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Comment by sambeau | Hacker News Reader

This is a really nice idea (and one, as a part-time writer with a very unfinished novel, I have been thinking about). My worry is that it would be hard to raise the ~$50,000 many authors would need to be able to be able to give up work and complete the tome.

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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.

Not even close to this one :)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104350651/tiktok-lunati...

I love the idea for your concept though!

Wow, thanks for the correction! :)

I thought I heard about a project nearing one million dollars, but the iPad listing was what came to mind.

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