Buy my Plot (Social Experiment)
So, today I came up with an idea for a novel. The idea itself isn't important or relevant; I come up with an idea everyday for a book, including one notable departure from fiction for a tabletop picture-heavy hardcover about potato chip culture in America. However, what I did with the idea (the one from today, not the potato chip book) is what's
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That's probably why services are in far more demand than components in the writing market. When you look at the writing hobbyist "market" of fanfic (though money seldom changes hands, you can see approval and appreciation as a sort of currency here), components like ideas or parts of plot are abundant and are "free." In fact it's usually considered a favor to put labor into someone else's component and make it a finished product, such as writing a fic based on their preferred pairing. Services like fan art and beta-reading are sought out, and the artist or beta-reader is the one who gives the favor.
All this is not to say plot can't be sold. In fact I can see it working well, as long as you understand the nature of the product and the market. Pre-written plot could, for instance, be part of educational material on writing fiction. Working with preexisting plot could be an excellent way to learn about the writing process and how the different parts of story interact with each other. This would work especially well as part of a curriculum, offered together with teaching services. In fact part of the point of the exercise might be turning out completely different stories starting from the same plot, and learning the nature of creativity and individual voice in the process.
Another application might be for writers (including hobbyists) who are in a rut and want to try something different. Again, this would work best in conjunction with services, where the seller might provide consultation and guidance. I doubt the consultation would stop with plot, though, because of the interactive aspect I talked about above. Ultimately I think the service rendered would turn out to be editing services.
In short I can see this idea working if it's paired with a value-added service, given the nature of the product. I don't know how far you plan to run with this, but in the meantime thank you for giving me an opportunity to think through this issue. :)
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But seriously, good thoughts, and I think your car analogy is helpful (at least in so far as I don't know about cars either so we can be wrong together), but I don't think what I'm offering here is the "engine" to the car. I figured I was offering the blueprints to a specific kind of car. I will gladly describe what the assembled car will do, but I'm not going to share how it is made. Once the blueprints have been sold and delivered to the customer, they can use them to build the car, but they have the freedom to depart from those instructions. They can use different materials, or swap out the internal combustion engine for something they think would work better, or be more in line with the customer's own knowledge- a steam engine, perhaps, or an advanced piece of tech that runs on hydrogen battery cells.
To link that analogy back to the Idea I've developed, I think it's possible to turn the main female character into a male character. Naturally, the romance can still occur, but where I specifically wanted to use the female gender on that character to exploit/subvert stereotypes and stand in contrast to the main male character, another writer might want to shift things so that the shared gender of the two main characters highlights the contrasts. In that case, the plot could still work, and most of the themes would still apply with a little tweaking in the presentation.
Thus why I talked about all the components for the story, including characters, settings, themes, and so on, so that prospective "buyers" would be able to tell if they can use or adapt my product. I would explain to the final buyer how all the elements of the story I imagined interact and come together to produce the whole, and presumably that would be enough knowledge for the buyer to know how to use the "product" for their maximum benefit.
I think this differs from the Babysitters Club example because I'm not calling for a specific style, or for pre-established characters. The voice, the mannerisms, the history, all that would be defined by the writer. If anything, I'm simply giving a detailed description of the archetypes of the characters. Even the setting is meant to be defined by the writer. I could describe it to you right now in one word and you'd know what it was (kind of like, "casino," although that's not what it is in my example), but it could be translated into all kinds of wider worlds and feels (a glitzy space casino, a tawdry Wild West casino, an ostentatious Vegas casino).
In effect, I feel like I'm selling a LEGO set more than parts of a car. I give you the bricks and the instructions, but it's a LEGO set, so the whole idea is to bring as much creativity as possible, as well as your own collection of bricks. And that's where I'd trade in a brand name; not just anyone can produce a LEGO set, and even other manufactures capable of making knock-off bricks aren't LEGO (as I can personally attest, the plastic is much cheaper and softer).
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A few questions: What kinds of buyers are you envisioning? Aspiring professionals who don't know where to get started on their big break, hobbyists looking to save some time, washed-out pros who want to break out of their ruts, writing educators? Is full confidentiality guaranteed, since in an ownership-obsessed culture there could be repercussions for using pre-made plot in professional work? Also, would you disclaim all possible intellectual property claims and make each product a one-sale deal, or do you hold onto some legal rights on the work such as resale rights?
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I hadn't considered "washed-out pros who want to break out of their ruts," but that's actually another good idea. I don't think it would be a majority of the customers, but I think that's a good direction towards which to direct some marketing effort. The model would probably not be cost-efficient for educators and students, but perhaps it will be a cheap way to do an at-home education. You know, mix free online teaching with stuff like this as a way of getting a DIY creative writing education.
Legally, I think this would be work for hire stuff, and confidentiality will probably be a standard part of the contract. I wouldn't expect any rights or acknowledgement, unless the "service plan" concept was used and I provided additional Editor services. In that case, the contract could go all the way to specifying that I get co-writer credit, depending on what kind of work I put into it. The Plot wouldn't shared with the buyer until after the contract is signed, and it would be an explicitly case of "Let the Buyer Beware." If you don't like the Plot after you paid for it, tough luck.
