Hello to anyone reading this. If you are, thank you. I hope you're doing well. Because if this found you, you're exactly who I'd like to pitch this idea to.
The fantasy and sci-fi writers of their time published their stories in serial format and published them first in early zines and then pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories.
I'd like to do that. So if you're a writer or an artist (yes, fanfiction and fanart count -- let's go) who's interested in creating a publishing model outside of traditional publishing means working toward profit sharing and artist-owned collective, please continue reading.
So I've been a struggling artist for my entire adult life. Making money has never been important. Making my stories accessible and available to everyone has always been the main goal. Because I'm a story-teller. It's all I've ever wanted to do (Aside from a very brief period in my life where I wanted to be the first woman US president and also Zorro).
However, I don't have a literary agent, or a publisher, and I'm not quite ready to indy publish on bigger platforms. I do have a Patreon page but I haven't used it much yet.
The pitch is simple: I'd like to work with like-minded artists who like me are struggling but still creating and still want to share their art with others. Especially if you are writing about characters and stories and creating art that is Pro-Black, Queer, and Progressive.
Taking a page out of platforms like Dropout, the goal would be to eventually charge a modest fee to access premium content (with free content still readily available), as well as selling digital copies of all produced art. You don't have to have a finished, polished, perfect novel ready to go. All you have to do is commit to working on your work-in-progress with encouragement from the collective.
If that's something that interests you, please reach out. And if you're not interested in joining but if want more stories with queer heroes, it would be a big help to like and share this post, and/or follow this blog.
Even if no one is interested in doing this with me except for one of the besties, I'm going to be doing this starting January, by posting stories on this blog and on my patreon page at first. Because I don't know maybe Field of Dreams was right.
Would you have to share your profits from direct sales of your work?
No. But, and maybe this is the anarchist in me speaking, it would be nice if everyone agreed to set aside a percentage from their direct sales profits for a mutual aid fund accessible to folks in the collective or community members in need. No one should have to worry about food, clothing, shelter, and safety.
Would everyone get an equal share in indirect profits?
Yes. Everyone in the collective would get an equal portion of the profits from subscriptions should we get to a place that we can do that with a portion of that going into the aforementioned mutual aid fund.
Would people have to commit to ONLY publishing/posting with the collective?
No. I respect the hustle. And if that was the case, this model wouldn't work. Your work is yours. This is just meant to be one of many platforms and methods authors and artists can share their talents with others outside of traditional means of publishing.
Would I be able to submit fanfiction and fanart?
Yes, but and this is a big but, if that's all you submit you wouldn't be eligible for the profit sharing. And none of your transformative work could be behind any paywall. That being said, absolutely. Please do. I'm very positive on fanfiction and fanart, being someone who wrote fanfiction since the early, early days of fanfiction.net.
Is there another website where the work is going to be posted?
Not yet. Operation costs are a few hundred bucks for the year and I don't have that yet but that is another short-term goal.
If you have any other questions about this, I'll answer them as best as I can. I'll be posting some information on some of the WiPs that I plan on posting in the not to distant future.
