We all learned from Justine that Pubslush is “a global, crowdsourcing publishing platform for authors to raise funds and gauge the initial audience for new book ideas. For every book sold, Pubslush donates a children’s book to a child in need.”
Justine had reached out to me about Pubslush, and I’ll be honest, my first reaction was “Oh no, not another place to spend money.”
Why I Decided to Crowdfund My Memoir through Pubslush:
1. To reach new readers:
After learning more about the service, I realized it is more about collaboration and open dialogue between a writer and a community. Yes, it does involve raising funds but this is in exchange for ideas and engagement. It also provides an opportunity to fine tune my project by getting feedback from people who are willing to invest in the message and vision.
Photo Credit: “Unity” uploaded from iStockphoto.com
Vann Alexandra Daly, who considers herself to be “the Crowdsourceress”, describes crowdfunding as a ” democratic, collaborative process which allows an open dialogue between project creators and their backers…to fine tune and develop a better product” in this post “Why You Need A Crowd”
2. To share the message of my memoir:
I have been working with my publisher Paul Burt of Pen and Publish Press to develop a campaign with a system of rewards for various levels of contribution that will help spread the message of my memoir, Ever Faithful To His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse.
Sharing your transformative journey can transform readers. That’s why a memoir must focus on providing value, or benefit, to readers.
I hope to spread the message of hope, resilience and courage for women still searching for their own inner strength.
My journey to memoir led me to healing and self-forgiveness. My hope is that Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse will help others face their own past self-defeating choices and find their own pathways to healing
It’s more about the message than the book. The book is the vehicle to convey the message and the Pubslush campaign will help me find new readers and help me spread the message. Here’s my campaign video:
The funds generated will be used for promotion and marketing activities. I hope to reach out to local and global networks who serve women in abusive situations. This is where community comes in. New ideas will help me reach the right organizations.
My 30-day campaign starts Monday,May 12 and I will provide a link when it goes live. I hope you’ll join me in spreading the message of hope, resilience and courage to those who need it the most.
Thank you.
How about you? Have you ever considered crowdfunding your book? I’d love to hear from you and will be happy to answer your questions. Please leave your comments below~
This Week:
Thursday, May 9: ” Why Fear is the Key to Unlocking Your Best Writing by Joe Bunting”
I am very pleased to feature Justine Schofield in this guest post. Justine is the communications coordinator of Pubslush, a global, crowdsourcing publishing platform for authors to raise funds and gauge the initial audience for new book ideas. Pubslush also operates an independent imprint that acquires books from the platform, and for every book sold, donates a children’s book to a child in need.
Justine is currently enrolled at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, earning her MFA in Creative Writing. She graduated from Emerson College in Boston, MA with a degree in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. She specializes in social media and public relations and has held various freelance editing and writing jobs, and her work has been published in many online and print publications.
She will discuss what Pubslush has to offer authors seeking way to fund their projects.
Although the focus of this post is on memoir writers, Pubslush’s service apply to all genre. Of note: Pubslush Press’s debut title, a beautiful mess, is a memoir.
Welcome, Justine!
Crowdfunding Your Memoir
As a memoirist, you pour your heart and soul into your work and that’s something you deserve to share with the world. Unfortunately, as writers, we know all too well that the publishing industry is very difficult to break into.
Self-publishing of course has become a great and even sometimes preferred—route, but that also comes with a financial risk.
Enter: crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding is a way for artists to mitigate financial risk and build their audience.
It has become a groundbreaking means of funding creative projects that otherwise wouldn’t have the means to become a reality, but even with the buzz around crowdfunding, it’s a very new concept that a lot of people have trouble understanding.
So how are you supposed to know if crowdfunding is right for you?
6 Ways to Know if Crowdfunding is for You:
* You have a built in network. This is where a lot of people go wrong in regards to crowdfunding. Some people believe all they have to do is throw their campaign up on a crowdfunding site and others will magically back them. This is how it would work in a perfect world, but, alas, that’s not the world we live in. Crowdfunding is a lot of work and a majority of people who support your campaign will be from your own personal network.Prior to the launch of your campaign you need to compile a list of everyone in your network you can reach out to.
*You’re not afraid to ask for support. Along the same lines, you have to be willing to ask your network to support you. Ask and you shall receive—remember that saying? It’s definitely applicable to crowdfunding. Just casually mentioning your crowdfunding venture won’t yield results. You need to be proactive and ask people to support you. Also, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. If you’re asking via e-mail be sure to include a link right to your campaign. People like easy.
* You think outside the box. Yes, having a network is key, but developing new, creative ways to find your audience and gain support outside of your network is also extremely important. Especially being memoirists, there’s a niche market out there that you can tap into, you just have to figure out how to reach and sell yourself to that market.
* You must know your goals. Different people have different goals when it comes to publishing. Some people just want to publish e-books through Amazon. Others want to conduct a full-scale publishing effort, including hiring an editor, cover designer, PR agent, etc. Obviously, your funding goal is going to depend on the scale of your publishing project. You need to have a solid idea of the outcome you’re hoping for at the end of your campaign so you can plan your goal and your reward levels accordingly.
* You believe in your project. Crowdfunding is tough. You need to have the attitude that the world just won’t be the same if your book isn’t published.Especially with so many other crowdfunding projects bouncing around the Web, you need to be your own biggest advocate. If you believe in your book, others will, too. Passion in infectious.
* Be familiar with crowdfunding. Since crowdfunding is so new, a lot of people aren’t even familiar with the concept. You’re going to have to explain crowdfunding in general to a lot of people before you even get to your own specific project. You have to be prepared to do so.
Pubslush offers an abundance of resources and information about crowdfunding and publishing in general. To learn more, visit Pubslush 101.
