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crowdfundingHello, everyone! I'm Elizabeth Barrette, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ysabetwordsmith on LiveJournal. I'm the list owner of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crowdfunding. I've been studying alternative publishing all along, electronic publishing since the mid-1990s, and the first glimmers of what has become crowdfunding since around 2000 or so. Today's topic is fishbowls, or more generally, prompted literature. I'll tell you about the technique in general, and my Poetry Fishbowl project in particular.
What is a fishbowl?
A fishbowl is a type of writing exercise in which a bunch of people throw ideas at someone who is writing in public. I first encountered it in writing classes, where one or a few people would sit in front of the class to do the writing, while the rest either called out ideas or wrote them on a blackboard. Some writers prefer the verbal input, others the visual. Another traditional version involves a writer setting up a table in a bookstore window or at a book fair, and waiting for bypassers to offer ideas. People get to see a real writer at work, and usually at least part of the output.
Online, a fishbowl typically takes the form of a blog post to which people can comment, although it could be done in chat or some other venue. The writer describes the parameters of the project, often setting a theme, and then invites the audience to start giving ideas. These prompts may take different forms -- a single word, a phrase, a suggested title, a distinctive character, a plot twist, the whole plot in a nutshell, a photograph or painting, etc. The writer then creates something based on those prompts, frequently combining two or more into a single piece. It is customary to post one thing for free in exchange for the inspiration; crowdfunding means that the writer also provides a way for people to buy more if they like what they see.
Why is this so cool?
1) For readers, fishbowls are fun because you get to see free writing. They're like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get. You can sit back and watch other people whip up nifty ideas, and watch the writer assemble them into amazing new material. This gives you access to some forms of literature that are hard to find on bookshelves, such as flash fiction; or ones like poetry that are available but erratic in quality within the mainstream. You can hunt around until you find a writer worth following.
2) For prompters and patrons, fishbowls offer a way to participate in the creative process. You don't have to be a writer yourself; you can just think up keen ideas and toss them upon the waters like so many breadcrumbs. If you do this with several different projects, you will quickly learn which writers tend to produce material you like to read, and who shares your interests. That last bit is vital because crowdfunding lets you support things you value, in ways that commercial literature does not. Are you sick of reading McBooks? Do you want more strong female characters, more brown people, more lesbians who live to the end, more relationships about something other than nookie, more problem-solving than explosions, et cetera ad astra? Ask and you shall receive. Fund and you shall be showered with words and thanks.
3) For writers, fishbowls knock down the wall between creator and audience. They make writing less lonely and more social, for people who dislike isolation. They let you invite input without being mobbed, for people who need to limit their social contact. They provide a bottomless source of inspiration, for people who aren't already swimming in ideas -- or people who just want to mix up the ideas they're using. You will always know that you're writing something people care about if you start with ideas from your audience. When you sell something, the whole price goes right into your household budget; you don't have to split it with a publisher and everyone and their dog. The feedback on published writing then tells you more about what you audience likes, so that you can fine-tune your production. Maybe your audience really loves action-romance, flash humor, vivid description, or heroic couplets. They'll tell you. All you have to do is listen.
What about the Poetry Fishbowl?
The Poetry Fishbowl is a project I began late in 2007. I used to favor a webzine that posted frequent poetry contests, mostly themed, so they gave great inspiration. That faded, and I wanted to replace it with something similar. The first two months of the Poetry Fishbowl involved testing the waters, without money; I simply asked for ideas and posted a free poem. In January 2008, I posted the first donation button and gave people the option of buying extra poems or just dropping something in the tip jar. To set the price range for poems, I looked at pay rates from magazines and factored in my writing time and skill; they're semi-pro rates (except for some epics, later) according to Duotrope's Digest. Notice that I started with set prices only and the custom range wasn't defined. On August 3, 2009, I created a landing page to describe the project and link to its features.
A majority of the cool stuff that has happened since the beginning was inspired by my audience, or occasionally by other crowdfunded projects. People wanted advance notice of the Poetry Fishbowl days so they could plan to catch them online. I learned which days were most active (Monday and Tuesday, on LiveJournal). So I placed the Poetry Fishbowl on the first Tuesday of each month, barring problems that require rescheduling, and I started posting advance announcements. People wanted something tangible; I offered scrapbooked poetry pages. The "epic" poems proved too expensive for most individuals, so microfunding was born to allow folks to cosponsor those, posted one verse at a time; and I standardized the pricing to $.50/line for most epics. (Browse some epics currently in microfunding.) One improvement from another crowdfunder was the second freebie if a new prompter or donor appears.
