Ebooks, authors, books, deals, people

Writer Publishes New Novel Directly To Readers For $1

10.30.09 | 1 Comment
Robin Sloan raised money online to fund his first novel

Self-publishing isn’t a new concept, but with every new development in e-publishing it becomes a more viable option for some writers. Here’s a guy who’s bypassing both vanity-presses and mainstream publishers by getting readers to pitch in and pay him directly for a book before he’s even written published it. Call it a reader-funded advance.

Robin Sloan is a blogger who previously published a short story, Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store, on the Kindle (you can buy it here for 99 cents). I stumbled across him on Kickstarter, a website where people can post ideas for projects and ask others around the world to sponsor them.

Frequently, though not always, those who donate will receive something in return. That’s how Sloan set up his project; if enough people donated to meet a minimum threshold, he’d write the novel and distribute it to all participants. If they donated more than the minimum, they’d get extras like a printed and autographed copy or an acknowledgment in the final version.

So what’s the novel about? Here’s Sloan’s quick description:

Imagine a Sherlock Holmes for the 21st century. All the really good cases are on the internet. And Holmes is a woman, and Watson is an A.I., and San Francisco… oh, poor San Francisco…

Maybe Sloan set his sights too low, or maybe he’s just got really supportive fans, but he’s blown way past his initial fundraising goal twice over now and is still collecting funds. In the meantime, he’s finished his book and has farmed it out to select readers for a little community-based editing, and today he reported that he’s finished editing it and will release it in less than 30 hours, on November 1st, 2009. Anyone who donates at least $1 before then will receive a PDF copy of the book, which you can convert to a Kindle friendly format either by emailing it to Amazon or by using a free desktop program like Calibre. Or you can wait for it to potentially show up on the Kindle store, but it’s likely going to cost more than a dollar.

I donated the buck. Since I don’t know Sloan’s writing style at all, I figured I’d play it safe. That’s partly what’s brilliant about his “pay what you want” plan, because it lets people like me pay the minimum to sample his work and support his writing with minimal risk, while his fans can pay much more than that to show that they support his work and that they want him to write more.

You can find out more about the project, and the book, on Sloan’s page on Kickstarter.

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