Tonight I got as far as showing what happened to them after she left. I have not yet gotten to the point of showing what happens when she works out the idea for the talysmana. That comes next, and I’m looking forward to it. Tonight, the writing was grim.

Elsewhere, it’s been a zoo. I’m still coughing up junk and tired all the time. I remembered income tax stuff in time (barely) to get the info for the 1099s I have to send out to my accountant. It was pretty cool this year to have a handful of affiliates who made enough money that they NEEDED 1099s. There would have been a lot more, but many of my affiliates are outside the US, and don’t have to report their earnings in this country.

We’re looking for new digs, which is about the least fun thing ever—but rent is high, and our current neighborhood isn’t great. Somewhat better than the place that had the crime scene tape a couple buildings down from the building we thought we wanted into, though. Amazing how much less attractive “Police Line, Do Not Cross, Crime Scene” makes a neighborhood.

And I’m doing the HTRYN course. So I was AWOL from the writing diary for a lot of last week.

Hoping this week will be better, but I’m remembering that every January is a zoo. So I’m not holding my breath.

How’s your writing coming along?

This is the second model I came up with, and I’ve been playing with portions of it since Friday. I wrote it all out today, and ran the numbers. It’s pretty scary.

===================================
THE NEVER-ENDING MAGAZINE NO MORE
===================================

The biggest change in my model, and the one that could actually make this idea work, would be to create it on the SEASON model, based on TV series and their DVD aftermarket sales.

Here’s how the season model would work. You would buy a season of the Serialzine: Either a six-issue, three-month short season (you’d get your next sub every two weeks), or a 12-issue, six-month long season. All stories started in the season would end in that same season, so they would be, for the most part, started in Episode One, and finished by Episode Six. Writers would certainly want to leave more for their main characters to do after the conclusion of the season, but within the season, you would received somewhere between four and eight complete novels/novellas and a handful or double handful of short stories, depending on the length of the season.

Along with your sub, you would receive a season membership in the private sections of the serialzine community, with overlap until the next season came out. Lifetime subscribers would receive permanent residency rights in the community.

There would be a small public board for Q&As from folks who hadn’t subscribed, and any member could post there as well, but the meat of the community—voting, discussing stories, badgering writers for more stuff, figuring out how to sell your own stuff—would take place in private.

Whenever you bought—the day the season opened, the day the first subscribers got their final issues, two years later—YOUR subscription would start with Episode One, and every two weeks, you’d be mailed the link to the next issue, so no one would ever come in partway through a story. No spoilers (unless you went to the SPOILERS board).

For writers and affiliates, continuing sales of each season would create a wonderful little recurring stream of income. (It does create some issues with publication duration, and it might be necessary to have a hard limit on how long any given season would continue to be available. Or maybe not. This is just me, but long as I owned everything but first serial rights to a magazine series, if the magazine wanted to keep paying me forever for the right to keep the serial version in print, I’d be okay with that. Don’t know about you.)

When their stories were accepted, writers would receive a permanent Green Room membership. I think we might need to have a non-disclosure agreement in place in the Green Room so that writers could use the Green Room to openly discuss the next stories they were working on there with each other, post snippets, brainstorm, create mastermind groups to help each other with their careers, and so on.

=================
STORIES
=================
One story per issue would be complete in that issue, and would be a sort of “how this character became a hero” story, with the idea that you were creating a character designed for a series, and that if you got good reader feedback, you would write longer things for future seasons.

We would have a vested interest in continuing to work with writers who stuck with their series characters through more than one season. Each season’s work would have to stand on its own, but continuing characters, including the hero, would encourage readers who joined with season two to go back to season one to pick up the earlier story about a continuing character that they loved.

Top vote-getting authors would be eligible to appear in sequential seasons if they had something ready to go. We would, however, want to continue bringing in new writers, so each complete-in-one-issue story would be reserved for new faces.

Authors would ONLY sell the serial rights to your story. You would retain all other rights—ebook, print pub, foreign, licensing, and on and on and on.

Ditto this on art rights: The artwork would be single episode use only, will all other rights retained by the artist.

====================
ARTWORK
====================

Each episode of a series would use a cover by a different artist, but each cover would contain that artist’s interpretation of each of the story heroes IN THAT EPISODE. For example, (I’m going to use all my stories as one cover because I know my own protagonists’ names), Episode One would have a cover of Cadence Drake, Talyn, Hawkspar, solo episode character Medwind Song, and Dayne Kuttner in some sort of “Sopranos looking at the Camera” pose by Artist #1.

