enjoy!
Jeremiah
The way I read it is all orders before midnight PST May 31st. That would include the 31st.
so it's now the last day of the contest, thought I'd pop in and give my military scifi thriller 'Ghosts of War' another plug.http://bit.ly/1BmVufx
there's an 8 chapter, 100 page preview PDF that you can download and have a read of.
I'm really proud of the work I've done so far and I hope you'll like it.
kinda sad that in it's final days this comp has become a corrupt hive of scum and villainy. people are doing anything and everything to pay their way into the top 5. there's been disgraceful conduct from several of the books in the competition and Inkshares is doing nothing about it.really sad. it seemed like such a good opportunity at the outset.
Paul wrote: "kinda sad that in it's final days this comp has become a corrupt hive of scum and villainy. people are doing anything and everything to pay their way into the top 5. there's been disgraceful conduc..."Could you clarify what you mean? You are throwing out some accusations and I would appreciate more detail.
Andy wrote: "Paul wrote: "kinda sad that in it's final days this comp has become a corrupt hive of scum and villainy. people are doing anything and everything to pay their way into the top 5. there's been disgr..."happy to, not that it overly matters now though. Unfortunately all but two of these examples are taken from 'winning' books. They were all observed by several of the other authors in the comp and discussed at length amongst us and with Inkshares.
- on the final day one book took advantage of a referral/credit loop bug (that Inkshares was made aware of 3 weeks prior) to bounce orders back and forth between 2 accounts and order almost 400 books in about 2.5 hours. Thankfully they weren't very good at hiding it and after a few of us notified Inkshares the sales were revoked before the book could get into the top 5.
- several of the winning books had $1000-$1500 dropped on them in the final minutes with little to no increase in unique readers.
- several authors had family members spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on their books, artificially boosting sales. One had well over 100 copies of the book going to one household, which was also the authors household. One even had one family member account for 50% of their multiple buyers (24 orders in total). While that's entirely within the rules as they were originally written, it's hardly in the spirit of the competition or the way the Inkshares publishing model is supposed to work (something that Inkshares agrees on and will address in the future.)
- one book had 320 orders from anonymous accounts. while not damning in and of itself, a user not putting their name in was a rare occurrence in every other campaign, but here it was the majority. Looked a bit shady.
- another book (which didn't end up making the top 5) had over 400 sales but only 40-something unique readers. Unfortunately greatly disproportionate reader counts were a big problem (for example the leader had 800 sales and only 140 readers). It's the reason they had to change how the results were judged (by publishing the ones with the 5 highest reader counts as well as top 5 sales).
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They're the biggest offenders, it's unfortunate that the rules weren't thought through enough at the outset to try and avoid people taking advantage of them. The extremely broken credit system didn't help matters either, no one should ever get more money for referring someone than what the referred person paid ($15 credits for someone paying $10).
Thankfully the actual 'winners' of the comp were the ones who had done things the right way and avoided any of the above unpleasantness.
In the end none of it matters because it's done with now and besides it was only Inkshares' first competition, so there were bound to be some teething issues. The hope is that they're able to learn a bunch from the experiences in this one and launch a much better structured and moderated comp in the future.
Paul wrote: "Andy wrote: "Paul wrote: "kinda sad that in it's final days this comp has become a corrupt hive of scum and villainy. people are doing anything and everything to pay their way into the top 5. there..."The problem is that abuses of a system aren't easy to prove nor is nefarious intent. The prizes for winning were very attractive and the competitive nature of a contest made it easy to slip into an 'all or nothing' state of mind. I'm not competitive by nature and I recognize that crowdfunding usually works better as a cooperative endeavour but even I couldn't help stave the hunger for victory because... damn... look at what you get if you win.
That being said, I've had family members step up and offer to simply buy out the competition for me. My brother straight up said "I have 600$ earmarked for this if you need it." and I have shamefully admit that I didn't immediately say 'no'. I hesitated before saying "10 books. Max." which I repeated to the rest of my family.