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I mean, I hate the term ghostwriter anyway because it shows a fixation on rugged individualism in creativity and creative rights. People think the writer has to be able to do everything from conception to creation, but in truth the rugged individualist is a myth. Any decent book is the product of dozens if not hundreds of individuals' work, as honest writers will acknowledge, and that's before we even get into how all creators are part of culture and legacies without which they won't be able to create in any recognizable way.
It's the need to believe in the writer as sole creative genius that makes "ghosts" not only out of ghostwriters but also proofreaders, commenters and other vital helpers. Can't we just recognize that creativity is a highly distributed and social process and let the ghost be real? [/rant]
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That segues nicely into my next point, which is to address your question about how to actually promote and sell these ideas. Frankly, I don't think I'd be able to do it, professionally. I expect this would be something only big names like Stephen King- who already are a well known brand- could make work. The other possibility is to work with Lit Agents, get known to them, and have them refer me as a source of well-defined ideas to people who inquire about breaking into the industry. Since agents are increasingly forced to be editors for their clients, they might even welcome a mercenary third party who their clients could pay to do all that for them.
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An article I read recently that fascinated me recently, called What Is the Business of Literature?, made that very point, that the author is historically a construct created for commercial reasons. The whole article is worth reading because the author argues very astutely that publishing is far from dead, and rather the game has changed because of lower entry barriers including plummeting publishing costs. I think his conclusion is sound, that publishing needs to be the business of creating culture rather than moving manufactured products. The question still remains, though--how should literature generate value, and therefore revenue?
I think markets in creativity like the one you're envisioning could be one answer. If we recognize that creation isn't the purview of a few gifted individuals who are set apart from the mass of humanity, but rather something that exists throughout society, and that it's collaborative and even collective in nature, the resistance to the idea of buying creative components would probably decrease. The author could still be useful as a brand name that brings recognition and controls risk, as in your example of Stephen King, but it needs to be recognized as such--a means to a commercial end. New commercial realities requires new constructs, and maybe some deconstruction, too.
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I waited on a response because I wanted to take the time to really read the heck out of that article and process what it had to say. Aside from its intelligent and punchy style, I'm really fired up for the notions it expresses and the way it got my brain considering the future of the publishing industry. I'm actually willing to concede that my idea for selling ideas may be completely wrong-headed.
See, I have more ideas than I could ever write in a lifetime, especially considering that I'll likely never be able to make that hobby pay for itself no matter how much effort I put into it. Traditional publishing routes don't play to my strengths, as I'd need to find an agent who could also be an editor, then if I managed to sell a novel to one of the big publishing houses, I'd need to take to new media to half the work of promoting the thing, and considering that I can't even get as many people to read my intricately plotted adventures as will click any random Tokka fluff story, that's obviously a losing proposition for me. Likewise, if I go through the new internet-based self-publishing routes, I'd have to do a full 100% of the promotion, and my chance of discovery would be even worse.
Of course, I could always just publish a novel because I want to, and not for any real expectation of profiting from it. We've discussed the benefits and pitfalls of this versus just sticking with fanfic, so there's no need to go over that here. But that still leaves me more ideas than I can do anything with, hence my speculation that I could sell ideas.
However, reading that article got me thinking about the notion of Authors, and the myriad of possibilities offered by small publishers, and it got me thinking. What if- instead of an Author- I started an Author Team?
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But the team wouldn't just be limited to writing and editing. One or more members of the team would be able to handle the publishing process, formatting all final draft for submission to all the various digital publishing venues. You'd have one or more doing the promotion, playing up connections on Facebook and Twitter and the like, and maybe running a blog that the whole group could contribute towards. One person would be an artist and could put together a cover, or would simply have enough deviantArt friends that they could get someone appropriate to put together a cover.
Basically, it would be an Agile team devoted to creating a book, from beginning to end. Perhaps the team is working on multiple books, but not everyone on the team is involved in both books. Perhaps I'm one of the two primary writers for one book, but only contributed the Idea (covered in the same detail as the Idea I was trying to sell up above) to a second book, and am merely going to edit that and a third book. The person doing the distribution could do all three books more easily than one at a time, and as success built, promoting each new book would become easier.
It would offer all the services of a big publishing house (even if it had to work harder and longer to get a hard copy on the shelves of book stores), and vastly superior to going it alone in the self-publishing scene.
And, instead of there being an Author's name under the title, there would simply be a team, just like a video game. And just like a video game, at the end are the full credits. Unlike Hollywood, the team identity would be given priority over the Auteur. That's what the brand would be built on. (Example: the video game development studio Valve. They run the whole process from start to finish, including their own digital distribution, and everyone knows that when you buy a Valve game, you're getting a certain standard of quality and production values, even if the game isn't your thing.)
Dang, I'm all fired up for this. If only I had a team of writing buddies I could bring together in my basement.
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