Episode Two would have a cover of Cadence Drake, Talyn, Hawkspar, solo episode character Earwax, and Dayne Kuttner, as interpreted by Artist #2.

====================
THE EDITOR
====================
The editor would read slush, select the ones he or she loved and thought were ready to go, and the ones that were promising with some work. The ones he (for the sake of convenience) thought were ready to go would come to me and I’d either give them a go, a no-go, or suggestions on what I thought they needed in order to be publishable. The ones that were “promising with some work” would go back to the author from the editor with a request for revisions. The editor could say “no thanks” at any time. Final approval on all stories, though, would come from me. My name on the magazine, you know.

===================
THE PUBLISHER
===================
I would pay people—authors, editor, affiliates, artists, website, tech folks, and everyone else. Would deal with advertisers. Would select the final stories that would go into each issue. Would deal with website issues, sign-up and subscription issues, and customer service. Approve final cover art.

=========================
THE BIG BAD UGLY NUMBERS
=========================

Here’s where my stomach churns just a little bit. SFWA requirements for a pro market are here. A market has to meet pro-market standards for a year before your writers can be considered a pro by SFWA (not important to some folks, I know, but important enough to others that it becomes important to me), so if you’re trying to be a place where writers can break into pro writing, there’s not a lot of sense in doing this if it doesn’t start out professional in attitude, payment, and quality.

My objective is to create a market you can use to start your pro writing career.

Here, then, is:

=====================
WHAT A SEASON COSTS
=====================

These are all short-season figures (three months, six issues).

50,000 words per serial x 4 stories x $.05/word = $2500/ author x 4 authors = $10,000

One 8333 word short x $.05/word per issue = $417 x 6 authors= $2500

(These story lengths are estimated for my convenience. Stories would be figured by actual word length, and we’d fit them in as they fit. In essence, though, you’d get five authors and about 40,000 words of fiction per issue.)

65% of short season minimum for authors to meet SFWA $.05/ word guidelines = $12,500

20% of short season minimum for publisher = $3846
All overhead comes out of publisher’s percentage, so for the publisher, (me) from the number above, subtract:
*art budget
*web design and maintenance
*website and bandwidth fees
(significant if we host mp3 versions + community)
*budget to pay audiobook reader(s)–no clue what this would cost
*budget to pay for conversion to formats other than PDF
*consultation with a lawyer on serial-rights-only contracts
*community moderators (maybe a free season sub plus perks for
moderating in lieu of pay)
*other terrifying stuff I haven’t thought of yet (please point out anything you
can think of

Divvy up what’s left over the three months for a short season, and this becomes a pure labor of love for me—or a big tax loss leader, because I would make a lot more money working on my own stuff. And frankly, I’m not in the tax bracket where I need big write-offs just yet. So how much it costs me to do this (in terms of time lost to more profitable projects) becomes a factor, too.

15% of short season minimum for editor = $2885
(Pretty much a labor of love for the editor, too, at the minimum rate)

Total minimum costs per short season = $19,231
(Three months, six issues)

===============================
Double that for a long season.
===============================

Total costs per long season = $38,462
(Six months, twelve issues)

=======================================
THE BIG “DROP DEAD” WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS
MUCH PER ISSUE OR WE DIE NUMBER
=======================================

Total cost per issue = $3206

This is a lot of money (and compared to paper publishing, I know it’s not much at all, but for a start-up ezine, it’s a LOT.)

===============
TO COVER COSTS
===============
Advertisers come after subscribers. If you have no subscribers, you’ll have no advertisers. SO we have to get subscribers first.

To cover costs by simple subscription, the formula is MINIMUM of X PEOPLE times Y PRICE.

The minimums below are our “drop dead” subscription numbers—the number of subscribers below which the season would drop dead (if we didn’t have enough alternative income to make up the difference.) For affiliate sales, because affiliates would get 50% of each sale they made as recurring income, (minus paypal fees) two subs would be required to equal one straight sub. So these are REALLY minimum numbers, which assume no sales would come in through affiliates. Realistically, if we have affiliates, add 30%-45% of subscribers to this number.

The presence of community membership might make the higher-priced subs viable. I don’t know.

Anyway, here are the “drop dead” numbers.

