‘Story Grid’ author Shawn Coyne told Joanna Penn ‘publishers are no longer in the building game, they’re in the breakout bestseller game.’

Coyne was referring to bygone days when publishers employed him to coach their semi-pro writers how to write what they needed for their bookstores’ genre shelves. Coyne’s a real hero in the How-To genre himself now.

In a baseball metaphor he called it ‘the publisher’s farm system.’ If you don’t know baseball’s farm system, major league teams support minor leagues where semi-pro players get pro coaching and hope a major league team calls them up.

The famous Kevin Costner movie Bull Durham is about a baseball farm team.

Coyne said Amazon copied publishers’ genres in a bid to attract genre writers dismissed from the vanishing farm system. I’d say that was a good business bet in 1999. Cheap infinite shelf space was their advantage over bookstores. A lot of semi-pro and amateur genre writers saw themselves filling those shelves.

Incidentally, at no cost to Amazon. Like a publisher’s farm system except they didn’t pay anything up front or on delivery, or promise any sales, and no straight path to the major leagues.

Andy Weir made it to the major leagues. His sci-fi ebook was free on his website, chapter by chapter as he wrote, because publishers rejected his earlier books. Their farm system was shrinking and he had a day job to keep. He gave Amazon a try at $0.99, the lowest price allowed.

They didn’t pull Andy up to the major leagues. His early fans and an audio publisher pushed him up.

Podium Publishing could have found Weir’s own website where he enjoyed a lively discussion with his many fans long before trying the 99 cent gambit. His fans could have sent them a chapter asking for an audio edition.

There’s a problem with free ebooks; is it worth recording an audio edition with no prior e-sales?

Podium reacted to the first three months of Weir’s 99 cent sales because they’d bear the costs and wanted to get in the game early to catch every audio sale they could.

Podium may not have known those early sales were largely the same fans buying the book they’d already read for free. Amazon wouldn’t know or care. Weir didn’t make noticeable money until Crown Publishing pulled him up to the major leagues with their paper edition. (Good for Podium.)

Weir made the most money lending his story to 7-Oscar-nominated ‘The Martian’ starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain. (Good for Crown.)

Podium, Crown and 20th Century Fox are investor-publishers. Amazon is a store with cheap digital shelf space, clever programmers and a steady supply of books they don’t have to pay for.

Publica also has digital shelves, clever programmers and a steady supply of books, but we’re no wannabe. Amazon had a 23-year head start, plus shoe-shoppers glancing at books. Not to mention billions of investors’ dollars when they needed that kind of cash to get to what we see today. (Well, some of the world sees it. Most doesn’t. But you get my point.) That’s not our game at all, far from it.

Publica was crowdfunded to play a community-driven different game. What game is that?

Publica fills the void where big publishers and Amazon can’t play, namely ‘the building game’ where Shawn Coyne lives. I don’t mean Publica is not for pro authors with a longtime proven following. We showed that it is for them with Nomadic Matt in the first-ever Book ICO. No, I mean Publica is in the building game all day every day.

It’s a great game because that’s where the decentralizing world we live in wants to play in the next 5–10 years.

Publica builds:

New crypto fanbases for major leaguers like Nomadic Matt. Crypto is the future of globalized commerce and direct sales.

of globalized commerce and direct sales. Our Book ICO platform where authors up their game with community-driven crowdfunding. Like we did ourselves a year ago.

Our global-reach platform where you ‘Publish Your Way’ building your own store via virtual vending machines around the world on an encrypted, blockchain-validated network. Your prices, paid in minutes to your wallet 24/7/365, no intermediaries; just your fans and readers and instant returns on marketing.

paid in minutes to your wallet 24/7/365, no intermediaries; just your fans and readers and instant returns on marketing. Our secondary book token exchange where you can get paid again every time your books get in a game, and your fans can profit too. That’s a new game that’s never been played before and everybody looks forward to playing.

every time your books get in a game, and your fans can profit too. That’s a new game that’s never been played before and everybody looks forward to playing. Our e-reader + token-wallet apps where readers play their infinite game and keep on winning. Book tokens are in their wallets, portable to any device, giftable, resellable. That changes the book-buying game in a exciting, positive way.

Our global-reach platform where periodicals, educational institutions, libraries, publishers, affinity groups and every other book-loving business reinvents themselves and their current games.

themselves and their current games. Our online shop supporting crypto so everybody on Earth can play no matter where they live or bank (or don’t).

Now — Replay Andy Weir’s game and imagine that ‘The Martian’ was a Publica Book ICO.

That’s a game worth playing, don’t you think?

PBL is Publica’s platform cryptocurrency token, called Pebbles. They’re in everything we build for the ever-growing global decentralized economy.

This time The Building Game will be driven by the true fans and readers themselves, without all those insanely-crowded cheap digital shelves and creepy ad-bots.

This time The Building Game will work for major leagues, minor leagues, pro and semi-pro leagues, no-league independents, and especially all of their own decentralized stores.

Read about that in my post Where’s Your Store?