@zachobront@tuckermax Just bought the book and looking forward to reading it. As an outside looking in, I always thought the publishing industry was a bit er... strange. Like finance or law, seemed to be full of legacy thinking (and legacy liabilities -- big, old companies have a lot of retirement benefits to pay out, and that makes them slow to change models), and very custom-heavy ("this is the way it's always been, so...") rather than flexible to the changing environment. With how software is touching on every industry I was sure it was a matter of time before things changed and more power was given back to the creators, in this case the writers. So it was refreshing to check out the Book in a Box website and your in-depth Medium post (https://medium.com/@tuckermax/my...), and I'm really excited with where you're taking this :)
Two questions that I'm dying to get out even before I do my homework and read the book (sorry, but readers here will benefit so I'm going for it!):
1) Sell me on the Book in a Box idea for fiction. I definitely see the use case for nonfiction, business books, and others that fall into the "writing as a means of marketing" (i.e., the "it doesn't really matter how much the book sells") camp, as you put it. But I'm curious to whether this works for fiction as well, and if so, what (if any) are the differences in the model? I ask because I didn't see anything up front that discourages fiction writers from applying, so I assume you're fielding fiction requests as well?
2) The model is spectacular in that the royalties all flow back to the writer. As much as I think publishing is due for a good dose of democratization, I'm a realist and assume that there was some value being provided to the writers that justified at least a portion of the cash they were receiving. In particular, I'm interested in the marketing side -- the tail end of the process. What are some of the fundamental differences -- if any -- between what you're providing to customers vs. what a big publisher would?
(By the way, I understand some of this might be more appropriate for the Book in a Box product page (http://www.producthunt.com/tech/...) and am happy to re-post over there to get the discussion moving in the right place for you two -- I posted here as I thought this page seemed a bit more fresh.)
@playswithfood Good questions.
1. We don't advocate using this for fiction right now. I absolutely think we can develop a process for fiction, but that is far off. They are very different problems to tackle, and this book is only designed for non-fiction books.
2. Yes, this is more appropriate to the BIAB Product page, but we can address it here, it's fine. The simple answer to this is that publishers don't do any marketing at all. Because in 90%+ of cases, they don't. The only reason to go with traditional publishers is if you need an upfront advance, or if you need to position yourself to be able to get a lot of mainstream media attention to make the book a success for you. Neither of these two factors are important for the majority of authors.
And beyond that, even if they ARE important, you still have to be able to get a deal from traditional publishers, and that is essentially impossible at this point, unless you have a large platform that ALREADY exists for you to sell your book into.
@tuckermax Thanks for the quick and thorough reply. Number 2 is fascinating in and makes sense given those legacy systems / thought processes. Thanks again and good luck with BIAB. Looking forward to the book!
First off, thank you Robert for posting this.
But I don't want this to be seen as "my" method. That is not accurate at all. I was a part of the team of people who developed this process. My co-founder, Zach Obront, was as important if not more important than me. Andrew Lynch, Mark Chait, Kevin Espiritu, Mary Schiller and Hal Clifford have all contributed significantly to our process, and more people are contributing as we grow.
My team and I will be around PH all day to answer any questions about this. I think the book is free right now on Amazon. If not, I think it's .99.
@ryanshook No, not in this book, this book is focused on how you go from idea to finished manuscript. But, in a way we do talk about marketing, because the best marketing you can do is write a book that people will care about and meets their needs, and we spend a lot of time showing you how to get that right.
I was excited when I heard Tucker was going to be writing a book sharing his process with Book in a Box. I picked this up a couple of days ago when I saw someone mention it was out on Amazon and have been reading it. So far I have gained a lot of insight and can certainly see implementing the methods described here. It is currently free on Amazon.
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