Friends were another issue however. I got very agitated when I first noticed another book pass me by 40 pre-orders in a matter of seconds and was ready to call foul. Then one of my buddies who owns a book, toy and hobby store pre-ordered fifty copies of my book to put on his shelves. So I had to start looking at it from another perspective.
I'm not saying no-one abused the system because obviously there was incentive and pressure to do so and I felt that pressure myself. On the other hand, without sufficient proof of wrong doing, I'm not ready to point the finger either (except for that one book that got sales removed at the last minute because that's a proven case) because if you look enough, you can find some odd jumps in pre-order for almost every winner (a friend of mine hoarded an obscene amount of credits to order my book with, which looks pretty bad on paper).
What I'm saying though is that Sword & Laser and Inkshares decided to do something cool for the science fiction and fantasy creative community. Inkshares did it in good part for commercial and marketing reasons of course and S&L did it because they're awesome like that. Neither of them are experts at running contests and neither of them jumped into this with the intent of playing referee for two months. They wanted to give us something cool and they delivered. Maybe they could have considered the chance that things could be abused and I'm sure they'll learn for next time.
If there is a next time. I don't know how much drama this caused behind the scenes and if it might have left a sour taste in Inkshares or S&L's mouth. That's not for me to say. However, if it did and if Paul's right and people did abuse the system in malicious and selfish ways and if you are one of the people who did that, then it's on you. This is why we can't have nice things.
Now that the contest is over though I'd like to point out that many awesome looking books (like Paul's) are still trying to reach their goals. Instead of debating who might have pushed the limits of what the contest was meant to be, we should be helping these aspiring authors get their books published.
If you're not bored yet from reading this sanctimonious crap, you can go read my blog post on the whole experience here: http://jfdubeau.com/babbling-eloquently
I put a link to three books I think deserve a second look and a few more supporters at the end of the post.
Thank you for the input Paul and J-F. I hope that this all turns into lessons learned rather than long term souring of Inkshares.
Andy wrote: "Thank you for the input Paul and J-F. I hope that this all turns into lessons learned rather than long term souring of Inkshares."Here here Andy.
I have extremely optimistic hopes for Inkshares and similar platforms in the future and obviously we all love S&L. I think it's important that we focus on the positive and look to the future if we want more cool stuff like this to happen.
I think it's not fair to compare bulk purchases in Kickstarter to those here; Kickstarter itself will not act like a traditional publisher. Inkshares does. The point seems to be not just to meet production costs but then to have a book which can be sold to human beings that don't have a blood a connection to you. If the only books that get funded are those by people who happen to have parents with money to burn, not books which have generated a legitimate interest, it seems Inkshares (and the Sword and Laser imprint) cannot do its job. If this becomes the standard model for Inkshares campaigns, the company is doomed to fail.
I think I'd just like to cheer the winners. I read one of them already and am glad to see it get exposure. Go Inkshares!
I suppose "generated legitimate interest" wasn't quite right; maybe "gauged as interesting by Inkshares' customers" is better. If the most successfully funded books are, again, the books by the people with rich parents, then Inkshares will quickly become nothing more than another Vanity Publisher, not something which functions as a traditional publisher with a crowdfunding twist.
Jim wrote: "As one of the "offenders," I feel I have to speak up and say something.There were many bulk purchases made on behalf of me and my book and yes, this made me uncomfortable, especially since I didn..."
I want to apologise for going after you a bit Jim. It's hard in the confines of a comp like this to know anything about whats going on in the background and all we can really go on is how things look. Going by your description it seems we were in similar boats with our parents, I kept telling them not to do it and then they did, and my mum was building up credits and I kept telling her to hold off. In the end she used about $260 worth right at the end, even though there wasn't a hope of it helping me into the top 5.
