#authorgate?

Yeah. That was me.

What you have described is still the plan, but it’s not going anywhere because of several factors, chief among them there is barely a platform to promote ourselves on. My focus for the past several months has been to do what Jon Malin said…build a base.

I’ve been working on my channel since February, and it is simply slow going. Creating a movement similar to Comicsgate requires building an audience first before we try to sell our products. It serves no one to start a crowd fund for a book on Indie Go Go without anyone knowing about it, and people will only know about it if you have built a base on social media, ie, the likes of YouTube. YouTube isn’t exactly helpful to small new channels, and by everyone’s account it’s been more fucked up than ever before, but regardless I make 1-2 videos a day and get a tiny bit of growth each week while trying to fight my way through the algorithm.

A couple of people have reached out privately, but their ideas to help promote an independent writer’s movement require more than just one channel, and it requires at least somewhat active channels. As of now as far as I know in our community, I’m the only channel I know working towards this, and because I spend most of my time trying to build my channel by focusing on the topics of the day, I don’t have time to talk about novels and writing. I’ve mentioned it a few times, talked about my book on a couple of occasions, but there is little point in really pressing the matter until I have an actual audience whose trust I’ve earned and will be willing to part with their money for a crowd fund.

Right now the job is to build the base, build the platform, and earn the trust by entertaining people and pissing off SJWs.

I implore anyone else who wants to do this to, as Jon Malin says, grab an oar and start rowing. That means find something you like to talk about, start a channel, and make videos. The more of us there are, then we can build our own network like Comicsgate where we can then start working together in cross promotion where applicable. Right now, I’m on YouTube. I’ll move to Odysee as well once I hit the threshold to mirror my YT content on it, since I’ve already churned out 137 videos in 3 months.

I use these forums the best I can trying not to be too aggressive or annoying to promote my channel, and I look forward to utilizing the G+G app when it is ready for prime time. I use Parler, but people on Parler are more interested in bitching about politics than anything else, so I don’t get much off of that. I refuse to use Twitter, and I am looking forward to using the new platform Trump is going to unleash in probably July.

Bottom line, if anyone else is serious about joining me in this effort, channels need to be started and people need to start communicating and working together, forming friendships and working units akin to Comicsgate in order to entertain people, instead of waiting for things to happen. The first book in my first series is done. Has been done. It’s gone through several edits and pre-reads. There isn’t much more I can do to it except sell it, but as I said that would be pointless at this stage without a ready and willing audience. So, I’m going to keep trying to build that audience, and hopefully in a years time I will have reached a place where I can move to the next step.

If I’m wrong you can tell me, but it does sound like you’ve become a bit disillusioned with creating a place where it will be easy to interact for like-minded individuals. (If you havent, well we might as well start something. If you have, good luck)

You’re wrong :)

I’m not disillusioned. I simply look at this realistically that every process has steps, and that one step has to be taken at a time. Rushing never solves anything. As I said, I think the first step to building this community, the foundation is to become someone people find entertaining, become a known quantity.

In this new era the only successful independent collection of individuals starting something separate from legacy industry is Comicsgate, which is why my suggestions of different channels coming together is the model I’m shooting for. I’m open to all ideas to create this community, because I know, as I’ve said in other threads, that there are likely other ideas out there that I would not think of.

@Poppie First, thanks for the sub. I hope I do not disappoint.

I disagree with nothing you are saying. I am ready to be a team player in this whole venture, because as I’ve said in the past, I know I cannot do this by myself. To replace legacy publishing, this is going to take a lot of us who are ready for prime time to be successful. I am ready to do any group thing where we come together, I simply believe having YouTube or YouTube like channels where we interact and entertain the people is a necessary component.

The reason I’m choosing the crowd funding path is because even though I am not adverse to digital publishing, I believe in putting books in people’s hands, and of course it takes money to print and ship books, hence why I believe crowd funding is the path for me at this time. Now, I know trying to sell a novel and trying to sell comics will be two wildly different beasts, and I am first banking on an entertained and trust earned audience base, who has been properly fed tidbits of the first book, will be willing to crowd fund said first book.

Gaining trust and getting them enthused for something they’ve never read from an author they’ve never read…that’s gonna be the trick. But in the end I’m confident I’ll find a way. And if I find that way, I am ready and willing to help others do the same.

@Poppie Oh for sure. I realized a couple of months ago this venture could spawn job opportunities for editors, artists, etc.

The only thing I disagree about is beta-readers. Personally…I only trust people I know IRL. That way I’m sure my IP content is safe from being stolen. When someone is pre-reading something, not only do they have to be trust worthy enough not to steal your ideas, but they also have to know to keep their mouths shut about what they are reading to avoid spoilers if a franchise/series takes off.

@Kaizersurus First, even though you disagree with me on stuff…I think I can still like you ;) In all seriousness, that’s what separates us from the SJWs, we can disagree and still be normal and find common ground.

When the time comes to actually try and make this happen, I can’t wait to work with you. This is exactly the kind of thing I want to happen, where we all start talking/communicating with an understanding of what we hope to accomplish with this venture. Simply the idea to push and build our own place to sell good stories where the legacy publishing industry cannot shut down our ideas.

I’m not gonna say it will be perfect and not be filled with bumps and likely drama because there will probably be some who think they are ready for prime time but end up not being ready (for years I thought I was but I really wasn’t), but I believe if those who want to be involved go in with the idea to just create the space where we all have a chance to earn an audience and sell our stories we will find our way.

The current reality is, however, that I’m not in a position to do much more than talk about it like this at this time. I don’t have a large audience, yet, so my time is being spent building my base, and every week that base grows…it’s in inches….but growth is growth.

@Kaizersurus Thank you for the support!

I’m glad that I could play any part in you finding a voice to stand up to this SJW crap. There are more of us than there are of them. They just shout louder on fucking Twitter.

My genre is sci-fi/fantasy. And I’m talking Space Opera and High Fantasy, the good stuff that you can lose yourself in filled with world building, lore, characters, and story. I’m not here to deconstruct anything or subvert. Everything I am working on will be in a single universe, and because I have to adapt a lot of my old stuff to take out old school AD&D content, videogames, and anime (it’s a long story how that many things got involved in that universe) I have to basically create all knew worlds and lore to take their places….so that means at least 3-4 different novel series to construct the foundation before I get to what I even consider the eventual main story.

But it’s a good journey….I promise ;)