Liberating ideas

June 12, 2017 4:03 PM

Unbound is a crowdfunding site specifically for writers/readers. They've successfully funded (ie published) numerous books and always have live projects seeking funding. Brought to you by the wonderful people behind the always-awesome Backlisted Podcast.
posted by dobbs (10 comments total)

Unbound crowdfunded the Booker-longlisted "The Wake" by Paul Kingsnorth, which we've discussed on FanFare.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:47 PM on June 12, 2017

Unbound is fantastic, and has put a rather large dent in my wallet over the years. Some other highlights that have come out of Unbound:

• Shaun Usher's "Letters/Lists of Note"
• Stuart Ashen's "Terrible old games…" series
• Dr Sue Black's "Saving Bletchley Park"

(Full disclosure: I know the Unbound team and helped with an earlier iteration of their site)
posted by garrett at 2:45 AM on June 13, 2017

Holy cow, the shipping costs.
posted by Jahaza at 8:34 AM on June 13, 2017

How do they make this work for aspiring authors?
posted by Captain Fetid at 9:13 AM on June 13, 2017

I've enjoyed the two crime novels by the archaeologist Francis Pryor which have been published through Unbound. The second one is fairly recently out. Pryor's written about Unbound a few times on his blog and elsewhere. I think this is probably his first post on the subject: My Life in Crime. Here's another one, where he also talks more generally about crowd-funding in archaeology.

I can't remember if he's written anything about the editing process with Unbound. I did think that the books might have been improved by a tighter edit. But then I quite often think that with books published more traditionally, so who knows.

UK shipping cost is £4, which doesn't seem too awful to me.
posted by paduasoy at 5:21 PM on June 13, 2017

Paduasoy, I'm curious how you initially got involved. Were you just browsing the Unbound site and were intrigued by his writing or were you already familiar with Pryor? Also, I took a read of the excerpt of Pryor's latest and was suprised at the shoddiness of the copy. (Misspelled words, extra punctuation, etc.) Was the final copy like that as well?

Garrett, same question for you if you don't mind. I know you were aware of Unbound as a site because of your acquaintances, but why did you back those particular books? Just because they appealed?
posted by dobbs at 7:03 PM on June 13, 2017

dobbs: I came to Unbound with an unfair advantage. Knowing me in real life, in the early days I got a heads-up on projects that they thought I would be interested in.

I still get those personal recommendations, but as the company has grown (seven years! Eek!) they're continually looking at discoverability. The newsletter is very good, their recommendation engine is getting better, and they're taking on theme specific editors, Simon Spanton being the most recent (responsible for Sci-fi and Fantasy).

Captain Fetid, anyone can pitch an idea to the team, there's no division between "established" and "aspiring". They also have a digital-only imprint which reduces the potential funding target. They have a comprehensive help section for creators if you want to dig further
posted by garrett at 3:38 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hi dobbs, I'm a long-time Pryor follower and found Unbound through his blog. I've got the copy of TW, TT a TD in front of me and can't see any typos from a quick flick through.Looking at it again, though, I do think the book could have been hugely cut, to its advantage. It's 532 pages. Almost every paragraph has a couple of sentences which could have been done without. In the afterword Pryor thanks his editor, Elizabeth Garner, a copyeditor, Gillian Holmes, and her two assistants. Whether these people would have been commissioned by Unbound or directly by FP I am not sure.
posted by paduasoy at 2:38 AM on June 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Checked the excerpt against the printed text. The excerpt must be a slightly earlier version. Various punctuation and typos have been tidied up in the published text. Some other minor changes to wording. I can't see the incorrect spelling so not sure if that has been sorted. You can see what appears to be the final text on Google books.

If anyone's interested in supporting a book through Unbound, the note about Unbound in the front of this book gives a code for £5 off one's first pledge. You can see the code in the Google books link.
posted by paduasoy at 2:51 AM on June 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Came back as I've just come across this post by Tom Cox where he talks (at the end) about the advantages for him of using Unbound: Some Thoughts About The Creation Of My New Book.
posted by paduasoy at 12:08 PM on July 5, 2017