Benefits of Self Publishing: The Crossover Effect

This Wednesday, my third semester of teaching Pub_Inc will begin at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Got to say, it feels good, which brings me to this blog post.

On this blog, I've written hundreds of words touting the advantages of self-publishing over traditional publishing. Keeping your rights, higher ebook royalties, and having control over pricing, presentation, and content are the three biggest reasons.

Here come a few more.

Crossovers. I really enjoy it when intellectual properties visit each other's universes. Back when Who Framed Roger Rabbit? came out, I was giddy with joy during the Donald Duck/Daffy Duck piano duel. Sonic and Mario in the same game? Sign me up. Mulder and Scully from The X-Files on The Simpsons? Not to mention Super Friends camping out at the Hall of Justice.

Unfortunately, traditional publishers aren't big on crossovers. Rights are tricky. While some crossovers do exist, publishers looking to build an author's brand seem to want to focus on that author and that brand, rather than split time and profits with another author or publisher. The non-compete and first option clauses that are still boilerplate in legacy contracts also make a crossovers difficult or impossible.

If you want to share universes, going indie is the easier way to do it.

Novellas. In a paper world, books have to be a certain length. In a digital world, they don't. So a twenty-thousand word story that is too long for magazines and too short for a print book has no barrier to entry.

So naturally I've been a huge proponent of crossovers in my own fictional worlds. My next novel due out later this year, "A Coven's Lament", will combine characters from my collection of three short stories, "Chronicles of a Boy Misunderstood".

I had a ball doing this, and I hope it shows in the writing. Being able to release three connected stories, and another book combining characters and expanding story lines in such a short period of time, is something that would have been more difficult with traditional publishers. Plus I keep my rights, make better royalties, and have final say over cover art, price, and design.

Help Get Pub_Inc Funded!

As many of you know, I have been on a mission to get our writing incubator up and running. We have since been incorporated by the Lillian Wright Simpson Foundation and will be one of their programs to help promote community engagement through social enterprise. 

 

For those of you who don't know, this non-profit is named after the late grandmother of our founder, K.A. Simpson,  who passed away in 2010 and lived her life to the fullest.  As a single mother, she raised five children in Newport, KY during the 1960s, 70's and 80's while creating a stable environment through hard work and community engagement.

 

BookMark Online and BookMark Publishing, have also been incorporated into the Foundation's family of services, where a portion of the proceeds are directly donated to the Foundation's community engagement efforts...that's efforts plural. In addition to our program, the Foundation will also host the following initiatives:

Pub_Inc is a resource center both for new and professional authors. Our mission is to challenge authors to envision a future of entrepreneurship while providing them with the tools to make their publishing dream a reality.

DreamChaser Mentoring provides youth mentoring to young male adults in the Greater Cincinnati inner city. Professional training will be provided for youth during the summer months and the school year.

High School Scholarships
The program goal is to assist recently graduated high school students from the Covington Independent, Newport Independent or Cincinnati Public School Districts.

We would love to say that leprechauns & fairy god-mothers could make my non-profit come to life, but we need some funding too, but every penny counts.  Please take a few minutes and visit my crowd funding page and consider giving to help make this happen!