Ask HN: Any Talented Writers Here?

Great questions. Authors of any level can use StoryFunded to develop a promising book. It's particularly suited to talented, but unknown authors since they can gain both exposure and finances to aid book development.

Rewards are offered in contribution levels, and every author has a thank you page which lists all contributors.

A few more suggestions I thought of:

literotica.com is similar to fanfiction.net except focused on erotica and some crossover into romance or other. Some of the authors there have published their stuff (from the site and otherwise) through regular publishers. I have personally polled certain author's profile waiting for the next installment of a novella, and since they are doing it on the side (for free) it can take awhile. That is what I first thought of when I read about storyfunded, that these authors could use that to get some $$ to write the stories, and thus justify spending the time to write the stories (the money made selling it after the fact would just be gravy)

In case you haven't heard of it, Absolute Write is a really popular forum for writers (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php) And of course, all these writers are readers and they are already into the community-support spirit since they are on a forum. If I were you, I'd totally take out an ad on there and/or get active on their forum (not spamming, of course, just providing help with your site in your signature)

I signed up as an author and the email I got said samples should be 10 pages. This seems like a lot. Of course, some could be that long, but it seems odd to make that the average. Not just as a writer, but as a reader, I am not going to take the time to get invested in a story 10 pages worth when I know there is nothing coming. Unless you do partial chapter releases? That would be cool. Not sure if you've heard of it, but Dear Author has a "First Page Saturdays" where they, obviously, provide the first page of a novel and people can critique or whatever. It's pretty easy to decide whether you'd keep reading from just that much alone (try it and see: http://dearauthor.com/category/features/first-page-features/) and btw, I'd have funded a couple of those myself...

Funny you should mention that. Just today I sent a message like that to the author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which many people (including myself) really seem to like. Now that you mention it, I may have to spend more time on fanfiction.net. Authors must own the copyright on their work so they would have to create something original, but that shouldn't be a problem for such creative types.

Yes, authors can use pseudonyms, initials, etc. for their pen name.

For little known authors the pay out is well bellow 50k going through traditional publication methods. This is why so many maintain jobs while writing. It is much akin to creating a startup where you do not expect an instant pay out, but our driven by a much higher return in the long run. Furthermore, most beginning authors have careers that pay considerably less than 50k a year.

We anticipate authors will be able to raise several thousand dollars for promising book projects. Very promising ones certainly may raise $50K or more.

Crowd funding is proving to be a very powerful fundraising model. For example, the record, so far as I know it, is currently $190K for an iPad stand listing on Kickstarter.com:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jay-design/padpivot-lap-...

Edit: Also, successfully raising funds is just the start, as this would be a great indicator of ready market demand for the book.

We're working with those places as well. However, for some reason I had a gut feeling any writers hanging out on HN would be the kind of writers worth connecting with ;)

Please do send in your writing!

Like Kickstarter.com our site earns 5% of funds raised. We may also assist authors with later book sales.