Other early decisions included tracking my results and writing a followup report after each fishbowl, and letting people vote on what poetry to sponsor with donations from the general fund. February 2008 began the first of the donor perk-posts, a short essay (usually about a poetic technique) locked for donor viewing only. The February 2010 fishbowl spawned the first list of unsold poems, which has become a regular feature. December 2010 brought the first Holiday Poetry Sale.
I started out with very general themes, like "speculative fiction" or "nature." Then I realized that I didn't want to keep repeating those, but did want to revisit similar inspiration. So I narrowed the themes, switching to subgenres such as "sword & sorcery" or "hard science fiction." I also asked my audience to suggest themes, then I put the best ones into a poll for them to vote on, resulting in odd but interesting themes such as "hidden, lost, or microscopic things" and "oceans and other waters."
Another exciting development from the Poetry Fishbowl project is serial poetry. I've always written about certain settings, such as my main fantasy world of Hallelaine; you can assemble stories or poems of mine and get a pretty good picture of the setting. But I rarely wrote true serials until the fishbowl audience started asking for repeat appearances of favorite characters or settings. After a while I realized that readers -- including myself! -- were getting lost or forgetting how many poems went together. So I created the "Serial Poetry" page as a guide, with series descriptions, notes about the prompters and donors, and links to published poems. Currently the most popular series are the Origami Mage, Monster House, and Fiorenza the Italian Herbalist. New from July 2011, but already attracting keen interest, is Path of the Paladins.
The crowdfunding income has built considerably over time. The January 2008 fishbowl made $10 from one donor. By the end of that year, however, I had my first two k-fans: people who spent $100 or more on my work, a la "1000 True Fans." (I don't like using 'true fans' for that because it leaves out the other half of support, which is word-of-mouth advertising; hence k-fans for me.) At the end of 2010, I had six k-fans. I also kept an eye on the average donation level per month, which fluctuates a lot but has some consistency. In April 2011, I introduced a new perk: if donations reached $150, I'd post a free poem from the most popular series. The July 2011 fishbowl broke the previous donation record, and met the $150 threshold for the third time. So I announced a future perk: at $200, people will get an extra Poetry Fishbowl (probably a half-day instead of a whole day) featuring a popular series. The idea with these is to pick a threshold that has been reached, but not often: it encourages people to stretch a little.
Now let's compare crowdfunding to my other writing work. My biggest regular market is writing for the Llewellyn annuals: a major publisher (mostly nonfiction). My second biggest market is the Poetry Fishbowl en masse. My third biggest market is one of my k-fans. Yes, ONE. A private individual, not a publisher or magazine, is my third biggest regular market, period. I posted some stats from the 2009 Poetry Fishbowl project. Currently, crowdfunding accounts for nearly 90% of my poetry sales. This monthly event doesn't make me enough to live on, but it puts the beans on the table, keeps the Internet connection live, and puts gas in the tank. It has a tremendous impact on our household budget. This is in a withered economy, in a culture that generally believes "there is no money in poetry." If the project appeals to people, they'll support it, even if they have to shake change out of the couch cushions.
Therefore my crowdfunding audience in general, and my donors in particular, get more influence over what I write and how I present it than conventional markets do. You get what you pay for. The pattern of poetic topics, forms, settings, characters, etc. that you see represented under my "poem" tag is the footprint of those donors, plus the wider audience due to polling choices. Their comments bring refinements and expansions to my work. Thanks to them, you can read hundreds of free poems on all kinds of interesting subjects. Never doubt that what you do makes a difference. The difference is right there, in softly glowing text, for everyone to see.
The next Poetry Fishbowl will be Tuesday, August 2 with a theme of "corruption & redemption."
What do you like best about prompted literature, or the Poetry Fishbowl? What, if anything, would you like for such projects to do differently?
ysabetwordsmith on LiveJournal. I'm the list owner of crowdfunding. I've been studying alternative publishing all along, electronic publishing since the mid-1990s, and the first glimmers of what has become crowdfunding since around 2000 or so. Today's topic is fishbowls, or more generally, prompted literature. I'll tell you about the technique in general, and my Poetry Fishbowl project in particular.What is a fishbowl?
A fishbowl is a type of writing exercise in which a bunch of people throw ideas at someone who is writing in public. I first encountered it in writing classes, where one or a few people would sit in front of the class to do the writing, while the rest either called out ideas or wrote them on a blackboard. Some writers prefer the verbal input, others the visual. Another traditional version involves a writer setting up a table in a bookstore window or at a book fair, and waiting for bypassers to offer ideas. People get to see a real writer at work, and usually at least part of the output.
