The Anti-'Borg Collective

I love Star Trek. The original remains my favorite, since it’s the one that first opened up my eyes and mind to the mysteries of a larger universe. However, some of the newer series’ episodes had some pretty awe-inspiring stuff.

One storyline that really affected me was the ‘Borg collective. It was creepy. It was inhuman. It went against everything that I believe in (pretty sure that was the point).

It was also incredibly powerful.

That kind of unification allows for a lot to get done very quickly. I started thinking that if we could form that kind of unity without giving up our individuality, we could do so much more than we can as isolated artists.

So, here’s the deal. I want to form a writer’s collective. The old publishing model is starting to feel increasingly outdated. Publishers simply don’t give the kind of attention to new writers that they need to really get their stuff out there. It’s increasingly up to the writer to make sure their books get sold.

Okay, so let’s embrace that! I have a friend who’s a mid-list author. His experiences with his publisher were less-than-stellar, so he finally got fed up. His backlist was dead in the water. It had barely made him back his modest advance and he was never going to see any royalties from it. Worse, his career was stagnate. He was LOSING his reader base rather than building it.

Then he said 'screw it,' and took over his on-line publicity. He hit Twitter, Facebook, and blogged like a fiend. He also made over $100,000 last year from Kindle alone. He’s on track to make twice that this year.

We can do that. We can come together as writers, supporting each other and our work.

Let’s form a collective!

Not a soul-crushing, individuality stealing entity, but a life-affirming, art inspiring group. We can lift one another up, offering moral support and encouragement, as well as cross-promotional marketing.

And I'm putting my money where my mouth is! Next week, I’ll be putting my novel out there for everyone to see. I'm going to be an active part of this new venture.

As part of this, we will be offering free online workshops on how to use Twitter to effectively market our novels. Leave your email address or Twitter handle here in the comments if you’re interested in joining in with our writer’s collective. We will keep you up-to-date on any upcoming workshops.

Together, we can do some pretty spectacular stuff!