Originally posted on April 24, 2011.
Today, we have Jon Renault with us to share a little on his adventures into self-publication, and how his experiment blossomed into an effort to break into the publication industry in a new and interesting way. Without further delay, onto the interview!
Greetings, Jon!
Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions. You have an interesting story to tell, so I’m very excited that I get a chance to talk with you and share with everyone what you’re doing.
Unlike some of the other people I have interviewed, you are a blend of hobbyist writer and businessman. You love writing and reading, but you really seem to love the background of the craft almost as much of the craft itself.
Before we get into mentioning your project, can you please tell us a little about yourself? What got you interested in writing, and how did this change your life in general?
Montessori school, William Faulkner, Nanowrimo. My first memories of writing were big sheets of paper with space for a picture, then a few lines beneath. We did this all the time as we were learning to write. You drew a big picture at the top, then wrote a bit at the bottom about it. That progressed further as I got older, and around fourth grade my friends and I were writing competing stories. If my main character had a space ship, someone else’s would have an invisible space ship, and things like that.Then, sophomore year of college, I took a literature class where we read Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom”. I honestly never finished the book, but I was amazed at what he could do with the English language. As one of the assignments in the class, we could write something imitating the style of an author we read, and I wrote a story that tried to get close to what he did. It was about my dad’s negative reaction to a pair of black basketball shoes I got in middle school, and the class loved it. It eventually got published in the school literary magazine.
Finally, in 2002, a friend told me about National Novel Writing Month. I tried it, and that year’s story eventually became the book I published to show how my project works. I’ve done Nano every year since (Though I think this year I’m taking off), finishing my 50,000 words every year except 2004 and 2009.
And about me – I live in Washington, DC (And I mean in DC, not out in one of the suburbs). I currently make a living as a software engineer at a government contractor. I’m really smug about commuting by Capital Bikeshare (Like Zipcar, except for bikes). I’ve been married since August 2006, and we have two little girls (2 and a half and seven months). I’m a competent amateur photographer, and I love beer. I proposed five minutes after winning our coed flag football championship, and we took our older daughter to Australia to visit her great uncles and family at 13 months.
What made you want to branch away from writing and pursue the business end of the industry?
It’s clear to me that I don’t have what it takes to make a living writing. I write pretty decent rough drafts, which is a big part of why Nano is so appealing, but I’m terrible at editing. I just don’t have the discipline to write professionally. At the same time, I love to read, and I love what books can do for people.
Please tell us a little about your project.
You have a book. Pick a goal – an amount of money you want to earn from the book. Then choose the things you want to sell. It can be pretty much anything, but ideally it will be something that helps your fans feel a little closer to you. You could sell batches of homemade cookies, if that’s your thing. Or you could sell a live reading of your latest novel at their kid’s high school, or a personalized signed item off your desk. Whatever you want.
When you reach your goal, the ebook version is released for free to everyone. Everyone can download it, share it, give it to friends, whatever. You still collect money for the items you’re selling, and now print books are available, too.
Most people by now are familiar with Kickstarter.com and other similar sites. This is the same idea, just focused on books, so we can do some things that the other sites can’t.
How did you come up with the idea to do this?
It’s not my idea – this sort of a model for making a living by producing content was already being used by some bands before I started working on my project. It’s a little easier for bands to do it – most bands don’t make the bulk of their money from album sales anyway, so the shift from content-as-product to content-as-promotion is a lot more natural. For authors it’s a lot tougher, but it’s not impossible.
When you started your project, you used your own writing to test the concept with. Unlike many, you chose to donate all of the proceeds to charity. What made you make this decision?
I’d love to be able to say that there was some deep altruistic motive behind it, but really “The Dance of the Ducks” is not a complete novel. What I published is pretty much exactly the novel I finished November 26th, 2002. But I wanted a working example of how the site works, and this let people poke around and buy things knowing that their money was going to a good cause. Once the site is successful, I plan to take some time and really finish my 2008 Nano novel and publish that one, too.
What charity did you pick and why?
I chose Reach Incorporated on the recommendation of a friend. I wanted a charity local to me in Washington DC that was somehow related to reading, and Reach was good on both counts. They have a really cool approach to helping kids learn to read. They take older kids having trouble with reading, help them get better, and help them learn to help other kids be better readers. Then those older kids tutor the younger kids who are having trouble. It’s sort of like the “teach a man to fish” analogy, but here they’re teaching kids to teach fishing.
Your project is close to becoming a reality. Can you tell us a little of your goals for your project and how you hope you can help writers pursue their dreams of publication?
I want to help people earn a living by writing. I want to show people that there are many paths to success in publishing, and not all of them go through traditional publishers. At the end of the day, an author wants people reading their work, they want to get paid, and maybe a little critical acclaim is nice. None of that requires a traditional publisher anymore, and going a non-traditional route often gives the author a lot more control, and a much bigger cut of the profit.
This kind of model is what I wish my favorite authors used. I’d really like to move from reading print books to ebooks, but I’m morally opposed to both copyright infringement and paying $9.99 for something that has a marginal cost of zero. I want to help the authors I love make a living, but I think it’s ridiculous to pay for something I can copy with a simple right-click.
What challenges do you foresee as you move forward with launching your project?
The biggest challenge is that people don’t understand how things work. That was what I was really trying to overcome with my book – people could see an example, and then it would make sense. Also, it’s really hard to start as an unknown. No matter how competent you are, you can’t point to your past successes.
What kind of writers do you feel best fit with your project?
The ideal candidate is someone who is already active in a community of their fans, or potential fans. Marketing is one of the biggest advantages the older publishers have over the upstarts and the little guys. If the author already has that pool of people to get things started, it makes it much easier.
Even if the fanbase isn’t already there, the author needs to want to connect with fans. If you just want them to buy your book and leave you alone, this sort of model is not going to work well for you.
Based on your experiences, what piece of advice would you give to a new writer?
Figure out what you want, and get help. Decide if what you really want is to “be published” – to have a major publisher decide that you’re a reasonable risk, and sign a deal with you. Or maybe you really just want to write for a living. If you’re one of the former, we’re not going to be much help. You might get noticed by a big publisher if you do well self-publishing, but it’s unlikely.
If what you really want is to get paid for writing, keep your options open.
But you almost definitely need help. It might be an editor or a marketer or a business manager or an agent or some or all of the above. Doing it on your own is really, really hard.
Thanks for sharing with us a bit of your experiences and goals! Before I set you free, if you could have dinner with any author and one of their characters, which pair would you pick and why?
It’s probably cheesy to say the guy the site’s named after, right? Manfred Macx is a character in a Charlie Stross novel, Accelerando. He made a living by solving other people’s problems, making them rich, and essentially living off gratitude. I think he would like what we’re doing.
And I’d like to say Joseph Heller and John Yossarian from Catch-22, my favorite book, but Yossarian is kind of a downer.
So I think I’d take Bill Waterson and Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes. Waterson is actually a large influence on my writing, and Hobbes is always the voice of reason. Seems like a cool guy to have a drink with. And my older daughter would get a huge kick out of Dada having dinner with a tiger.