About beta-launching Dreamcast Worlds

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It’s really unusual to beta-launch a book. In fact, I haven’t really heard of it happening before. But what I have heard of is people launching a book digital-only, and continuing to edit it after launch. Brendan Keogh did that with Killing is Harmless. I think it’s a great approach; the trouble is, I believe quite strongly in the value of print. Printed books are lovely things to have, and I believe that when someone buys a printed copy of my book it’s basically an act of love. They anticipate valuing what I’ve written enough that they want to be able to hold it in their hands and see it on their shelf, even though print books are expensive and they’re a pain to lug around from apartment to apartment. I want to return that love by making sure that the print version of the book offers the best quality content possible. So I’m waiting until I’ve received some feedback before I send the book to print.

This is a continuation of my attempt to ‘crowd-edit’ Dreamcast Worlds. John Green, one of my role models, is really against self-publishing, because writers work best when they work with editors (note that he is mainly concerned with fiction publishing, which I  know pretty much nothing about). But I honestly think that, at least for now, self-publishing is the most sensible approach I can take to funding and publishing a lot of the work I want to do. Self-publishing allows me to stay niche, because I don’t need mass scale in order to make a profit; it improves my creativity, by forcing me to drop the attitude that I need to ask anybody for permission before doing something. For self-publishing to work, writers need to find other ways of getting informed editorial feedback. That means giving knowledgeable readers and talented writers the chance to read the book and send feedback, if they feel inclined to do so.

Another way that publishers add value to a book project is by using their marketing reach. There has been a lot written about publishers' weakened ability to market a book, and their increasing insistence that writers already have a strong social media presence before signing them. As far as I’ve gathered, publishers' ability to get a book reviewed in a major media outlet may be overstated in many cases, and the influence of reviews may be decreasing as social media becomes the most important content filter for many consumers. This is on top of their diminishing advantage when it comes to getting a book distributed. Nevertheless, publishers do still bring marketing value to a project, so I need to learn how to market Dreamcast Worlds myself.

The crowdfund laid down some groundwork. When I was searching for illustrations and cover art, the people I contacted had already heard of the book. The press page of rupazero.com is already populated with some coverage from blogs. But for major sites to even consider covering the book, I’ll have to make a lot more progress. This might mean setting aside a small amount of money for some press-directed advertising, carefully timed so that when editors of gaming sites and magazine receive my emails, they are more likely to recognise some names and perhaps already be curious about the project as a story.

Beta launching means that people who backed my indiegogo campaign or who became interested in the book after the crowdfund ended are already mentioning the book on twitter and evangelising for it. It gives me time to put together a strategy and gather the resources I need for a successful hard launch.

My hope is that delaying the hard launch until September 9th also means I can take advantage of a time of year when the Dreamcast is already a talking point - it’s the anniversary of the launch of the Dreamcast in the US. The story is easier to package – it’s the anniversary of the Dreamcast, we’re a gaming site and we should probably do something for it, oh wow someone wrote a book about it?! And it’s crowdfunded! I’m hoping that it makes a nice change to the usual ‘top ten Dreamcast games we’ll never forget’.

All this talk of revenue and marketing might give the impression that I’m expecting to seriously cash in. That’s not the case at all, and I certainly couldn’t make a living wage by focusing on books. My hope is that Dreamcast Worlds can be just successful enough that it brings in a bit of money that I can use to fund preliminary research into my next project. Maybe it will mean I can take a week off from other work once in a while to focus on blitzing a new draft. Or maybe it will even fund things like the Digital Methods Summer School, which I had to give up on this year. If I sell a few hundred copies of Dreamcast Worlds, maybe I will be able to get to a stage where I am crowdfund-ready for the next project a year from now.

That’s the dream! I just hope my plan works.