Best Music Writing 2012

And if she was spending the money appropriately on the project she still should have notified folks within the past year what was going on. Only now does she say in the Poynter.com thing:

“I think it’s fair to say I was irresponsible in my contact with the donors,” she said.

you know what I mean, hiring people with the connections to actually get a press a viable enough presence and following, hiring interns (I don't know whether they were paid, maybe the guy who turned around and talked to Vice can say so), paying for all the hours this took. administrative expenses, in other words. now, I don't know how the money was spent obviously, I have basically nothing to do with this entire enterprise, but historically manpower costs are the ones that eat through your budget more than you expect.

assuming 1-6 are the only things it takes to get a book actually published in a very insider-y publishing field is some bootstrapping rhetoric that I don't agree with at all.

like, when she said it'd take $15K for "editorial stipends, administrative staff, and payment of reprint license" (in her Kickstarter update) I believe her, because it seems reasonable. this isn't amanda palmer deciding $100 filigreed album covers or whatever are more important than paying the band.

Now that there's an actual resolution to this thing with a side accepting responsibility, it's good to see people can still whip themselves into a frenzy shadowboxing over it

^

having not donated on this i have no stake one way or the other but when the rhetoric is you're either a "total shitlord" or a "pathetically delusional fucktard", something has gone drastically wrong soderberg with the conversation
― YOU FOOLS PAY OVER $2.50 for a comic book (forksclovetofu), Friday, August 23, 2013 2:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like there's actual publishers making shitty fucking wages and doing right by their authors around the damn world. fuck sympathy for somebody who takes in a pretty decent sum of money, burns through it and doesn't show a balance sheet, and then plans to pay it back over a period of years. obligatory disclosure, I have personal experience of people who take in a bunch of money that belongs to me and spend it elsewhere and I'd love to be paying bills w/that money but guess what it's gone. fuck deadbeats. this ought to be an uncontroversial stance imo, people who defend deadbeats are...like...what the fuck is wrong with people who defend deadbeats, "they meant well" is like that's cool cough up the money and we'll call it even

xp "getting people like questlove involved" is a pretty vague expense. stipend? just sending him money? "administrative stuff"? I run a business with 6 people on the payroll. nobody ever gets stiffed, it's time-consuming and annoying but it's not actually hard. you just have to have "nobody involved with this enterprise is going to get fucked out their money" at the top of your to-do list.

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 23 August 2013 15:38 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whenever anyone gives a loan or invests in something there's a chance they'll never see that money again, that's why we have insurance and why kickstarter has (optional) contracts. not every failed endeavour can be chalked up to someone being a deadbeat, sometimes things just fuck up. whether that's the case here specifically i don't know. i think given the lack of information (which is of course a problem itself, maybe THE problem but that doesn't seem to be what you're going for) the difference between yours and katherine's position is just whether or not your speculation lead you to empathy or indignation

otm

the point is still no one who asks for their money back is an asshole. period.

especially because she volunteered to give it back

retrospectively the plan was obv too ambitious. the #1 rule of doing things on an indie budget is do them at an indie scale, don't try to launch a full on venture

(i mean holy what there were _interns_? this is the problem -- like if you got kickstarted to do a book, just do the book. anything else will lead to untenable overhead)

holding ppl accountable is churlish

might it have been easier to just do this as a digital only thing? kindle, ibooks, pdf

xps oh sorry u did mention balance sheet my bad

holding accountable vs. suggesting they have run off to brazil and are leading a lavish life on $17k.

a cool $17k.

stacking that just-under-the-poverty-line-for-a-three-person-household scrilla

who is doing the latter itt

the $17k con artist. that's some next level spanish prisoner ish right there.

brb, writing a pitch to mamet

can we just agree that there were terrible reactions all the way around because people en masse are terrible creatures and move on to something else

he wrote back and said a $17k con is too spectacular, nobody would believe it :-(

assuming 1-6 are the only things it takes to get a book actually published in a very insider-y publishing field is some bootstrapping rhetoric that I don't agree with at all.

no it isn't, actually. I have one book published and another in line and those are your basic book expenses as far as I know. the ones you need before the book goes to press are whatever you pay your writers and design people. vague "well, she had to hire people" shit is like...what does anybody mean here by "hire"? were they getting hourly wages? honorariums?

whenever anyone gives a loan or invests in something there's a chance they'll never see that money again, that's why we have insurance and why kickstarter has (optional) contracts. not every failed endeavour can be chalked up to someone being a deadbeat, sometimes things just fuck up. whether that's the case here specifically i don't know. i think given the lack of information (which is of course a problem itself, maybe THE problem but that doesn't seem to be what you're going for) the difference between yours and katherine's position is just whether or not your speculation lead you to empathy or indignation

in fairness, flopson's mostly right here - I'm sure if I knew dc I'd be empathetic because I'm sure she's a passionate, right-on person who fucked up. so are a lot of people who fleece people, though - "this person's cool, I know she meant well" is kind of a nonstarter imo. this one dude who owes me massive scratch is an A+ stand-up dude who I'd trust with my life. I foolishly trusted him with my business, and I'm never going to see my money. so, on personal terms, I get indignant when it takes muckraking articles to get any kind of response from this person and then people are mad at the muckraking articles. short of the muckraking articles and social media response it seems clear dc was just never going to contact anybody. whether that's out of shame over failure or disingenuousness doesn't really matter. I'm sure she meant well, and now she should take out a 17k loan on whatever terms she can get one on and pay everybody back their money. if she has to eat interest on that those are the breaks imo.