I did overreact over the whole thing and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't due to my book not selling as well as others. I found promotion and getting people to support me extremely difficult throughout the whole experience. I could throw around things like 'blood from a stone' or 'flogging a dead horse' and they'd be accurate. I greatly underestimated how hard it would be to get $5 out of my friends or even out of strangers. It was tough sledding and by about half way through it was pretty clear I was out of it, so I got pretty disillusioned with the whole thing and towards the end was more bitter than I should have been.
I've had some time to think about and process it now and I've made peace with it all. I'm going to finish up this book and get it out there any way I can, ideally I'd like to have it out by the end of the year. Then it's onto the sequels. The comp took away any and all motivation to actually write and I didn't like that feeling at all.
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As far as the 'legitimate interest' discussion goes, for almost the entire comp the most a single person could order in one hit was apparently 50 copies (that was to allow book stores to order stock), after discussion with Inkshares they saw the flaw in that (when judged against their business model) and they cut the maximum to 10 per order.
I always felt like it should be one book per person (or one order per person/credit card) and that's it, that's the only way to get an accurate reading of reader interest and to best reflect Inkshares' intended business model. They could maybe allow multiple orders but only to proven bookstores?
Who knows? but in the end I'm sure it's something they'll look at and adjust for any future comps.
It has certainly taken an interesting turn. Glad to see Inkshares are all over it. Congratulations to the competition winners, look forwards to reading the finished product. Dubeau's blog post answered a lot of the question I had about the process. Definitely interested in any advice the winners have. I'm keeping going with my own project and would really like to get into triple figures. https://www.inkshares.com/projects/de...
Rory wrote: "It has certainly taken an interesting turn. Glad to see Inkshares are all over it. Congratulations to the competition winners, look forwards to reading the finished product. Dubeau's blog post ans..."Hit me up with any questions you might have. I'd be glad to help if I can. Keeping in mind I still think I lucked into this. Still, here are a few tips if they're of any use:
1. Don't rely on just hinting on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Even if you put a post a day people might not notice it. Especially the people most likely to help. So hit up your friends and acquaintances directly. Try not to be a pest but make sure they get the message.
2. Hit up any influencers in your network. Remember that an influencer doesn't need to be a superstar to wield influence. People who are trusted and have large networks of friends can be more useful then your buddy who has a podcast (you know the one). Try to get these people to be you ambassadors. If you can get a couple to be as passionate about your project as you are, you'll be in good shape. These are definitely people whom you want to talk to directly. They'll have many friends and very active social media feeds so your pleas for help are likely to go unnoticed.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for visibility. Small and medium podcasts and blogs are as hungry for content as you are for pre-orders. Look for medias that discuss things relating to your book. Be forward and ask for an interview. Be humble but clear as to what your goals are and what you bring to the table. Let them know what you have to offer.
4. And what you have to offer is visibility to your readers and followers. Which you should update on your progress once or twice a week. This is a good time to inform them of what media you will be featured on, any changes in the campaign, what you're reading, if you've written anything more this week, etc. The more you stay active with the people who've already pledged their support, the more likely they are to become ambassadors of your work.
5. Final tip: Be transparant. Don't try to trick your way into some visibility. Don't piggy-back on someone else's momentum unless they get the ball rolling. When you ask someone for help either by pre-ordering or by giving you visibility, be clear what your goals are. Don't pretend you're bringing enlightenment to the masses or that it's about the children unless it really is. You need pre-orders and you need sales and you need them because you want to be able to publish your book. The internet is very skilled at spotting deceit and just as good at rewarding earnestness.
Oh... another thing: Find the other authors that have similar books as yours on Inkshares. Form a cabal. Refer readers to each other. Most people won't order the same book twice but will gladly pre-order two or three books from different authors. Work as a team to point each other to various media outlets. Link each other's books in your updates to followers and when one book is in the last few days of it's campaign, drop your own campaign and focus on pushing their books. They'll do the same for you when the time comes.