Debut Pubslush Memoir, a beautiful mess by Ali Berlinski
Memoir Synopsis:
Imagine what your life would be like if you laughed through all the mayhem? Biracial and bicoastal, Berlinski spent her childhood flying between the dysfunctional families of her divorced parents, always feeling like an outsider. Fortunately, she never lost her sense of humor, which is apparent on every page of her debut story collection, a riotous and revealing exposé of the new normal and the consequences of too much air travel, cultural diversity, and conflicting and conflicted parents. With an open heart, she recounts her somewhat misspent youth and a wildly exciting (though equally torturous) love affair with the guy of her dreams, eventually leaving it all to start again abroad.
She’s Carrie Bradshaw reimagined as a third grade teacher in Brooklyn with zero interest in Manolo Blahnik. She’s a tough New Yorker with a tender twist of California sunshine whose journey will be oddly familiar and utterly unique to anyone who’s ever believed that love would save them – if not with this guy, then maybe with the next.
As her grandfather once said, “Well, it may not be the party you hoped for, but since we’re here, we might as well dance.” So now she lives in Spain and, despite everything, continues to dance through this messy, magnificent life. Say yes to your mess.
***
Thank you Justine for letting us know about your services to writers and authors. It’s nice to know there are alternatives to ease the financial burdens of marketing both with traditional and self-publishing options. And I’m thrilled your debut title is a memoir!
How about you? Have you ever considered crowdfunding your writing project?
We’d love to hear from you. Pubslush has offered to give away three ebook versions of ” a beautiful mess” to three random commenters. For those who do not have an ereader, you can download Kindle or Barnes and Noble apps to your computers to access the ebook.
“The challenge with memoir is to make it interesting to someone other than the writer.”David Colin Carr, editor
Photo Credit: “Reading is Magic” by Sodanie Chea from FlickrCreativeCommons
One of the biggest challenges in memoir writing is to turn the events in your life into a story someone else would want to read. Writing with the reader in mind becomes an essential part of the process but I have found it does not occur in full force until the rewriting/polishing phase.
Keeping the reader in mind as I write my memoir is something I’m working on as I grind away after three years of writing vignettes and two rounds of professional editing by a developmental editor.
I am finally ready to focus on my reader.
Why now?
Because I didn’t know the true heart of our story until I had poured out many drafts on the paper—often referred to as “sh*#! first draft or the vomit draft–just getting it on the page with no regard for editing or censoring.
That’s been my experience.
This point was brought home to me in a recent discussion on Belinda Nicoll’s blog, My Rites of Passage during her A-Z Blog Challenge. In Challenge #23: Writing Models, she discusses paying attention to creative techniques in the hopes of crafting a story that will be of interest to the readers. Belinda had posed the question,
“Do you keep your readers in mind as you write?”
In response to my comment that the longer I write and revise, the more I find myself writing with the readers in mind, Lifewriting Coach and Author Sharon Lippincott had replied:
“Kathy, your comment prefaces what I was about to write. Only you can say for sure, but I suspect your early focus was more on the personal cost of disclosure and less on how it would affect readers. Ideally, I think we all need to “write like nobody will ever see” in the beginning, then tailor down to our disclosure comfort level balanced with reader impact.”
Bingo!
Initially, I needed to pour the words on the page before I even knew what my story was. My focus was on digging and excavating.
Now that I have my story—the narrative arc— I can concentrate on writing with the reader in mind.
But I think there’s a fine line between giving the reader credit for figuring out the details and giving the right details to make it clear.
I have a responsibility as a writer to transport the reader into my world in a way that is grammatically correct, nicely paced, appealing to the senses and action-packed.
As a memoir writer, I need to offer lessons learned from life experiences so the reader will have something to take away from reading my memoir.
With that in mind, here are a few tips I’ve gleaned along the way to write words so the reader will be moved:
Have enough emotional distancefrom the life events to be able to be objective in conveying the story.
Be clear on your intention for story and stay true to your theme throughout the story. Avoid distracting tangents. Yes, this means “killing your darlings.”
Offer reflections on the wisdom gained from life events rather than listing chronological events.
*If you are stuck on who your target audience is, try writing with one reader in mindand focus on what you want them to learn from your story.
Read your manuscript aloudto yourself and to others to listen for inconsistencies in pacing, clarity, voice. I use a digital recorder and tape some chapters. It’s amazing what I have been able to hear when I listen to my own words.
Use a critique group and/or beta readers for objective feedback. In the end, it is your story but being open to how potential readers view your story is crucial to getting your best work out there.
Commit to excellence on all levels.Invest (as you are able) in professional services for all levels of editing, book cover design, promotion. If finances are an issue, explore creative options for funding, such as kickstarter campaigns, beta readers, sharing services with other writers.
“It matters to put your best foot forward.” Jami Carpenter, The Red Pen Girl
Keeping the reader in mind as we build our characters and move our plot along through a series of event and actions that will keep our readers turning the pages seems like a reasonable expectation.
Photo Credit:” Reading Books” from Google Free Images
How about you? How do you move the reader with your words? As a reader, what does it take to keep you turning the pages?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
On Thursday, May 30: Justine Schofield, Communication Coordinator of Pubslush a global crowdfunding publishing platform will discuss: ” Crowdfunding Your Memoir: 6 Ways to Know If Crowdfunding Is For You.” She will give away three (3) ebook versions of Pubslush’s debut title, a memoir, a beautiful mess by Ali Berlinksi.
Memorial Day, 2013
We remember and pray for our living and deceased veterans and thank God for the freedoms of this country.
My WWII Hero Dad Saluting the American Flag, Memorial Day,2004
