3D1D Wrap Up
The best email I've found in my inbox today was from someone last night, saying "Jeez man, you haven't updated your site for a long time! Are you sleeping?"
No, for the last few days, I've been working on #3D1D (the hashtag is key!), a very grand experiment to write a novel in 3 days. There are lots of things that could have gone wrong, but only a few did. I hope you all enjoyed it, because it was one of the best things I've ever done. I borrowed the "liveblogging" term before, but I think this is more "livewriting"... it's performance writing. It's more fun than you can possibly imagine, but it sucks the life right out of you.
I'll admit that when I started, this was part experiment, but part gimmick. Doing a book in three days is bound to get some attention, and I definitely wasn't blind to that. But after about five hours, it became clear the gimmick wasn't important anymore. It was about the interaction... it was Fission Chips on a whole other level. I honestly can't imagine writing a book by myself anymore, and that's probably a bad place for me to be :)
Someone, somewhere along the way posted information on the business side of the thing. Clickthroughs on the banners. I admit, I wasn't sure about the banners to start. They could either be a huge success, or not. We didn't get nearly as many hits as we might've (we were largely ignored by the larger sites), but even so, I don't think I'd do banners that way again. My current thinking is that I'd devalue my points (it was $0.01 per point) and standardize banners at $3 per spot. That might make them more palatable (most of the $10+ chapters never got bought). But then, the purpose isn't really the banners. I think I got distracted there.
I'm not sure about the business model to this. If you look at this as a concert, you'd charge for admission. But charging for admission isn't something I think can work for #3D1D. I could have put a tip jar on it, but I don't know if that's feasible either. I don't know if anyone would buy a book they've already read, especially one they were so instrumental in making. So it could be this is a fun experiment you can only do when you've reached cruising altitude. I hope not, because I'd love to do it forever. But that's definitely a possibility.
Anyway, enough about that. I'll probably be discussing all this on sites around the internet for the next few days, so I'll stop.
I just want to say another HUGE thank you to Eli, Jan and Anna. They kept me sane when I was on the verge of a meltdown, and they put themselves through more sleep deprivation than I did. If you have a moment, send them an email or tweet and thank them for kicking ass. I wrote the words, but they made it happen.
All right. I think this is done. Thanks for everything, you crazy peeps. I'll see you again soon!
#3D1D Wrap Up. 522 words. Questions coming soon.
Update: I should also mention that this first book in the Dustrunners saga is licensed under the Creative Commons "Zero" license, which means it's effectively public domain. That was part of my RollBots promise, and I keep forgetting to mention it :)
