Let's talk a bit about a more broad topic.
Something I’ve been thinking about, particularly with regards to marketing, is what creators owe their audience. It's something I’ve thought about a fair bit as I try to get eyes on my various creative endeavors, and it's possibly part of why I'm so egregiously bad at marketing.
The thing I’ve always been worried about is promising way more than I deliver. I know that confidence isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but my motto long has been that I would rather under promise than under deliver.
So, that leads into an interesting question: what do writers owe their readers? That's not a singular answer, but I think there is one main factor involved.
Unsurprisingly, that factor is money.
Pay me what you owe me
Since earlier last year, I’ve been following the saga of Britt Andrews, a paranormal reverse harem romance author who got a massive audience in that community. She started a Kickstarter campaign for a special edition of a duology she had been working on. The first book had been published, and the second book was due our “Soon”. It hadn't been completed by the time the Kickstarter went live and hit its goal, bringing in $95000 in the process.
Well ..that book (called Demons in my Head) took over two years to come out, following years of sporadic updates, erratic progress, and people left hanging, burned by an author who spent 2 years doing everything but writing a book she had promised. (The book, allegedly, is also awful, which is just lovely.)
This isn't just limited to books, though. The notoriety of various video game campaigns that have turned sour after collecting loads of money is well known. Chronicles of Elyria, Ashes of Creation, Puff Pals: Island Skies…there are a lot of game projects that have earned money and either went up in smoke or just stalled out with no end in sight.
I will say that game development is a bit trickier than a lot of people realize, but scope creep is a massive issue, as is just an abundance of hubris that outstrips their talent. This is not to say that there is an excuse for the Soulbound Studios of the world, because there definitely isn't…but I find it marginally less inexcusable than Britt Andrews promising a deluxe edition of a book she hadn't written yet and not being forthcoming about why the book wasn't there.
This isn't hardly unique to the independent side of things. There are two notorious unfinished fantasy novels, The Winds of Winter and The Doors of Stone, that have loomed large since 2011 as their series remain unfinished. While the money hasn't been paid by the consumer, the publishers are left hanging, and things were so dire for DAW that they wound up acquired by another company. At least George R.R. Martin has been somewhat forthcoming about the difficulty he's had trying to tie things up;
Patrick Rothfuss has all but disappeared, and he evepaid n predated Britt Andrews by using a chapter from The Doors of Stone as a lure to donate to his fundraising drive. Charity is more noble a cause, yes, but the result is the same: consumers paid into something with the promise of a Thing, and that Thing has never arrived.
What I’m getting at us ultimately this: if someone is paying (or has paid) you, your obligation is to put in a good-faith effort to get the work out and communicate clearly and cleanly about pitfalls and impediments you’ve run into.
Creative fulfillment
What about if you haven't made any financially contingent promises, though, like a Kickstarter? Say you wrote a book that's leaving room for a sequel…are you obligated to write that sequel?
Intrinsically, I would say you aren't, but you should present resolution if possible. A story left hanging can be fun as an opportunity, but if there's a clear sequel hook that's left unresolved, that's no fun for anyone.
Still, if you're not under any financial obligations concerning writing something, you need not rush into it. But doing it too often can piss off your readers, and angry readers might not come back.
This is honestly why I keep my cards close to my chest in terms of projects. Not that I have enough of an audience to have a feel for what they want from me, but I like being able to create without feeling like I need to get something out.
Speaking of which, I still have a book coming out next month. Once I have a cover, it’ll get disseminated, so stay tuned.
