Readers and writers are living in a crowdfunded world. Where once publishers oversaw which books came into print now writers just need to convince potential readers to support them. Writers suddenly have more opportunities, but they are restricted by the market as well.
Kickstarter is one of the largest venues for crowdfunding publishing projects. In 2016, Kickstarter surpassed $100 million given to publishing projects. Several projects have achieved massive success by appealing to potential readers. These backers raised over $1.2 million to fund a reprint of the online comic The Order of the Stick, and backers pledged over $5.4 million to resurrect the children’s reading program Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton. Of course these projects already had supporters who wanted to read their materials. The bulk of writing projects listed in the “Publishing” section of Kickstarter are less successful and are written by relatively unknown authors. A cursory glance…
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