If we only had X collaborator with no money, we could have passion project!
-- This Blog is in response to the following Reddit Posts, as I am a Mod on r/Artbusiness:
Here is what is wrong with your current approach:
(and what you can do about it.)
- You're not cool enough, and your ideas aren't good enough
(try making something that people already want to buy.) - You're not monetarily viable enough
(try building an actual business with income and an audience before attempting to bring collaborators people onboard.) - Your idea isn't safe enough, or proven enough, or solving a useful enough problem
(again, serve an audience that already wants something from you.) - You're too much of a diva
(Join up with someone else's project and be someone else's missing piece instead of looking for your missing piece.) - Your friend is not brave enough
(Your friend needs to publish their work. An unpublished collection of manuscripts is a failure to interface with the market in each project cycle.) - You're not contributing what needs to be contributed to ship a project
(Its entirely possible your project doesn't need a hype man, or a marketer, or a manager, or even an artist. If your friend is creating value by writing 55k word novels, and you're not an artist, maybe you can learn how to operate visual novel software, and use Public Domain Art Assets to ship your first project.)
Everyone has a cool project or something, and just needs a X [the variable missing because you didn't set up a minimum viable project / audience to accommodate the resources that you currently possess.]
.:.
I'd ask some serious questions:
- If your friend is the writer, then what are you contributing? -- Are you actually adding any value to the project?
If I had to pretend I knew what you were doing, I'd say your friend is actually productive, but not monetizing, and you are sort of this inspired visionary. If this is ringing any bells, just stop, and find some way to be actually useful in shipping projects to increase the value of your friend's writing.
If your friend was a writer and you were a person who is familiar with making visual novels using these resources:
Then you would be adding something of value to the project.
Passion projects are spartan, and you probably believe in your friend, but unless 100-500 true fans believe in your friend and are eagerly anticipating the next project, it doesn't matter.
- Is your friend currently monetizing the novels, and in what ways?
Your friend needs to be publishing a novel on Kindle every month. Here is the best sellers section for Light Novels. Your friend can publish his own work on Kindle without your help, and derive profits to keep to himself, or invest into art for covers as he sees fit.
If you actually want to help him out, then you need to be a writer as well, and the two of you can fold your work into a single pen name, and pool your resources to get cover art commissioned, and share an audience.
If you're not a writer, then you need to be learning Visual Novel coding skills and figuring out how to port his work using Public Domain Art Assets, while he publishes on Kindle.
When your work SHIPS it interfaces with the market, and people read your work and criticize it, or they read through your visual novel and criticize it -- and you derive actual value from that exchange.
What happens here, when you ship your next project, and the project after that, is you build an audience who trusts you, and eagerly awaits your next release.
When you combine these social dynamics and productivity cycles with a niche that you are actually serving [This is Genre Fiction. This is Target Audience. This is getting over your idea is the best thing ever, and focusing on how you present an idea that other people are already believing in -- example: who is harry potter fanfic written for?]
When you can do that, you will be generating multiple revenue streams:
- Patreon [visual novels / novels]
- Kickstarter [visual novels / novels]
- Kindle Unlimited [visual novels / novels]
- Steam [visual novels]
- HIVE [Development Blog]
- ETH [Visual Novels on Ethereum?]
I would start with HIVE for project development and audience community formation -- and Kindle Unlimited for Primary Income. Specifically, I would focus on a genre, and try to deconstruct and replicate best sellers in a niche category that you are fascinated by -- and then keep at it until you breach the Top 100 for that category.
What happens here is you now have created a machine / network / ecosystem, which actually provides value to an audience and receives compensation. What you need to do at this point is re-invest.
[This is where you pay artists for work in order to make covers that are to the same quality standards of the top 100 in the categories that you are seeking to penetrate. If you have money now, I'd invest in cover art. If you have no money, I'd invest heavily shipping regular novellas under a single pen name, and use public domain artwork.]
.:.
Here's what I would do to move forward:
- Get yourself a HIVE account for yourself and your friend, and document your work toward shipping your first project. You can get your account by going to the OCD Discord Server and saying "Hello, I'm a Writer / Visual Novel Developer, and I'd like to have a HIVE account please. Can you also delegate me some HP?"
Think of this as a project development blog -- Challenge yourself to release a rough draft post of one chapter a day for 15 days, make your daily HIVE post as a promise to yourself demonstrating the work that you're doing. The hardest part about writing a novel is getting the rough draft completed.
Feel free to invite your fans to join as well. Make a community out of it.
- Start shipping work by publishing to Kindle under a group label, where you and your friend write novels together under one pen name.
- Transition to Visual Novels / Light Novels with your friend once you have a stream of income that is substantial enough. -- This means, when you have cultivated your minimum viable audience. This means you already have 100 people who will buy your book on Kindle as soon as it's out -- and you're regularly on the top 100 when you launch -- when you're here expand into fully illustrated light novels or visual novels using public domain resources, and crowdfunding on kickstarter.
- Take action to ship your projects, and then report back with your results in experiment format, so other people can benefit from your mistakes and attempts.
- Don't bother me until you've actually taken action and invested 6 months of time in building an audience and shipping regular projects.