535 people at $6/per issue, which is, I think, WAY more than the market will bear.
$36/ per short season $72/ per long season

642 people at $5/per issue. Ditto above.
$30/per short season $60/ per long season

802 people at $4/per issue. Probably ditto above.
$24 per short season $48/ per long season

1069 people at $3/per issue. Which we MIGHT be able to get.
$18/ per short season $36/ per long season

1283 people at $2.50 per issue.
$15/ per short season $30/ per long season

=================================
There could be a couple of split sub prices:
=================================

A sub that included all media EXCEPT audio could be $2.50 per issue, while a sub that included all media PLUS audio could be $5 per issue, for example. That might help defray the big bandwidth costs associate with hosting audio.

Maybe if you didn’t want to be part of the community, that would be .25 off each issue. (Community being one of those big bandwidth eaters, she says from experience.)

======================
There could be lifetime subs.
======================

If you bought a lifetime sub with the first issue, it would be, say, $200. And there would only be a limited number, but the people who bought them would not just get a lifetime sub. They would also get some kind of cool perk. Their own private Hero Members bulletin board in the community? Votes on upcoming cover art? A private teleseminar chat with the authors who wrote that season? I don’t know. Suggest stuff. Prices for lifetimes subs for people who bought later would be higher—the folks who take a chance on a new market would receive a break.

How many lifetime subs would be available? Maybe ten or twenty per season? Not enough to fund the thing, but certainly enough to help.

======================
Advertising
======================

Some possibilities:
1/16 page= $0.15 per subscriber
1/8 page= $0.20 per subscriber
1/4 page= $0.30 per subscriber
1/2 page= $0.50 per subscriber

Subscriber numbers update live and are posted in the advertising area. No ads available until there are a minimum number of subscribers for the season, and ads available for a season until the week before the season goes live. What’s the minimum number of subscribers before I’d sell ads? Don’t know yet. Probably 33% to 50% of our season “drop dead” number (the number where, if we don’t have that many subs or alternate funding equal to that number of subs, we drop dead). Remember, this is all just roughing things out.

If there were 600 subscribers the day you bought, you’d pay, per issue, NOT per season:
* $90 for a 1/16 page ad.
* $120 for a 1/8 page ad.
* $180 for a quarter-page ad.
* $300 for a half-page ad.

This might seem steep, but remember that each season is complete unto itself, would remain evergreen (it would stay on sale) and has a community plus affiliates selling subs to back it up. The numbers on the day you buy will be the lowest numbers that season ever has. And new subscribers to that season, because they will start with Episode One, will see all ads. They might not read them, but they will see them.

Opinions? Suggestions? Comments?

Along with the many public posts, there have been some private e-mails. Some have been cautionary:

“My gut tells me that it isn’t a good idea. Even the big-name fiction publications like Analog and Asimov’s don’t sell all -that- well anymore. The system you’ve concocted works very much in the author’s interests–but I don’t know if people would be able to stomach a magazine full of serials.

When people buy something, they want the whole thing–they don’t want a small piece, they don’t want a chunk. They want something whole. Admittedly there are many series books–but each book in itself contains a whole story. I don’t think it’d work.

I don’t like to smash things, least of all dreams, but that’s an expensive venture to undertake, and if there’s no interest in it, there’s no point in it.

And:

Personally, I can’t see myself keeping track of five story lines in my head at the same time, and having to wait for two months for the next installment. I do like short novels, but I like to be able to read them in a short burst. So put me down as a “No, thanks.”

Some have offered solid problems that need to be dealt with:

1) With regard to incentive to buying back issues. Say you have an AMAZING
story that has been running for a while. A new subscriber picks up the
latest issue, reading the latest installment of the story, and BAM, they
read spoilers… It’s almost like turning to halfway through a new book by
your favourite author, isn’t it? Is that reader *really* going to want to
pay to go back and read the earlier sections now that the story is spoiled
for them?

2) The $1 pay-per-vote; is this on TOP of the subscription fee? Or does the
sub include a built-in vote?

3) Filesharing. I wouldn’t say this is a concern if you’re offering an
electronic edition of an entire completed book, because even if someone buys
the e-book, they will likely go get the real book for their shelf. But we’re
talking about entirely electronic distribution until the end of each series;
in which time someone could pay to download the latest issue, and share it
with 1000 people via bit-torrent, rapidshare, etc. And that’s 1000 people
that don’t have to pay a subscription.

