[ScribbleOn] Dev Log 01: Scribbling with a Purpose
What is ScribbleOn?
ScribbleOn is a web app I’m building. It can be described as a self-publishing platform for books or other written works that empowers authors across all styles and genres to grow and engage with their audiences in a game changing way.
ScribbleOn will give authors the ability to release chapters episodically, beta-test scenes, chapters, books, or entire series, provide deleted scenes that were edited from a book after a particular phase, character sheets, even the ability to lock exclusive content behind a subscription and much more!
Another way that I think ScribbleOn can be described is like this: Imagine Patreon meets Kindle meets Goodreads meets TikTok. Eventually I’d like to throw WebToon in there too but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
The Problems I’m Trying to Solve
Anyone who has ever self-published or knows someone else who has, has probably heard it all before. The desire to go through a big publisher, the reluctance to use a small publisher, the research yielding skeptics who say “dont trust ‘so-&-so small publisher’, they are a scam!” But what choice do we have? We all have to go through Amazon Kindle Direct or IngramSpark or Balboa Press, or some other small-name publisher where they take 50% — 90% of the profits just so we can make our mark, share our stories, and provide our imagined babies with a chance of life flying out of the nest. Most of the time, during the process we discover there’s so much overhead we need to take care of that we didn’t expect. Design services, marketing, editing, talking with vendors, making sure the book’s don’t have a typo in them, god forbid you have a book with illustrations and the image is the wrong orientation or something went wrong with the coloring, etc... These are unfortunate problems that many authors trying to self-publish, myself included, have encountered. But even with these very real problems above, I would argue that those aren’t even the most prevalent that authors face.
The biggest problem I think that authors face is the problem of discovery. How can I be found? How can I be discovered? In this age where virality is increasingly sought after, we try to establish ourselves by being creative in our marketing approach, or being ridiculous in the content we choose to create or perhaps we sell our souls a little and do part-time work for a company or workplace who’s values totally and utterly contradict our own, but we do it because of “the chance” it’ll give us later.
However, only a very small percentage of authors in the US each year sign publishing deals with one of the “Big Five” publishers and even a smaller percentage of those, only approximately 50 authors of that already small margin annually achieve mass visibility and profits to match.
But why is the number of signed authors so low? While I can only speculate, I believe the answer would be something like: “praise, recognition and author discovery are the same thing.”
Those who achieve recognition are often more visible, whether due to the length of their careers, focused efforts in a specific direction or strategic hustling that yielded better opportunities. This visibility allows their work to reach more vendors, gain invitiations to events and coferences and attract greater publicity. As a result, when someone searches for a new book or when platforms like BookTok or Bookstagram start higlighting a new series, it’s usally one that’s easier to find. Meanwhile, for the vast majority of authors, this creates a sense of constant struggle — wondering if we’re good enough, questioning our path, and reflecting on whether we should taken that teaching job our mom suggested years ago.
But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if all new authors had a platform specifically dedicated for their growth and discoverability? That’s what I’m hoping ScribbleOn becomes… among other things.
I’m designing ScribbleOn primarily because as an author, I want to write and share my own stories. I don’t want to be held back by overhead or the politics of budgets, vendors, profits, editors, and/or publishers. I constantly feel a monster closing in on me, whether that’s the monster of Time, Responsibility, or something else, regardless, I don’t want to fail at telling my stories. I need to be armed and like a mad scientist I am personally designing my own weapon to use against them. I think everyone should have the opportunities and tools to share their creations and that’s ultimately the purpose of ScribbleOn. To arm authors with the tools they need to share their stories publicly.
“The Graveyard is the richest place on Earth.” ~Les Brown
This quote is one of my favorites because it stirs something restless within me. Insisting that I’m not done. That I have so much more in me to share and give. And if I could share this fire with others who ache for dreams of a similar vein as me while freeing the stagnant wealth of the dead for the living — I’d call that a triumph. For wealth is so much more than money; wealth is wisdom, love, understanding and knowledge, and those things have much more worth shared amongst the living than the dead. Things that can be shared in people’s experiences and stories. These are the things that the world is purely lacking and I believe that ScribbleOn is a step in the right direction to filling the world with more meaningful, widespread wealth.
I want this platform to become so much more than just a place for fiction authors or people who have a structured outline in-place. I want this platform to be for writers who write because it’s fun. People who have a collection of self-help posts on Medium that they wish they could string together in a series. People illustrating a comic series (coming later). Independent journalist editorials, or any other plethora of writers and their goals. I simply want people to have a place where they can come, be discovered, share their stories, and just write. That isn’t solely relying upon an algorithm that prioritizes likes, views, or shares to show up randomly on someone’s doomscrolling feed.
So if all of this seem nice and interesting to you, please feel free to follow me on this journey and just remember as you wait to “be calm and scribble on.”
Thanks for reading.
