To us, community is the future. It has been present in the past before as well, but the current state of art production seems to have forgotten this. It is possible to produce a book or web novel completely by oneself, but why should that be the norm? Why should that be the most “straightforward” option?
The web of novel production should not be a challenge: it should be a support system for writers to fall back on when doing things alone becomes too much to handle.
From proofreaders to editors, book cover artists to sensitivity readers, we writers need a plethora of people in order to ensure that our work can be at its best.
The barriers to enlisting these people are numerous: Can you pay them? Can you trust that they’ll do their work sincerely? Can you even find them?
Production aside, there is also the community of readers as well as fandom culture to address. It’s safe to say that social media is no longer in its experimental stage. Rather, social media has revealed what happens when humans are able to bond over the things they love regardless of physical barriers.
They create even more wondrous, inspired art.
But fanart is tricky when it comes to legality, despite still being art all the same. It can be simplified to a problem of complication of tracking where the money flows.
Indeed, where does the money flow in all this? A prominent barrier to novel production is money, and another barrier to sharing passions through fanart is money. How can we tackle this?
Well, let’s manipulate the system and use what we know.
Let’s use ads to fund users instead of pooling revenue at the “top”.
Let’s make it possible to publish derivative works that also send automatic royalties to the original ones.
Our plan is extremely simple in this regard: community monetization is key.
If we are able to achieve these things, what would that mean? Naturally, we’ll extend the bridge to other art forms.
Yes, we are writers with a dream of better writing days, but we want all artistic lifestyles to be accessible, to be livable, to be fulfilling.
We are going to start with the writers because that is what we are most familiar with: that is who we are. But we will not be finished until we liberate all of art from the shackles of the starving artist.
Instagram @theaudertist
Community is the future:
The Web of Novel Production
Readers and Fandom Culture
Manipulating the System
Extending the Bridge
The Web of Novel Production
If you know how traditional publishing works, then you know that it’s a process that requires many people just to make one novel succeed.
The process of writing is similar in its need for the community for others: from research to editing to artwork and more, the help of others is always used through various unseen ways.
Writers need a reliable web to fall back on. This web should be filled with people who can also share their passion for art.
Readers and Fandom Culture
The art of writing is inextricable from reading. From purchase power to shared fascination in imagination, readers can help writers to keep on writing.
Fandom is what happens when humans share what they love and form a community. Many productions, corporations, and platforms know how to capitalize on this behavior for their own benefit (not so much the benefit of their customers), but it is within our interest to embrace and protect this phenomenon instead.
After all, readers deserve to feel safe in their own space. They shouldn’t have to worry about whether the use or perpetuation of an artform would negatively impact the livelihood of its creators.
Manipulating the System
We’ll say this upfront: we are going to use ads to fund our system. We are going to develop and aim to improve our site analytics. These are the tools towards our means and they will be used accordingly.
In other words, it is within our interest to use these tools to serve the needs of humans, not the other way around.
We will use these tools to make the life of a creative livable and ever expansive. They are not absolute; they are not our overlords.
Extending the Bridge
But novels don’t stop at writing.
Not only is there cover and concept art to commission, there is also fanart (through all mediums), themed plushies, clothing, live action adaptations, animation, and more that can erupt from a piece of writing!
It is our ambition to help these derivative works be fully realized, but also exist to the original work’s benefit.
We’ll be working this ambition into our system for ADR exclusive works – more on those later.