The Value of Experimentation
I’ve recently come to know and appreciate Brad King‘s work, both as an innovative media professional, as well as a university professor. So I’ve been keeping an eye on a project…
I've recently come to know and appreciate Brad King's work, both as an innovative media professional, as well as a university professor.
So I've been keeping an eye on a project that he and his talented students have launched: The Invictus Writers.
There's a lot to say about it, but—in brief—for the first volume, each contributor has written a personal essay about the moment in their lives when everything changed as they moved into adulthood. Along the way, they've tinkered with a few elements of publishing as well.
Here are some interesting stats:
- To date, nearly 3,500 have read the essays on Scribd.
- They launched a blog to discuss the process of writing the book. To date, there have been about 3,600 page views on the blog, which itself has 31 posts that were written by 7 authors.
- They put up a Facebook Page here.
- They created a 157-page print book that retails for $10. They also created a PDF that retails for $2.99.
- Soon they'll release an EPUB edition that will retail for $4.99.
Now I'd like to point out some things they did NOT do:
- They did not wait for permission to collaborate.
- They did not wait for someone to pay them to do or write what they cared about.
- They did not query editors or agents asking for approval.
- They did not look for a publisher to do what they could do very well on their own.
- They did not wait to be discovered.
- They did not angst over putting their work online.
- They did not limit themselves to one format or channel.
- They did not wait to learn everything first. They're experimenting and learning as they go.
I hope you get my meaning.
Jane Friedman is a full-time entrepreneur (since 2014) and has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She is the co-founder of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest. In addition to being a columnist with Publishers Weekly and a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com. Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).
