My inner bored-Elon-Musk speaks up, writer’s edition

Here is a “bored Elon Musk” type idea. (I get them a lot.)

  1. Authors often struggle to get an audience
  2. People love subscription services
  3. Could you subscribe people to books they’ll like?

Turns out, Kindle beat me to the punch:

“Unlimited Reading. Unlimited Listening. Any Device. Enjoy this book and over 1 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and recent magazines on any device for just £7.99 a month.”

*It would go something like this:

  1. The author provides the service with a number of 100% discount codes for their eBook.
  2. There is a gentle review process to pick, let’s say, 10 authors each month, in each category.
  3. The consumer gets a set of 10 such codes, for 10 different books, emailed to them every month, and pays a small fee for this subscription
  4. The author gets 1/10 (fee*number of subscribers – small cut for services) for their efforts. Their upside: exposure, reviews, and money – after all, it’s not nice to ask people to work for free.

Could still do it for non-Amazon platforms. Writers, whatcha think?

…

P.S. Awesome video by Jordan Peterson on existentialism.

9 thoughts on “My inner bored-Elon-Musk speaks up, writer’s edition”

  1. The world seems saturated with books (what am I saying, the world IS saturated).

    https://www.bookbub.com/launch
    And sites like BookBub…
    https://www.google.com/search?q=sites+like+bookbub

    I’m hoping that the Content Economy concept gets traction. I’m talking with the Jamatto people to see if we can get tip-jar-donation accounts easily setup on WP. The WP people are being foolish. Requiring a Business level account to enable plugins like micropayments. Bah!

    (Oh, I hate subscription services… But, I’m Abby Normal so I don’t count.)

    Like

    Reply

      1. The letter I sent: To the board of directors: The Content Economy:

        Dear WordPress Board of Directors,

        WordPress is singularly situated as the locus for building the Content Economy.

        What is the Content Economy? I’m ecstatic you asked.

        I’ve popularized the concept in various posts, but simply stated, the Content Economy is the concept of payment for content — regardless of location or venue or type.

        Do you have a Pinterest account? Why not collect an income from those who find your content intriguing?

        Do you have an Instagram account? What a perfect venue to allow you to collect a nickel here, a quarter there, for those who adore your images?

        Do you have a facebook, twitter, google+, ello, medium account, perhaps a youtube channel, or most likely, a WordPress account (or two)?

        Excellent! Then the Content Economy beckons you.

        “I’d like to pay that fellow or gal a dime for that great post.” — Sorry you can’t do that.
        “I’d like to give that person a penny for creating that picture.” — Nope, the web won’t let you.
        “I’d like to gift, tip, grant or donate $1.00 to the author of that novel.” — Are you kidding?

        What’s damn funny, is that you guys have already enable this concept. But you’ve crippled it. Cut it off at the knees. Yanked its liver out and fed it to the Promethean Eagle.

        You offer a few plugins — available to only the elite Business Class accounts — that would enable this capability. WordPress could be the gestation of the Content Economy if only you’d allow micropayment plugins to be used ON EVERY ACCOUNT.

        Jamatto, Laterpay and the up and coming Blendle tools are in need of your husbandry. They need to be nurtured. And only you can do it.

        Enable those plugins on all accounts. Please.

        Thanks for reading. And good luck in the up and coming Content Economy.

        Like

      2. I think that this may not work, as WordPress feeds off the fact that our content is free and isn’t dragging out of anyone with a tin can. I think that they figure, rather reasonably, that if your account is worth paying for, you will be the first to pay for it.

        Having said that, I think given that they account for 28% of the internet, they should lay off with their rules – they are essentially a utility in many ways.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Well, I thought of the $ issues and figured that a basis point cut of all payments originating on WP sites would be in order. As it is, they’re getting nothing for all those free blogs. If they got a 5 or 10 basis point cut… I’m sure that would incentivize them.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment