Commitment
Okay...before you'll commit to something, you want to make sure that you're going to get some money for your trouble, right?
Writers need advances, because they need beer, and because it puts them on the hook to finish the work they started. It's a publisher saying, "Hey, we believe in you, your work, and we want to take a chance with you." Part of the reason that author royalties (for new writers) are such a small portion of the income earned is because the publisher is adopting all of the risk.
But the publisher brings more than venture capital to the table...they also bring validation. They make the author feel there's more of a chance their work will be rewarded. Without that step, why bother?
If you're using money as an excuse not to make something, here's some bad news: there's a site called Kickstarter. If you go on Kickstarter, you can create a project (it can be a book, film, or art project, or a product idea) and ask people to fund you. You set a monetary goal, as a sum total you need to raise to make the project happen (say, $12,000), and then you let people pledge different amounts, in $5, $10, or $20 increments. If you don't raise the entire amount, the project is canceled and no money changes hands. But if you reach (or surpass) your goal, you get the money and you get to go ahead with your project.
People pledge money on here to projects they like or believe in. In a lot of cases, authors or artists go on here and say, "Here's my idea for a book or album we want to write. If you buy it now, I'll create it and send you a copy when it's done."
Pledgers are, in a sense, pre-ordering what they want. Whereas in the past, the role of the publisher or record company was to make educated guesses about what people would buy, this site lets artists go right to their intended audience and ask them, directly, if they would like their idea enough to buy it. And each member of the audience gets to put their money where their mouth is (or not).
This doesn't make it easy, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. Now that you know about it, what are you going to start?
Writers need advances, because they need beer, and because it puts them on the hook to finish the work they started. It's a publisher saying, "Hey, we believe in you, your work, and we want to take a chance with you." Part of the reason that author royalties (for new writers) are such a small portion of the income earned is because the publisher is adopting all of the risk.
But the publisher brings more than venture capital to the table...they also bring validation. They make the author feel there's more of a chance their work will be rewarded. Without that step, why bother?
If you're using money as an excuse not to make something, here's some bad news: there's a site called Kickstarter. If you go on Kickstarter, you can create a project (it can be a book, film, or art project, or a product idea) and ask people to fund you. You set a monetary goal, as a sum total you need to raise to make the project happen (say, $12,000), and then you let people pledge different amounts, in $5, $10, or $20 increments. If you don't raise the entire amount, the project is canceled and no money changes hands. But if you reach (or surpass) your goal, you get the money and you get to go ahead with your project.
People pledge money on here to projects they like or believe in. In a lot of cases, authors or artists go on here and say, "Here's my idea for a book or album we want to write. If you buy it now, I'll create it and send you a copy when it's done."
Pledgers are, in a sense, pre-ordering what they want. Whereas in the past, the role of the publisher or record company was to make educated guesses about what people would buy, this site lets artists go right to their intended audience and ask them, directly, if they would like their idea enough to buy it. And each member of the audience gets to put their money where their mouth is (or not).
This doesn't make it easy, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. Now that you know about it, what are you going to start?