Bitcoin as self-publishing payment option

[aramisw]

I am writing a sci-fi novel and have started to think about how to publish my work. Because of the exciting possibilities of electronic self-publishing, I am seriously considering doing that. I like the idea of not having to share the reward with a publisher and actually I would like to sidestep the whole juridical and financial thing related to publishers, be that traditional ones or the new electronic ones. I kind of like the idea of "doing it yourself" and so on and so forth. So, when I read about Bitcoins I was like thinking that: "Hey, this seriously seems to rime with self-publishing. The readers knows that what they pay goes more or less 99.9% to the author."

Though there are some risks involved (price volatility of Bitcoins, the future of Bitcoins etc) I am seriously considering this as an alternative payment option and think I will go through with. So, I did a search on this forum to see what people had to say about it and to my surprise I did not get any search hits at all.

So, I decided to put it out there and share my thoughts with you. Have you thought of doing this yourself? What stopped you from doing so? Have you tried it and did it work?

[Venusian Broon]

Firstly,

Hello and welcome to the forums aramisw.

I hope your writing is going well and that this forum may provide you with information, entertainment and support.

With regards to your query. To be honest, as an aspiring writer, the question of what I want to get paid in for my writing is not really something I even think about.

Getting to the stage where people want to give you money / gold / bitcoin / payment in kind / promises for future services is really what concerns me at the moment and this is about continuing to learn the craft of writing and trying to write with the 5 C's: correctness, conciseness, clarity, coherence and completeness. On top of that is the process of learning about the Industry and Market - which is even more of a steep learning curve for yourself if you definitely going solo.

So to try and give you an answer. I'll cross that bridge when/if I come to it. Honestly it's probably the last thing on the list of things to do, and although I can't speak for anyone else on the forum, probably the same reason there is silence about it throughout the forum!

[Vertigo]

I would agree with VB. First worry about getting your work written. I wouldn't do anything else until then. Besides once you've finished and start worrying about publication, it is probably the time to also go back and and do another edit. So then worry about how you are going to do your self-publication and self-promotion. Only then should you worry about how you are going to get paid.

Now I don't know much about bitcoins but this I do know; they not exactly in global use!

So you have already decided to limit your audience by going the self-publishing route and presumably therefore ebook only. It doesn't matter how good your writing is a very large percentage of readers simply do not even look at self published works; they probably won't even know of the book. If it is ebook only, a very large percentage of readers will not even consider it. If you add an unknown payment mechanism to the equation then I really don't think you will see much in the way of sales. Using something like Paypal might take a bigger cut of your money but at least all your potential buyers understand it.

[aramisw]

I have been working on the book for about five years or so and rewritten just about every sentence at least four times or more. I have been through the process of killing darlings and shopping pages and well, I feel I am kind of getting ready to let go (just "a few things more then I am done"). I do not think that I will ever make it as a writer and do not see myself making any real money out of this book. I am doing it because I always dreamed of doing it and feel I have a good story to tell. That said, I have spent a whole lot of time on this project and it would be so rewarding to see people voting with their wallets, so to speak.

Thank you for your input. I think you highlight many important issues.

I have actually not thought thought about the difficulties of learning the industry, marketing and so forth and so on, by my own. This will for sure be a challenge.

I guess Bitcoins, if I choose to go along with it, has to be an alternative payment option. Since the ebook readers kind of locks you in, I guess my homepage is the only place where I can offer this option. Since no one knows about my homepage, that is a an issue. I guess I will have to read the legal stuff carefully, if I am thinking about selling the work through more then one channel.

Thank you for your feedback. Since there is not much posted about this, I think I will keep updating this thread. Cheers.

[Stephen Palmer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18922561

this is well worth a read.

[Venusian Broon]

I can imagine that you are at the stage of 'champing at the bit' and probably a little frustrated at what exactly to do next.

My first question would be: have you had beta readers go through the novel? And following up on that, have been lucky to have beta readers with experience in the publishing side of the industry, editing, professional novelists etc...? Has the response been good? (especially if you are really lucky and got someone in the second group).

Then as has been suggested by many here on Chrons, if you are deadly serious it may be worthwhile to pay for freelance Editing/proofreading. It is expensive though, I think.

