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for those who wanted to know more about my “novel cooperative” concept, here’s my rough idea. feedback from interested parties strongly welcome! tagging @theoldaeroplane @mls-classics @anoteinpink as people I think might at least be cuuuuurious…

so as of right now, I’ve got about 50k words of worldbuilding material generated for one specific science fiction-style universe. my existing timeline spans about 3500 years of human history, starting from around now, and I’ve slotted in stories all the way up to the year 5837 (but only about five or six solid, well-defined points in history all along the way are claimed by my current planned novels). so far, I’ve written an adult romance adventure novel and a humorous military book, both set on that very timeline. let’s just say it’s a flexible universe.

I built this universe for people to play in, to apply and stretch every imaginable genre in. I designed it with video games, ongoing shows, and serial novels in mind. there’s already a multitude of alien races, vaguely mentioned planets and technologies, darkly hilarious historic events, and every detail in between, just waiting to be made yours. I want to open up my sandbox to other talented people and see what wonders they bring to it, and I want to empower people by combining their creativity with the creativity of the other folks I’ve got on my side. at this point, we’ve got a small army (or at least a squadron).

oh, and this whole universe’s theme is acceptance and coming together. non-binary, non-conforming characters are more than welcome, they’re the stars of the stories so far. we’re not trying to be self-aware or make our point with a blunt object; we’re here to tell stories about real people, and to let their truths be self-evident. that’s what this universe is all about.

so. writers, editors, game developers, and visual artists would apply, and we’d all start churning out ideas and sharing them with each other and refining them. we’d have some sort of sharing mechanism where, if you had an idea but weren’t ready to commit yourself to it, you could throw it out there and someone could claim it or choose to work on it in collaboration with you and/or others. projects could be open or closed at any time in order to maintain or add to the number of people working on it (full or part time). each project would have its own parameters and goals, but the cooperative would help hold them to those goals and get past blocks.

the requirements to join would go something along the lines of: you’d need to provide evidence of your creative skills (multiple disciplines welcome but not required), and you’d need to have at least some very vague idea of what you’d like to work on, even if that’s as broad as, “I’d like to make an epic video game” or “I’d like to write a science fiction romance.” you’d have to sign the NDA because, uh, bro, we’ve got some cool ideas. you’d need to be ready to work collaboratively – even if you’re the only person of a particular skillset on a project you brought to us (like the only writer, for instance), you’re still going to need to team up with others and adapt to some of their feedback to get your project from your brain to your audience. (and if you don’t believe that, this isn’t the cooperative for you. seriously. we will do you no good.) in return, you’d get access to an audience we’re already entertaining, as professionals in our chosen fields; a community of near-constant feedback; and a healthy portion of the sales of your book. we’d act as a small publishing house, basically.

as far as the profits go, the way I’d like to have it configured is that we’d keep a stable of writers and editors busy, along with some designers and marketing types from our current studio team. the profits from books, games, or shows sold would have the studio’s cut removed (probably around 20%, for providing publicity and a built-in audience, as well as offering the editing and design resources for free up front and potentially taking on production roles and costs), and then each type of role who was involved in the book would get a standardized cut, with the main creative taking the lion’s share (but editors and other pre- and post-production people benefitting from a job done well too).