Online, a fishbowl typically takes the form of a blog post to which people can comment, although it could be done in chat or some other venue. The writer describes the parameters of the project, often setting a theme, and then invites the audience to start giving ideas. These prompts may take different forms -- a single word, a phrase, a suggested title, a distinctive character, a plot twist, the whole plot in a nutshell, a photograph or painting, etc. The writer then creates something based on those prompts, frequently combining two or more into a single piece. It is customary to post one thing for free in exchange for the inspiration; crowdfunding means that the writer also provides a way for people to buy more if they like what they see.
Why is this so cool?
1) For readers, fishbowls are fun because you get to see free writing. They're like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get. You can sit back and watch other people whip up nifty ideas, and watch the writer assemble them into amazing new material. This gives you access to some forms of literature that are hard to find on bookshelves, such as flash fiction; or ones like poetry that are available but erratic in quality within the mainstream. You can hunt around until you find a writer worth following.
2) For prompters and patrons, fishbowls offer a way to participate in the creative process. You don't have to be a writer yourself; you can just think up keen ideas and toss them upon the waters like so many breadcrumbs. If you do this with several different projects, you will quickly learn which writers tend to produce material you like to read, and who shares your interests. That last bit is vital because crowdfunding lets you support things you value, in ways that commercial literature does not. Are you sick of reading McBooks? Do you want more strong female characters, more brown people, more lesbians who live to the end, more relationships about something other than nookie, more problem-solving than explosions, et cetera ad astra? Ask and you shall receive. Fund and you shall be showered with words and thanks.
3) For writers, fishbowls knock down the wall between creator and audience. They make writing less lonely and more social, for people who dislike isolation. They let you invite input without being mobbed, for people who need to limit their social contact. They provide a bottomless source of inspiration, for people who aren't already swimming in ideas -- or people who just want to mix up the ideas they're using. You will always know that you're writing something people care about if you start with ideas from your audience. When you sell something, the whole price goes right into your household budget; you don't have to split it with a publisher and everyone and their dog. The feedback on published writing then tells you more about what you audience likes, so that you can fine-tune your production. Maybe your audience really loves action-romance, flash humor, vivid description, or heroic couplets. They'll tell you. All you have to do is listen.
What about the Poetry Fishbowl?
The Poetry Fishbowl is a project I began late in 2007. I used to favor a webzine that posted frequent poetry contests, mostly themed, so they gave great inspiration. That faded, and I wanted to replace it with something similar. The first two months of the Poetry Fishbowl involved testing the waters, without money; I simply asked for ideas and posted a free poem. In January 2008, I posted the first donation button and gave people the option of buying extra poems or just dropping something in the tip jar. To set the price range for poems, I looked at pay rates from magazines and factored in my writing time and skill; they're semi-pro rates (except for some epics, later) according to Duotrope's Digest. Notice that I started with set prices only and the custom range wasn't defined. On August 3, 2009, I created a landing page to describe the project and link to its features.
A majority of the cool stuff that has happened since the beginning was inspired by my audience, or occasionally by other crowdfunded projects. People wanted advance notice of the Poetry Fishbowl days so they could plan to catch them online. I learned which days were most active (Monday and Tuesday, on LiveJournal). So I placed the Poetry Fishbowl on the first Tuesday of each month, barring problems that require rescheduling, and I started posting advance announcements. People wanted something tangible; I offered scrapbooked poetry pages. The "epic" poems proved too expensive for most individuals, so microfunding was born to allow folks to cosponsor those, posted one verse at a time; and I standardized the pricing to $.50/line for most epics. (Browse some epics currently in microfunding.) One improvement from another crowdfunder was the second freebie if a new prompter or donor appears.
Other early decisions included tracking my results and writing a followup report after each fishbowl, and letting people vote on what poetry to sponsor with donations from the general fund. February 2008 began the first of the donor perk-posts, a short essay (usually about a poetic technique) locked for donor viewing only. The February 2010 fishbowl spawned the first list of unsold poems, which has become a regular feature. December 2010 brought the first Holiday Poetry Sale.
I started out with very general themes, like "speculative fiction" or "nature." Then I realized that I didn't want to keep repeating those, but did want to revisit similar inspiration. So I narrowed the themes, switching to subgenres such as "sword & sorcery" or "hard science fiction." I also asked my audience to suggest themes, then I put the best ones into a poll for them to vote on, resulting in odd but interesting themes such as "hidden, lost, or microscopic things" and "oceans and other waters."
Another exciting development from the Poetry Fishbowl project is serial poetry. I've always written about certain settings, such as my main fantasy world of Hallelaine; you can assemble stories or poems of mine and get a pretty good picture of the setting. But I rarely wrote true serials until the fishbowl audience started asking for repeat appearances of favorite characters or settings. After a while I realized that readers -- including myself! -- were getting lost or forgetting how many poems went together. So I created the "Serial Poetry" page as a guide, with series descriptions, notes about the prompters and donors, and links to published poems. Currently the most popular series are the Origami Mage, Monster House, and Fiorenza the Italian Herbalist. New from July 2011, but already attracting keen interest, is Path of the Paladins.
