A new UK publishing venture is bringing crowdfunding to the book world. Unbound lets authors pitch their novels-in-progress to readers, who then decide whether or not they want to contribute to the financial costs of having the book written and published.
The website already features book projects by Monty Python regular Terry Jones and respected mid-career author Tibor Fischer, but it also plans to make room for first-time authors too, like debutant Jennifer Pickup, whose novel Unbelievable was fully funded by readers. Readers can opt to contribute to a project at several levels, each one of which offers a reward. More than an act of charity or patronage, these rewards give readers value for money. For example, a contribution of £10 to Vitali Vitaliev’s Bad Food Tales: An Anti-Tourist Guide to Italy is rewarded with ebook edition, access to the author’s shed (essentially updates on the writing of the book) and the reader’s name in the back of the book. Readers can contribute at higher levels too, each one of which has its own rewards. The highest contribution level for this title (they vary from title to title) £500, the reward for which is “Everything up to and including launch party level & spend a day with me, learning about my work as an author, journalist, editor and presenter, include a tour of Pegasus Cottage, where I do my writing, and a special Italian lunch cooked by me.”
Unbound is the brainchild of publishers John Mitchinson, Justin Pollard and Dan Kieran, deputy editor of the magazine, The Idler, and is one of several new publishing business models emerging in the digital realm - check them all out in this Wired feature. Read more about Unbound here..