52 Songs - 12 Novels - What's Next?

A long time ago (5 years ago*), I posted a series here about grace, and in one post I mentioned a guy by the name of Greg Adkins who tried a creative experiment that just blew me away: write & record a song a week for a year.  He called it, creatively enough, "52 songs in 52 weeks."  He pulled it off (Ended up with 60 songs - check it out here**)  As near as I can recall, he was the first on my radar to do it (probably not the first, but I do remember searching back in the day - like '03 - when he was doing this and not finding anybody else trying such an ambitious stunt) though if you Google 52 songs in 52 weeks, you'll find others who have done it or are doing it like Amy Raasch, Power, Donewaiting, David Ritter, and it looks like some guy named James Hersch has pulled it off in a marketable sort of way.***

So I happen on this post from Dork Tower about a guy who is writing twelve books in twelve months.  No kidding, he put together a kickstarter project to fund it, contacted his Tribe via social media (he's a full time game designer and writer - so he's all over Facebook and Twitter - and just because you never heard of Matt Forbeck doesn't mean he doesn't have a tribe, right?), and bam! he's well on his way to funding the first trilogy of the the 12 books in 12 months...

Epublishing and print on demand (POD) have changed everything in the writing industry.  Just like mp3s and digital recording changed everything in the music industry.  Everybody has a seat at the table now - if they have the passion and the vision to see it through.  There will probably always be a few blockbuster recording artists, authors, movie makers, etc, but it's all going digital, and everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY who has enough connections and enough creativity and passion can connect what they make with people who will appreciate it.  Not everyone will make millions doing that - but more people will make more connections (and potentially some profit, if that's the endgame) in this age.

12 novels in 12 months might just be hype.  Oh, he can do it.  He is a professional writer.  He probably churns out a hundred thousand words a month anyway - why not publish every one of them?  I'm not being snarky.  He's got an audience and a platform and the creativity and the gumption to do it.  I say, go for it.  I hope he pulls it off.  I'm not a particular fan of his previous work, and the first trilogy doesn't interest me (and the next trilogy he mentioned was going to be "shotguns and sorcery"...yawn...so, yeah, I'll pass) but here's the point of this post.

I WANT HIM TO SUCCEED.

I want to see people pull off these huge ideas, make them work.  Show that kickstarter projects make it.  Show off what epublishing - what self-publishing (what we used to call vanity publishing, but in this day and age...the digital world is flat) can really do.

It's a new world - the digital world has, in some ways, evened the playing field, and in some ways made it way harder.  There's TOO much competition now - anybody with a webcam can post their newest, greatest song on YouTube****, blogs are choked with content, Facebook...you name it.  I could record a song today and sell it on iTunes tomorrow (now, the three people who would buy it would probably appreciate that), I could gather together all my wonderfully eloquent blogposts, or sermons, or whatever, do some formatting and publish a worst-selling ebook that Amazon would gladly list (for a fee, of course) - right next to the 33 million other books listed on Amazon...

Well, I might talk more about this later.  Like, how do you stand out in the sea of competition, then?  How do you define success?  Does it matter?













*Which, in internet years, is technically forever...
** Yea Wayback Machine!!
*** I don't know any of these musicians or what their music is like - not an endorsement, may not be safe for work, I am not responsible for broken eardrums or shattered nerves, etc, etc, standard disclaimer... 
**** And 1 in a thousand might be worth listening to...