In any case, I’d definitely be up for that editor’s position. =)

And:

My only thought about the model is it doesn’t address overhead. Were you planning to go with Lulu to do that as well?

And:

1. RE: Suckitudinous Fiction: You could actually put a piece in each issue that conveys exactly what you mean by ‘Suckitudinous Fiction’ if you can find authors who are willing to submit pieces that fit this criteria. A sort of “How NOT to write good fiction” piece just for fun.

2. There is no indication as to how submissions will be judged/accepted. Who will be reading them for content and craft? Who will decide what authors get published in each issue?

3. If you accept an author’s submission for a serial–do you want the eniter piece upfront? If so, good. If not, what if said author flakes out on the story–as in the piece becomes weak and drags or just does not deliver the quaility of the first part?

4. Who will your editors be? Will they go with people they know (i.e., friends) or be totally unbiased?

5. While “big name” authors are fine, they already have many venues that, sadly, do not question their work. (Some are even getting their latest works published that may never have made it through the front door just because their *NAME* is stamped on the manuscript.) Do Big Names really need another venue? If your goal is to offer a place for new authors to gain a footing and a following, then make them the draw and let their voices speak for them. Your editors (see #4 above) will be able to weed out the excellent from the mediocre and, while that might make it a bit harder to sell in the beginning, the quality of the publication and the work it contains will build the reputation for you. A quality product does not always need Big Names to get it flying. It could actually be a drawback if I, as a new and struggling author, want a place to call home as I fledge into the world. I would not want to compete with those names just yet. And, I would see them as taking up space that should, under your proposal, go to the new voices out there.

Sorry to be sending this to you as an e-mail rather than putting it in the comments section on your site. I wish I could figure out how to get in there. lol But, these are my comments for now. I like your plan, save for those questions already being asked as well as my questions. It sounds exciting and doable. I would be interested both as a writer and as a reader.

And…

While I like the idea of your model in theory, I wouldn’t
subscribe. I’m just not interested in getting little chunks
of little novels, so widely spaced out in time. My flavour
of serial fiction is the television or long novel series.

That said, I suggest really looking at the
community-related suggestions you’re getting, because I am
the customer who chooses which series to try based on the
buzz I hear about them from people I trust or the critical
excitement in communities that share my interests. If I try
‘em and like ‘em, I gobble them up as soon as they’re
released in my preferred format.

For me, “Ol’ No-Title” would be the TV that I don’t watch,
and the book later published by the author would be the
season-on-DVD that I buy and watch in two days. I guess
that’s not directly useful to you as the cable company, but
it might be something to think about as the writing patron.

And some were pretty encouraging:

I love the idea of a magazine full of serial stories.
I’d subscribe to it.

CLIFFHANGERS would be a good name.

I think, though, if you limit yourself to two sci-fi
stories, two fantasy stories, and one genre to be
decided later, you’re doing just that: limiting
yourself. Maybe one sci-fi, one fantasy, and three to
be determined later. The three could always include
another sci-fi or fantasy story.

If the subscriber base is composed chiefly of writers
hoping to get into the magazine, so what? I don’t know
how many subscribers your blog and newsletter get, but
I’d guess it was considerably more than a couple
hundred. I’d also guess that a number of them would
subscribe just to be supportive. It’s a business
write-off for a working writer anyway.

Some I have not included because their authors asked me not to or included personally identifying details that I do not believe they wish to share.

And Then…

Much to my astonishment I also managed to create a tempest in a tepot over my tiny remark that porn sells but I’m not interested in selling it.

Here’s the quote that pissed ‘em off.

It’s still selling fiction on the internet, albeit with printed novels taken from each issue eventually available, and I’ve seen that, at least with current models (unless you’re doing porn, which is out of the question), selling fiction on the Internet is about as effective and fun as nailing your hand to a wall.

I’d think it would be obvious to anyone with a brain that ANY writer who is writing both adult and YA fantasy under her own name is not going to be even remotely interested in including anything that could be categorized as porn, or romantica, in a magazine she’s ALSO putting out under her own name.

Was I insulting porn? Romantica? No.

I was noting that porn/romantica is the ONE type of fiction that you can sell on the internet and know it will go. The stuff sells, and sells very well, and where there’s one big market for it, there’s certainly another. And some of it is very well written. I’m simply not interested, even a little bit, in being that market.

