Browsing through the Sunday Times last weekend, I came across a new publishing company called Unbound. They recently held an event in Notting Hill called Unbound Live. At this event, authors with ideas, hopes and dreams stood up on a stage and asked the audience to help them turn those ideas and dreams into a best-selling, brand new book- by pledging to invest some of their own money in the project.
An Interesting Concept
As an aspiring writer, I found the concept a new and interesting one. The event sounded like a cross
between Britain's Got Talent and Dragon’s Den - and I’m a big fan of both. So I visited the Unbound website to find out more about the company, which was founded by three writers, Dan Kieran, Justin Pollard and John Mitchinson.
The three men believe that people who love books deserve to get a say in what gets published. They believe there are lots of potentially great books that readers are not getting the opportunity to read, because conventional publishers are putting restrictions on even their best selling writers.
Rewards For Investors
So why would a member of the public want to invest in the publication of a paperback? What do we get out of it?
Well, for £10, you get an e-book edition of the book you help to fund, your name gets listed in the back of the book and you can access the author’s ‘shed' - personal section of the Unbound website.
For £20, you get all this and the first edition hardback, delivered free if you’re in the UK. Give them £50 and they’ll sign your hardback and dedicate it to you. For £75, they’ll add a goodie bag, including a signed poster. For £150, you get two invitations to a launch party in the UK, two e-book editions, two signed hardbacks and two goodie bags. And for £250, the author and founders will take you to lunch at a restaurant of the author’s choice.
Will It Work?
To some, this may sound like a bogus competition - the kind where someone phones you up, informs you that you’ve won a luxury dinner for two, and you arrive, all dressed up to an empty room where no one has heard of any such thing. In these hard times, who really cares about books getting published? Before you burst out laughing, though, let me tell you that the website says two books have already been fully funded.
You may still have your doubts, and that is not surprising. However, before you brush this off as just a novel idea, consider this: the method of subscription was a popular way of getting books published in the 18th century. The writer Fanny Burney funded her most famous book, Camilla, using subscriptions in 1796, and her subscribers included Jane Austen!
So, will history repeat itself centuries later? And if and when the Unbound model does take off, which lucky writer will be able to boast the financial backing of J.K. Rowling?
Sources
(Online, accessed 27/9/11)
Unbound Website: http://unbound.co.uk/
The Sunday Times: Focus: Have you got the write stuff? (paywall)
Sarah Ismail - Sarah Ismail is a physically disabled journalist and blogger. She edits her personal blog, Same Difference, which covers all kinds of ...
