Cory Doctorow's Experiment

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Read about it here. He's going to try to make money on a crowdfunded project equivalent to what he might be able to earn with a publisher. Called "With a Little Help." The Donation of Books section is brilliant, I might have to steal that...!

I think what you already notice, reading this, is that "A Little Help" is really a ton of help. How someone without his fanbase or peer network would be able to swing all the details... I don't think it could be done, reasonably. Everything from layout and proofreading help to people doing accounting and audiobook recording and mastering for him? Yikes.

I think the one thing he's already proven with this experiment is that you have to be a Cory Doctorow to even begin at a certain success level. So it leaves the question unanswered: how do you become a Cory Doctorow these days?

Comments

Re: ??

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

We all have one or two friends we could probably get to help us with some of our needs, yes, but I'm pointing out the scope of this enterprise is probably beyond anyone but a Cory Doctorow. That would be one of the two big problems with do-it-yourself publishing: you have to do all the administrative work yourself, and the more you expand the more it multiplies, until you spend more of your time doing the administration than you do the work.