If you think it's really ready, although it seems you're a little bit down on your chances (who knows you may be a writing genuis!), then now that you have a finished product I don't see what the harm is in sending it out to publishers and agents. At worst you'll get rejections. What you'll hopefully be able to gauge is if it's getting close to publication standard or not. A straight set of photocopied rejection forms would probably say 'More work required here'. You may get handwritten notes which may show that they have paid a lot more attention to it, and this is positive. And if you are extremely good (and a bit lucky) you may even get an offer. At that point then decide whether you want to go the book industry route or continue to self-publish. You don't need to take up the offer.

In the meantime (sending to agents and publishers will take time) research marketing a book on the internet and see if this is something you'd be willing to do seriously. There's plenty of info, here on Chrons and elsewhere. You may have written the next big thing, but releasing into a void will mean that no one will buy it, no matter how brilliant it is.

Finally, (and getting back to topic), the one thing I do know about Bitcoin is that a hacker group last year 'broke' the system and exploited it to steal money from the system. So even though I do know about it, personally I'm not sure I'd ever use it.

[Vertigo]

I guess I will have to read the legal stuff carefully, if I am thinking about selling the work through more then one channel.

I can't remember the figures but if you want your self-published ebook available on Amazon then they do have two levels of 'self-publishing'. You get a bigger cut if Amazon are selling exclusively and a considerably lower cut if others (including yourself I'd guess)are also selling it.

If you really don't want Amazon (or anyone else) involved then you really have to sell from your own website which, I would have to say, would probably be doomed to failure and I think you would still need a non bitcoins option such as Paypal on there.

Bottom line, I think that currently you will have to accept one or more vendors like Amazon being involved and taking their cut. On the plus side that cut is considerably less than a publisher would take. On the other hand the publisher will do much to promote the book (just having a publisher's name on it makes it more sellable). Again I don't know any figures but I suspect that despite the difference in cut you will almost certainly get more actual money for your book through a publisher than you would from self-publishing. Even that horror 50 Shades of Grey only really went viral after it had been picked up by a publisher.

Remember, figuring out ways to get the customer's money into your pocket (bitcoins, Paypal, Amazon etc.) is really a trivial problem, figuring out how to make the customer want to give you their money; that's the hard part.

[Montero]

Second/third what everyone has said already - beta readers, professional editor.

Plus I'm fairly techie but have only vaguely heard of bitcoin and if a book that I actually wanted to buy could only be bought using bitcoin, I probably wouldn't bother. If it was part way through a series I was already reading, then maybe I'd look into bitcoin and how I get some, but not for a new author I'd not read before.

[ubulord]

Hi

I wonder if you ended up selling your book for bitcoins. I'm curious to know if you managed to do it.

I had exactly the same idea as you did (bitcoins and self-publishing seem to be two sides of the same concept), googled "self-publishing with bitcoins" and got to your post.

I actually have already put my book up on Amazon, Kobo, etc., but have been trying to find out if I can put the book up on a site that sells books for bitcoins, just because I like the concept.

[mynameismonkey]

Originally Posted by aramisw

I am writing a sci-fi novel and have started to think about how to publish my work. Because of the exciting possibilities of electronic self-publishing, I am seriously considering doing that. I like the idea of not having to share the reward with a publisher and actually I would like to sidestep the whole juridical and financial thing related to publishers, be that traditional ones or the new electronic ones. I kind of like the idea of "doing it yourself" and so on and so forth. So, when I read about Bitcoins I was like thinking that: "Hey, this seriously seems to rime with self-publishing. The readers knows that what they pay goes more or less 99.9% to the author."

Though there are some risks involved (price volatility of Bitcoins, the future of Bitcoins etc) I am seriously considering this as an alternative payment option and think I will go through with. So, I did a search on this forum to see what people had to say about it and to my surprise I did not get any search hits at all.

So, I decided to put it out there and share my thoughts with you. Have you thought of doing this yourself? What stopped you from doing so? Have you tried it and did it work?

I just finished building an open marketplace for eBooks that only accepts Bitcoin. I would love some feedback. bitbooks dot co (not dot com)