Show HN: StoryFunded.com - Crowdfunding for Authors | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: StoryFunded.com - Crowdfunding for Authors

storyfunded.com

16 pointsrosstamicah8 comments

I think the text based nature of the site is a challenge you need to overcome - Why would I want to read any of these descriptions? A few thoughts for solutions:

- Let people upload cover art: This will let people who have decent design chops/family in the business/etc. Stand out a little more. And as Amanda Hocking's books show the cover can be a stock image with a genre appropriate font well within the means of anyone with PowerPoint.

- "This + That" pitches: I know some VCs and Hollywood types love this format e.g. Alien is "Jaws in Space". What if you could pull in a couple images from Amazon to illustrate that this pitch is for a book that is sort of like "Game of Thrones" meets Robert Ludlum.

- Author photos: let the authors make connections with the sponsors. Let them tell their stories "I'm a stay at home mom who has been dreaming about this book for a decade"

- Rewards: Galley copies if it gets published, Buy the "For:" in the front, etc.

These are great ideas, thanks! You have a good point about the marketability perception of the site. We may have to make the site more appealing to less casual readers. We will be watching to see how things play out with reader interest.

Why would an author use this and not the better known site Kickstarter?

Several reasons. First, we're focused only on books. A talented author can build a fan base and even early market demand. Also, Kickstarter manually approves which projects are accepted (about 80 per week I believe). With StoryFunded the community decides what is worthy.

I don't think that's what the OP is asking. Why would someone take the time and effort to post on this unknown site, when there is another, much larger site with millions of dollars' worth of investors?

A talented author can build a fan base anywhere, but it's easier where there are already potential fans. This site looks like there are six (6) story pitches total, and probably as many users.

I'm not knocking the idea, I'm asking what you intend to do to compete with the incumbents. "Different features, more focus" is not sufficient.

We're not really competing with Kickstarter. An author could use both sites, for example (if Kickstarter decides to feature their project).

We think it's pretty hard for authors to make their work stand out among so much noise, including the increase in self-published work on sites like Lulu. Our site is meant to allow great writing to be found and showcased as evident by the funding it receives.

Yes, our site is pretty bare right now as we just went live a few hours ago. However, in our short existence we've had very positive interest from authors, readers, and others.

I like the idea. Do you want to do it just for fiction, or for non-fiction as well? There are alternatives for photojournalists and micropublishers, but reportage has lagged behind, slightly.

I think you should go vertical and integrate with something like OpenCalais for subject-matter tagging which you can use as the basis of a recommendation engine, and some sort of document-based CDN.

The focus is on fiction, but we have categories for non-fiction and "other". Ultimately, contributors decide what they want to fund.

OpenCalais looks interesting. Something that advanced would be much farther down the road for us, though. Right now we just want to find and enable great written stories.

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