Yes, when money was a nightmare a couple of years ago, I bought a handful of Ellora’s Cave’s offerings with the idea of cooking up a pseudonym and doing a few of them, just to bring in the extra bucks. Some I thought were funny as hell, a few were pretty hot, some I didn’t care for, but in the end, no matter how much money I might have made doing them, I figure you only get so much time—and so many books to write—before you die. You better make sure every one you do is one you want to claim.

I looked at my career, I decided I’d rather sink my time and effort into another novel on the Tonk than one where the main point is to see how many guys can lick whipped cream off the tied-up heroine before the hero decides he isn’t mad anymore and comes in and chases them off so he can bang her. Yeah, that was one of the ones I read while sampling the genre. It was funny. Cute. But it had no theme, no subtext, no deeper meaning. It didn’t make me think, it didn’t challenge my beliefs, it didn’t echo in my mind after I read it. It didn’t change the way I looked at the world even a little bit. If I’m not looking for the Why of the world in what I’m writing, or in what I’m reading, I’m wasting my time.

This is me.

You are you. Your mileage may vary, and you may drive wherever you like with the gas you have left.

And Finally…

I think I figured out a way to answer most of the problems with my first model. Give me another couple of days to get my thoughts in order and run numbers to see how doable it is.

As far as I’m concerned, if I’m not going to be able to pay writers AT LEAST the SFWA minimum pro-market rate right out of the gate, the thing is a no-go.

But I think I’ve figured out how to do that.

Affiliates will be able to e-mail him directly with questions about getting ads set up, improving conversion rates, coming up with original sales promotions to introduce folks to the good stuff we have in the shop, and more. And he’ll be setting up training courses to help them make more money as affiliates.

My objective with the affiliate program has always been to be able to help my readers and other writers make money to further their own goals: to be able to afford to do things like being able to work from home, spending more time with their kids, or just having some extra financial padding during the lean months.

My heart was in the right place, but I had (until recently) no idea how to go about this. When I finally figured out what made a good affiliate program and a good affiliate manager, one of the most important things I learned was that I didn’t have the time to do the job right.

Enter Craig. I’ll let him tell you about himself.

==================

First off, I just want to say that I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work with Holly. She has great products available and I’m looking forward to the release of many more. I’m especially impressed with her desire to give back to the writing community.

I have been a software developer for almost nine years, so I have a very strong technical background. Aside from programming, I am also a writer. I’ve had a few smaller pieces published and I’m currently writing my first fantasy fiction novel.

My job is to help you become a successful affiliate. Holly has a great vision for the program and I’m very happy to be a part of it. We will be giving you new tools to use and making improvements to existing ones. There will also be plenty of new promotions, contests, and other incentives. I have several ideas to make things even more fun, but more on that another time.

My goal is to get you excited about being a HollyShop affiliate and to motivate you to get out there and make sales and recruit even more affiliates! My vision is for us to work together as a team and to push each other to success. I’m also here to answer your questions about anything from advertising on your web site to ways to generate more sales.

===============

It’s now a good affiliate program. It’s about to get a lot better.

But I am, as a result, behind on everything. And this has just pointed out to me something I’ve been suspecting for a while now. I’m way overextended, and I need to fire me from a couple of positions and hire someone who can do these jobs the way they need to be done.

Today, specifically, I’m opening up a position for an affiliate manager for the HollyShop Affiliate program.

More specifically, I need a partner who has:

1) STRONG organizational skills, project management, and time-management skills;

2) A comfortable working knowledge of HTML; experience with Dreamweaver a plus;

3) Graphics skills; experience with Fireworks a plus;

4) Copywriting skills a definite plus if already present, clear writing skills an absolute necessity;

5) An ability to communicate well with and get along well with others;

6) Direct experience as a successful Affiliate Marketer an ENORMOUS plus;

7) Enthusiasm and excitement.

AND who has a strong commitment to:

* learn the ropes of becoming a super-affiliate, creating independent campaigns to sell the shop products, and who can then transfer this knowledge to the affiliates in the program (because the best leaders have been where the troops are now, and can SHOW the troops how to do what they did to get where they are) (I’ll provide you with top-quality training materials);

* learn affiliate management and apply the things you learn to make the program fantastic (I’ll pay for your training);

* who will recruit new affiliates, train existing affiliates, make sure affiliates stay within compliance; and get the affiliate center into shape (it’s an incredible mess right now, but I can provide templates and very clear direction on what it needs to become excellent);

* who will answer affiliate e-mails promptly and get affiliates help same-day (or at most within 24 hrs)

* who will come up with promotion ideas, contests, and deals for affiliates to offer;

* who will work enthusiastically with beginners to help them showcase their special strengths and create marketing plans that succeed for them, and who will work with equal enthusiasm with seasoned pros to get them the help they need;

* who will submit the program to appropriate directories and find other venues to increase its profile;

* who will distribute articles and other content, and create some advertising content;

* who will create training tutorials;

* and other things we’ll agree on jointly.