The crowdfunding income has built considerably over time. The January 2008 fishbowl made $10 from one donor. By the end of that year, however, I had my first two k-fans: people who spent $100 or more on my work, a la "1000 True Fans." (I don't like using 'true fans' for that because it leaves out the other half of support, which is word-of-mouth advertising; hence k-fans for me.) At the end of 2010, I had six k-fans. I also kept an eye on the average donation level per month, which fluctuates a lot but has some consistency. In April 2011, I introduced a new perk: if donations reached $150, I'd post a free poem from the most popular series. The July 2011 fishbowl broke the previous donation record, and met the $150 threshold for the third time. So I announced a future perk: at $200, people will get an extra Poetry Fishbowl (probably a half-day instead of a whole day) featuring a popular series. The idea with these is to pick a threshold that has been reached, but not often: it encourages people to stretch a little.
Now let's compare crowdfunding to my other writing work. My biggest regular market is writing for the Llewellyn annuals: a major publisher (mostly nonfiction). My second biggest market is the Poetry Fishbowl en masse. My third biggest market is one of my k-fans. Yes, ONE. A private individual, not a publisher or magazine, is my third biggest regular market, period. I posted some stats from the 2009 Poetry Fishbowl project. Currently, crowdfunding accounts for nearly 90% of my poetry sales. This monthly event doesn't make me enough to live on, but it puts the beans on the table, keeps the Internet connection live, and puts gas in the tank. It has a tremendous impact on our household budget. This is in a withered economy, in a culture that generally believes "there is no money in poetry." If the project appeals to people, they'll support it, even if they have to shake change out of the couch cushions.
Therefore my crowdfunding audience in general, and my donors in particular, get more influence over what I write and how I present it than conventional markets do. You get what you pay for. The pattern of poetic topics, forms, settings, characters, etc. that you see represented under my "poem" tag is the footprint of those donors, plus the wider audience due to polling choices. Their comments bring refinements and expansions to my work. Thanks to them, you can read hundreds of free poems on all kinds of interesting subjects. Never doubt that what you do makes a difference. The difference is right there, in softly glowing text, for everyone to see.
The next Poetry Fishbowl will be Tuesday, August 2 with a theme of "corruption & redemption."
What do you like best about prompted literature, or the Poetry Fishbowl? What, if anything, would you like for such projects to do differently?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-20 10:23 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2011-07-21 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-21 12:28 am (UTC)Plus it's just so fun and exciting to see the results! I definitely appreciate the "box of chocolates" effect.
Thoughts
Date: 2011-07-21 01:08 am (UTC)Thank you for this insight. I hadn't thought about prompt calls that way, but it makes sense. I'm glad that I can help other folks stretch their creativity a bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-21 04:08 am (UTC)But just as often, ordinary-sounding prompts combine to inspire something very cool.
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the process, and looking forward to hearing other prompter's responses to this thread!
Yes...
Date: 2011-07-21 04:15 am (UTC)This. Sometimes a random little tidbit will burst into blossom or hook tightly to some other prompt. I'm often amazed by how much can be unpacked from a single word or a short phrase.
I love how my Muse Fusion prompt "Chasing the River" turned into the name of a game in the story.
Also, different people respond differently to a given prompt, or pick out different prompts from a list.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2011-07-21 06:10 am (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2011-07-21 10:42 am (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2011-07-21 05:13 pm (UTC)For an example of this, see the Muse Fusion over on
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-21 03:20 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2011-07-21 03:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-21 07:06 am (UTC)There is one other benefit of the Fishbowl that no one has yet mentioned: it's turning into a bit of a social event. During a number of Fishbowls, I've gained the opportunity to converse with interesting people I might not otherwise have met. I've even added a few to flist recently. :)
Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 07:24 am (UTC)*bask, preen*
>>There is one other benefit of the Fishbowl that no one has yet mentioned: it's turning into a bit of a social event.<<
Well, I've described my blog as a combination living room/office. I'm okay with it occasionally turning into a party. *wist* If you were really here, I could serve y'all ice cream...
Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 07:46 am (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 07:53 am (UTC)I don't have any money-shaped sprinkles. I could do green sugar though. Which on some of the ice cream I serve would be a bit strange, like the mulberry, but it would be fine on vanilla.
Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 08:01 am (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 08:05 am (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 08:08 am (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-21 04:50 pm (UTC)Re: Aww...
Date: 2011-07-23 04:29 am (UTC)