as to "sometimes people just fuck up" vs. "people are deadbeats," the distinction is pretty meaningless to the people whose money disappears into unidentified expenses imo!

i think there's some middle ground between being the indie rock writer female version of michael caine in dirty rotten scoundrels and being a naive pollyanna who dreamed dreams that were just too big for this dang little town

i've worked for arts non-profits for over a decade, and things like this are so similar to "worst practices" in the non-profit arts community. When a non-profit does things like this, it is illegal. But kickstarter's model basically places the individual project starter in a similar role - in terms of what your obligations are, donor relations, etc.

also s.clover you are really looking down your nose at 17K did you get a gig where ott works or something?

he was saying it's a too modest amount to risk a legit con job

right, but I'm assuming your press actually existed and had previously built up reputation/clout/a Rolodex/ability to get big gets, or the process involved doing that work. and it is work. otherwise you might as well put up a CafePress and hope people stumble across it. (to use a music analogy, it's the difference between some random Bandcamp page, some random Bandcamp page where the band has a lot of IRL friends who can give them beer money, and some random Bandcamp page with a well-paid, connected publicist to make it go viral.)

the idea of me being a pollyanna is very amusing fwiw

I semi-assumed that this thing had a publisher already, which is probably a bad assumption

the entire problem was it didn't have a publisher already -- the kickstarter was to start an entire new publishing house for Best Music Writing and other stuff

haha okay $17K sounds like far too little money in that case

exactly!

should have gone the dalkey archive route

the entire problem was it didn't have a publisher already -- the kickstarter was to start an entire new publishing house for Best Music Writing and other stuff

so you/she pays the printer herself. Not sure why "publishing house" necessitated $17k

People who have no professional experience managing money are being given lots of money. It's a fundamental flaw with the crowdfunding model. I don't doubt that stuff like this is happening with lots of Kickstarter projects, it's just that some are more public than others.

People who have no professional experience managing money are being given lots of money. It's a fundamental flaw with the crowdfunding model

In a nutshell, yes.

Yeah this is what puts me off ever giving money to a ks project, unfortunately: it seems as though the likelihood of my money being wasted is quite high. Knowing that I'd then be subject to "if you've ever eaten at a restaurant you have no right to care about losing £30" fingerwagging should I have the temerity to complain makes me even less likely to go for these.

Yes, I have paid $30 for a restaurant meal. This would be like if you paid a restaurant $30 and didn't get any food.

chef seemed like a nice guy tho

(why do I keep responding to this)

The fundamental difference is whether you see giving to a Kickstarter as a donation/cosign or a monetary transaction. I see it as the former. Most people, Kickstarter included, see it as the latter.

but it's nice to see people making fun of any position that isn't the hard-line, that's cool, you keep on doing that

katherine, that is one of the pitfalls of kickstarter. People who have projects who think of it as strangers on the internet giving them money solely because they are a worthwhile person and mean well are deluding themselves. Unless the project is specifically framed as "give me money, I am a worthwhile person with good intentions." But, kickstarter's structure is framed like a monetary transaction. It requires you to give rewards to backers.

Looking at the kickstarter page, all the rewards are objects with a monetary value!

hence the "Kickstarter included" part -- even though a great deal of their branding frames it as the former. some donors respond to that.

the donations were solicited to produce a thing, and for their contributions they would get things. There isn't any charitable intent in the pitch.

I totally get and empathise with all the points re: fucking up, panic and shame. I have probably been there.

I have never been there with 17k of other people's money (and yes, a promise of something exciting for people's careers) though! Sure, I don't reply to many emails and feel guilty but I'd sure hope that my obligation to those people would outweigh my own feelings before a YEAR was up. Before the vice outrage machine would get started. I don't cosign the vice model but if that piece hadn't run then...what?

I don't want to do the "burn the witch" outrage thing - as I say I get why these things happen. I just don't get the reverse outrage of people defending her. What she did sucks. The crux of the matter isn't even the money, it's the total lack of communication and the fact that only bringing out the nastiest guns galvanised that into happening.

The crux of the matter isn't even the money, it's the total lack of communication

Definitely. That's another one of the "worst practices" I referred to upthread.

the donations were solicited to produce a thing, and for their contributions they would get things. There isn't any charitable intent in the pitch.

― not some dude poking a Line 6 pedal with his dick (sarahell), Friday, August 23, 2013 5:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i donated for a tote bag. that's like a pbs thing.

PBS and other non-profits, when they are soliciting donations and offering things in return, have to specify the value of the thing(s) you are getting, and whether your donation is entirely a donation (i.e. tax-deductible).

Yes, I have paid $30 for a restaurant meal. This would be like if you paid a restaurant $30 and didn't get any food.

― not some dude poking a Line 6 pedal with his dick (sarahell), Friday, August 23, 2013 4:54 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You know how much money you could save if you cooked your food at home though?

*promises self not to make a subway joke, can't speak for the whole room*

You know how much money you could save if you cooked your food at home though?

― i'm walter white btw (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, August 23, 2013 5:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

$94k and bennies?