To get you started, we’ll work out a checklist of critical tasks and secondary tasks, and another checklist of daily, weekly, and monthly to-dos.

For this, I’m offering a straight commission of 25-30% of total program commissions for the first six months (depending on your current skills and experience), with an increase after six months to 40% of program commissions, following a review of the program’s progress and your own satisfaction with the work. (If you’re already a successful affiliate manager with a non-competing program and I don’t have to train you, I’ll start you at 40%.)

Understand that you’re starting with what is, essentially, a new program. For November, the affiliate program generated $410.53 in commissions. I was grateful for every single commission, but for an affiliate program, that’s really tiny. I haven’t promoted the program, I haven’t worked one-on-one with affiliates, I haven’t done a lot of things that NEED to be done. Still, on last month’s commissions, the beginner affiliate manager would have made whatever commissions he already made for his own affiliate sales, plus $102.63-$123.15 in Affiliate Manager compensation. I know that’s small to start with. However, there’s no cap. If in six months (when I raise you to 40%) you’ve grown the program to $5000/month in generated commissions, you’ll receive an extra $2000 on top of your own commissions.

If you can turn HollyShop Affiliates into a big, juicy affiliate program that generates $25,000 a month in commissions, then you’ll get $10,000.00 per month on top of your affiliate commissions. Whatever you ethically can get the program to produce, you’ll get 40% of as affiliate manager on top of what you earn as an affiliate.

I’ll pay 100% of your super-affiliate training and your Affiliate Manager Course, I’ll work with you daily until you’re comfortable doing most things alone, and I’ll make sure you can reach me if you have questions after that.

I’m looking for someone ethical and determined who loves the site, loves the books and courses, wants to help writers find information they can use, wants to help affiliates (most of whom are writers) succeed and make good secondary incomes so they can have more money and more time to write, and who sees this as an opportunity to do something both profitable and exciting, and perhaps as a way to pay forward.

I’m offering this in-house—to the folks who are my affiliates, who are members of my mailing list, who are regulars at my writing diary, and who are FMers, because I want to work with MY folks. That’s why I’m willing to train rather than look at outside sites.

If this is you, and if you want to work with me, please contact me at affiliates AT hollylisle.com with your qualifications and what you can bring to the job beyond basic skill sets.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Holly

Now I know what I want to do. I want to publish fantasy serials—related world- or character-based stand-alones set in well-developed, fun universes.

I want to be able to offer a good advance, I want to be able to offer good royalties and an excellent contract. I want to have a strong, interesting, atypical online presence for the house that may include the development of role-playing games based on the series, interviews and online presences for authors, and other goodies.

And what I need now is money.

I’ve gone over all sorts of sources for funding, and here’s the thing. I don’t do government handouts—I didn’t do them when the kids and I were squeaking along below the poverty level, and I won’t do them now. Morally, ethically, personally, I don’t approve of government handouts. So I won’t be applying for any grants. I’m not interested in using other people’s money in the form of selling shares, and by doing so losing control of the business and the way it’s run. HOW it’s run is as critical to me as what it is. I don’t want to incur the moral obligation of accepting donations, and I won’t even consider the potential financial devastation that comes with taking out loans.

Which means I’m simply going to have to earn and save, and build slowly.

I have limited control over my professional publishing career—I could have a magnificent windfall with a New York Times bestseller or five, and suddenly have the money to do this. But it hasn’t happened yet, and after 30+ books, I’m not holding my breath, and I’m not making business plans based winning the publishing lottery.

Ben Franklin’s adage and life philosophy, Do Well By Doing Good, offers guidance. Find ways to pay forward, find ways to create new and desirable services and products, make sure people benefit, that the work is worthwhile, that something good comes into the world because of it, but also make sure the work can pay its own way. Do what you can yourself, bring in volunteers when it outgrows one person, pay if it’s a for-profit venture. (Forward Motion was never intended to make money, so I built it around an entirely volunteer culture. I hope with this project to be able not just to teach folks to fish, but to pay them for the fish they catch.)

