Inkshares

Inkshares is a hybrid publishing company based in Oakland, CA. Inkshares publishes books based on a crowdfunding model that democratizes publishing. Readers decided which books are published by pre-ordering. Once a book crosses one of the publishing thresholds (250 pre-orders - light publishing tier or 750 pre-orders - full funding tier) then it moves into production. The fully funded tier gets the full works of editing, design, printing, distribution, and marketing of the book. The light publishing receives light edits, no marketing, design or distribution (sometimes seen as one step above self-publishing).

As of April, 2016 Inkshares has 94 funded titles with 32 books currently available now in stores and online!

History

Early History

Inkshares began ...

Platform Changes

In late October 2015, Inkshares raised the price of the pre-order from $10 to $20 USD. They also began to charge for shipping outside of the United States. Other changes included dropping the funded threshold down to 750 pre-orders from 1000 and introducing the "light publishing" option of 250 pre-orders.

Move to Oakland, CA

Inkshares moved its base of operations from The Vault (in the old Ghiradelli building) in San Francisco to Oakland as they out grew the space available. The move took place in February 2016.

Types of Services

Fully Funded

There are two tiers of funding from Inkshares. Full funding is deifned as reaching a pre-order goal of 750 copies. Once you reach this stage your book goes into production.

Quill Collection

The "light publishing' goal is better known as the Quill Collection. It is an imprint created by Inkshares to help publish books that reach a lower number of pre-orders. The pre-order goal is 250 copies.

Ideas

The Ideas work a lot like send a tweet on Twitter. It is a simple text box that you can write any idea in 20 words or less and see if anyone likes it. Readers can chose to follow your idea.

Contest

Sword and Laser - SciFi & Fantasy

The orgianl contest that started them all. It was held in April and May of 2015. The top 5 most pre-ordered books would go into full production even if they didn't hit the full funding goal (at that time it was 1000 pre-orders). Then, one book out of the top 5 would be chosen to be the first publication in the Sword and Laser Collection. When the contest ended at midnight on June 1st there were SIX selected books. Veronica and Tom of the Sword and Laser podcast would go on to choose TWO books for there collection. They would later add a third.

The top 6:

Ageless by Paul Inman

An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel ^

Asteroid Made of Dragons by G. Derek Adams ^

Lost Generation by Joe Terzieva

Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory by Nick Scott and Noa Gavin

The Life Engineered by J-F. Dubeau ^

^ - Chosen for the collection

List of published books:

Title	Author	Genre
Herb	Herb Co.	Cookbook
Abomination	Gary Whitta	Historical Fantasy
The Life Engineered	JF Dubeau	Science Fiction
Unscalable	Charlie Guo	Start Ups
Slim and The Beast	Samuél L. Barrantes	Fiction Narrative
Slothlove	Sam Trull	Art and Photography
An Unattractive Vampire	Jim McDoniel	Fantasy
The Man Within	Alison Carlson	Art and Photography
The Show	Filip Syta	Fiction
The Battle for Oz	Jeyna Grace	Fantasy
The Body of Chris	Chris Cole	Memoir
Dawn of the Algorithm	Yann Rousselot	Poetry
The Astronaut Instruction Manual	Mike Mongo	Children's
Asteroid Made of Dragons	G. Derek Adams	Fantasy
One Murder More	Kris Calvin	Mystery
Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory	Nick Scott and Noa Gavin	Science Fiction
The Cat's Pajamas	Daniel Wallace	Children's
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