I hope this all makes sense and can help you out. We all have a vested interest in Inkshares becoming a huge and successful publisher and it can only do that if it's publishing a ton of excellent books.
JF
Interstella5555 wrote: "Hey allAlmost ready to get my project up and running www.inkshares.com/projects/beneath-st...
Its a short story collection including some Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Supernatural stories.
..."
After a bit of a delay Im back on track and my book is now able for pre-order
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/be...
Nerdist is doing essentially the same contest again. (via email)Today we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Nerdist to bring forth amazing, undiscovered sci-fi and fantasy books! As a reader and backer of Inkshares books, you can make a huge impact on discovering the next breakout sci-fi or fantasy novel.
Nerdist, the wildly popular website, YouTube Channel, and podcast network founded by comedian and television personality Chris Hardwick is actively looking for the next great science fiction or fantasy writer from the Nerdist and Inkshares communities — and is doing so by launching a collection and contest on Inkshares. This collection will include books published under the Nerdist
name and targeted at the Nerdist audience.
The top five science fiction and fantasy projects on Inkshares, as determined by unique reader pre-order counts by September 30th, 2015 will be published, even if they haven’t hit their pre-order goal. All five winners will have their book published and distributed into independent bookstores, Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble. Of those five, Nerdist will select one to be in their collection. This title will receive promotion from Nerdist, Nerdist branding, an exclusive excerpt feature on Nerdist.com, and opportunities to develop their work into other media such as movies, TV series, and digital productions.
To help bring forth the next best sci-fi and fantasy titles, we encourage you to spread the word about this collection and contest to any writer or reader of sci-fi and fantasy!
You can also support writers on Inkshares by simply following authors’ projects, engaging with their writing with comments and feedback, and pre-ordering the projects you love. In the end, this contest wouldn’t be possible without you, and we’re so excited to see the amazing projects that emerge through this contest.
If you have questions or comments, please reach out to us at hello@inkshares.com.
Cheers,
The Inkshares Team
Sean wrote: "Nerdist is doing essentially the same contest again. (via email)Today we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Nerdist to bring forth amazing, undiscovered sci-fi and fantasy books! As a ..."
Oh man, this Nerdist contest is super tempting but I'm afraid of losing too much creative control. Argh, decisions, decisions.
Wilmar wrote: Oh man, this Nerdist contest is super tempting but I'm afraid of losing too much creative control. Argh, decisions, decisions. I will be angry at you if you don't participate. If this is anything like the Sword & Laser contest you aren't losing ANY creative control and even if you were; sacrificing a bit of creative control so you can get a push in your writing career that allows you to write more and have more control later is well worth it.
Enter the damn contest!
J-F wrote: "Wilmar wrote: Oh man, this Nerdist contest is super tempting but I'm afraid of losing too much creative control. Argh, decisions, decisions. I will be angry at you if you don't participate. If th..."
Well, part of the problem is that they will negotiate media contracts with say Legendary pictures. That's cool and all, big fan of the company but if my title (hopefully) gets accepted. I'd hate to find out that they cast say a Lindsay Lohan or a Megan Fox as my main character and just sh** on over 10 years brainstorming and hard work.
I'd rather see the book bomb or not gain any exposure than to see it translated as some horrible television series featured on SyFy.
Wilmar wrote: "Well, part of the problem is that they will negotiate media contracts with say Legendary pictures. That's cool and all, big fan of the company but if my title (hopefully) gets accepted. I'd hate to find out that they cast say a Lindsay Lohan or a Megan Fox as my main character and just sh** on over 10 years brainstorming and hard work.I'd rather see the book bomb or not gain any exposure than to see it translated as some horrible television series featured on SyFy. "
It's your choice but please consider this:
- You're not signing over any rights beyond the publication rights to Inkshares. No one's saying this is a guaranteed movie deal. The very worst that can happen to you that is a compromise to your brand is having a Nerdist Collection logo on your book which is, in my opinion, a good thing.