I have a way to do that. The income I do have some control over is my little online bookstore. I can—and will—write more books for that. My own titles and my own work will be the primary source for funding the publishing house, though I’ll add additional writing-related nonfiction as well. I don’t make much money from selling other folks’ books because I don’t charge them much for having the books on the site (currently 10% of the cover price after PayPal and affiliate fees). So other people’s writing non-fiction will help a little, but not much. And fiction is currently selling at the less-than-breathtaking speed of about one copy of each title per month—adding fiction to my list will not help my plan at all—and it doesn’t do much for the writers, either—so in almost all cases, I just won’t.

My only way to increase my publishing fund other than to write more books is to add more affiliates. So I will be pushing the HollyShop Affiliates program, because that’s my distribution, and the farther I can reach with the books I have, the more work each book does for me, and the more I can put aside to fund the publishing house. If you’d like to have a part in getting OneMoreWord Books off the ground, join the affiliate program, get other people to join through you, let me pay you for your help, and help me make enough money through the store that I can regularly bank it. We can all do good by doing well.

I’m good at living and working on shoestrings; have been doing it all my life. I figure I can do more with a dollar than a big corporation, because to start with I’ll do most of the work myself, and I won’t pay me. But I still figure that an advance of $5000 plus initial print publishing costs of $10-$15,000 per book, plus website development that includes content development of probably another $15,000, minimum, plus guerrilla advertising and distribution, and I’m looking at needing $50,000 in a OneMoreWord account before I can even start looking at manuscripts, and at least $5000/month in set-aside income (money I don’t have to live off of and can just pump into the business) simply to keep the doors open. That’s a tiny start-up cost for a business, but it’s a whole lot of money to me. And while my objective is to take the business to profitability while creating jobs for writers, artists, editors, web designers and others, and to do it by offering wonderful books, the best business plan in the world cannot guarantee that will happen quickly. Or at all.

I’ll be taking OneMoreWord Books site offline in a month or so; I don’t want to babysit a board I won’t be using, because those things turn into spam magnets. I have my goals, I have my direction, and I have my plan, and now it’s time to do the work to make this happen.

I’m going to archive the OneMoreWord board messages and work from them. Everything you’ve said has helped me find my direction and figure out what it is that I want to do beyond writing, and what I have to do to get there. Thank you for taking the time and the effort to throw things at the wall with me.

Beyond this last discussion here, such conversation as we have about the publishing company will go back to the webloguntil I’m ready to start locating website programmers and looking for manuscripts. Then I’ll bring OneMoreWord Books back, and let you know through the weblog. Realistically, I think I’m looking at about five years. I have optimistic and gloomy timelines, too, including the “this whole wonderful project dies an ugly death” one, which is why none of this is going to happen using other people’s money.

But I think OneMoreWord Books is a dream worth fighting for. So wish me luck. And pitch books for me if you’re willing.

But these are newest ads done. Available in standard as well as vertical banners, larger and smaller sizes, and just book covers, too.

So today I created an HTCB campaign. Still working on the other ads, haven’t uploaded any of them to the affiliate program just yet, but I think this does the story justice.

The day before yesterday I completely rebuilt the site templates, stripped out all the old code by hand, attached the pages to the new templates, and reloaded whole site. Now it works with a lot fewer errors.

Yesterday I got the Affiliates’ board working (thanks to Margaret for help on a weird PHP 5 bug) and got the Courses mailer set up.

Today I’m doing my best to create new ad campaigns for the rest of the lost ads for the affiliate program.

I’m also hoping to get the first couple of lessons for the affiliate program written.

Once the many ripples from last month’s exhausting double-move of the site have died down, I’m going to get back to work on the third Worldbuilding Clinic , Create A World. And do the first of a few free e-mail writing courses.

My to-do list is still pretty awful. But I’m getting there.

On less than two hours of sleep today, I didn’t feel like writing at all. I tried. Should not have bothered.

So I did non-creative creative stuff. Since I lost the entire ad catalogue when I lost the old affiliate program, I had to do all new ads. I’ve been trying to tailor a campaign to each writer.

Here’s what I did so far today, in varying sizes for different folks’ sites.

These ads now available in the Affiliate Tools / Banners section