Crowdfunding or What?
So much of the future of media debate concludes with little evidence and much conjecture on how the latest idea or gadget will or will not “save” publishing. Therein lies the problem. The Internet presents us with limitless possibilities. How could anyone believe in a silver bullet?
If a savior is what publishing needs, the best thing anyone could hope for is that more people will draft their wills like Ruth Lilly (she left Poetry magazine 100 million.) Really, the goal should be business models as unique as our creative strengths, but sometimes that feels just as unrealistic.
The trouble I see with crowdfunding for creative projects is not that it doesn’t work, but that it couldn’t possibly work for everyone. First of all, the very act of crowdfunding requires a level of self-assuredness that does not often come naturally for artists and writers. Mikita Brottman, literature professor at Maryland Institute College of Art, talks about the problem her students have selling themselves to the public “I have art students who grasp pretty complex ideas but can’t put them into words. If someone is a great video-game designer or great artist or a great musician, when if comes to speaking about it, if they aren’t articulate, they’re seen as freaks.” This often comes at the expense of grants and other opportunities they are more than qualified to receive, but fail to articulate the need. That point reminds me of something I read about Dr. Suess. He was invited all the time to speak at schools but mostly declined. As a very shy, somewhat awkward person, he worried children would be let down as he does not appear as carefree and spirited as the narrator of his books.
The least remarkable novels I read seem written as though the author knows his mother will see it one day. Imagine an author who feels accountable to hundreds and hundreds of people — context collapse as the death of creativity.
My friend Ed Champion was once explaining the difference between writers who write to write, rather than write to have written. I worry crowdfunding works best for the latter — those who see writing as the means for prestige rather than a greater calling. When I look at my bookshelf, I don’t see a single author who was ever described as “salesman-like” or even “good with people.” In a country where 81% of the population “feel they have a book in them,” there’s already a problem of loud voices crowding out raw talent, with or without crowdfunding.
As Joseph Epstein once put it, “I wonder if the reason so many people think they can write a book is that so many third-rate books are published nowadays that, at least viewed from the middle distance, it makes writing a book look fairly easy. After all, how many times has one thought, after finishing a bad novel, ‘I can do at least as well as that’? And the sad truth is that it may well be that one can. But why add to the schlock pile?”
Last week there was an informal discussion about crowdfunding on Twitter, preserved here by Tim Maly. More from Maly, Michelle Pauli at The Guardian, PD Smith, and Paul Raven at Futurismic. Will Wiles expanded on some of his points in the debate, with a thoughtful post, “I Have Always Relied on the Strangeness of Crowds”. I like his footnote, “Here’s an idea for redistributing the risk in publishing – crowdpledging. How about a publisher says ‘get 1000 people to say they’ll buy a copy of your proposed book, and we’ll give you a contract?’ Could that be made to work?” I also like the idea of publishers, indie or otherwise, using Kickstarter and other crowdfunding methods to find new voices. A writer who is his own cheerleader, probably isn’t maxing out his talent. But so long as demand for outstanding work remains high, there’s still potential for alternatives.
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Hugh Guiney
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valto
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Divya Manian
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Amanda Hirsch
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joanne mcneil
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Amanda Hirsch
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