- You still haven't won. There are several stages to this. You first have to get in the top 5 which only gets you the publication deal with no collection stuff associated. Only if you get picked by Nerdist are you inducted into the collection.
- The wording of the contest is kept intentionally noncommittal: you're not winning a TV or Movie deal, just a spot in the collection. The movie/TV/other media stuff works if they decide they want to push further with it, something that may very well depend on sales or the content of your book.
- If there is a movie/TV/gameshow deal, it will likely be treated as it's own entity and will therefore see you in a negotiating position. That's where you have to chose if Michael Bay is right for you or not. Until then, the integrity of your book is in no danger.
But don't take my word. I'm just some schmuck on the internet. Contact Inkshares and ask them directly. They're good at answering these things and will help guide your decision. One email to clarify is well worth the opportunity to participate in something like this.
@wilmar Yeah, isn't there an old adage about a horse and a cart. You should probably read the contract you haven't been offered before you don't sign it. Seriously though, you should check it out. If you're not comfortable with the terms, no one is forcing you to participate.
J-F wrote: "Wilmar wrote: "Well, part of the problem is that they will negotiate media contracts with say Legendary pictures. That's cool and all, big fan of the company but if my title (hopefully) gets accept..."Yeah, definitely no guarantee of any of the above happening. I'm normally not a control freak over my work and have other titles I'd be more than happy to share but the one I'd like to submit is a bit more near and dear to me.
Well, I'm going to talk to a few people and if they all agree I should submit something then there will definitely be an entry from me!
Wilmar wrote: "J-F wrote: "Wilmar wrote: "Well, part of the problem is that they will negotiate media contracts with say Legendary pictures. That's cool and all, big fan of the company but if my title (hopefully)..."
I don't think a lot of authors have casting power in general. Most of the time you sell your story and then have no power in how it gets implemented. Rare exceptions are J.K. Rowling.
I don't think a lot of authors have casting power in general. Most of the time you sell your story and then have no power in how it gets implemented. Rare exceptions are J.K. Rowling.
Heck, just look at what Alan Moore had to say about League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...and now there's a remake coming that he also hates.
John Green's twitter bio actually says: "Not in charge of casting movies" xD
Whelp...I'm in. Win or lose I'll still publish it but at least I gave it a shot.
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/th...
So I've had this weird thought about how to approach this contest if anyone's curious:http://www.jfdubeau.com/books
Very gripping synopsis Wilmar!
Wilmar wrote: "Whelp...I'm in. Win or lose I'll still publish it but at least I gave it a shot.
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/th..."
I have pre-ordered your book. Now you have to publish.
Anja wrote: "Very gripping synopsis Wilmar!"Thanks Anja, I'm glad that 7 months of tearing my hair out finally paid off!
Will be more than happy to send you a free copy if you'd like to read the entire story.
J-F wrote: "Wilmar wrote: "Whelp...I'm in. Win or lose I'll still publish it but at least I gave it a shot.
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/th..."
I have pre-ordered your book. Now you h..."
Oh this is getting published no matter what. Not my first time, but this is my first time submitting to a collection.
Will definitely follow and pre-order as a thank you for your support.
Wilmar wrote: "Anja wrote: "Very gripping synopsis Wilmar!"
Thanks Anja, I'm glad that 7 months of tearing my hair out finally paid off!
Will be more than happy to send you a free copy if you'd like to read the..."
I'd love that! : )
Thanks Anja, I'm glad that 7 months of tearing my hair out finally paid off!
Will be more than happy to send you a free copy if you'd like to read the..."
I'd love that! : )
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Divide and Conquer Volume One (other topics)Divide and Conquer Volume One (other topics)
https://www.inkshares.com/projects/ki...
Thanks to Sword and Laser to running this contest! I hadn't heard of Inkshares before and it seems like a great idea.