Creating a Worker’s Cooperative for Authors: An Author Co-Op
What is a Worker’s Co-operative?
A worker’s co-operative is a type of company which has a democratic structure. It is run by members, for members. All profits are reinvested to benefit the people that made the profits, not investors and overpaid managers. Other than that, it’s fairly similar to a normal company.
An Author’s co-operative would be, as far as I know, a world-first. The structure of a traditional publishing house has many benefits, but also problems. For example, trad publishers will pay for editors, artwork, etc., but in return they take a large cut of the profits from book sales. Trad publishers will also have the final say on matters like cover art, where and how the book is sold, pricing etc.
It may not be possible to overcome all of these shortcomings, but I believe an author’s co-operative could have advantages above both traditional publishing and self-publishing alone. Since it’s an experiment, it will be crucial to take all steps slowly, and to only get money and voting involved when all the members have a clear idea of how we can all work together. I also think it would be silly to go ‘all in’ and expect the co-operative to provide any kind of full-time income for members in the near future.
The first phase will be a kind of critique swap group, which is nothing unheard of. By regularly discussing next steps, we’ll hopefully be able to make something that works for all of us.
Author Co-Op Goals & Principles:
Anti-Burnout. Healthy release schedules, community support.
Encourage Creativity and Quality. Work together to reduce the pressure to write series quickly and conform to narrow markets of readers.
Work Democratically. Following the principles of worker co-ops, including votes, consensus, and elected positions.
Form Community of Learning, Teaching, and Mutual Support.
Make a Fairer, More Consistent Income.
Co-operate, not compete. The more one book succeeds, the more we all succeed.
Possible Co-Op Roles:
- Elected Committee (incl. president/director, secretary, treasurer, etc.)
- Authors
- Editors
- Artists
- Formatters
- Marketers
- Narrators
What about my money? I earned it!
Your earnings in royalties will be your own.
We certainly won’t be taking money away from everyone and sharing it back out equally.
What we will do is decide by vote where the cooperative’s funding will come from. Perhaps members can pay dues, or give a percentage of their royalties. Whatever works best for everyone involved. At first, though, we will just be a group of writers who help to critique and promote one another.
Money won’t be involved in the process until the members all agree on a democratic process for collecting funds and using them.
Then, what happens with that money is up to us as a group. Maybe someone is releasing a new book, and we agree to give them a bit of marketing money. Maybe we pitch in on a group landing page or a group newsletter push which promotes all of our work. Maybe we use that funding to get better editors and cover artists.
The main point is that every decision we make will be made democratically, whether by a direct vote, or by elected committee members who can be recalled at any time.
Growing the Co-Op:
Phase 1: Mutual support, learning, critique swaps. No money involved at this stage.
Phase 2: Pooling resources for better editing, art, and marketing pushes. Achieve larger reach together rather than being stuck alone.
Phase 3: Drafting a constitution, electing positions, codifying financial structure, rights & responsibilities of members.
Phase 4: Re-evaluation, elections, improvements. If capacity is reached, help other interested parties form cooperatives of their own.
Links and more info:
Setting up a Worker’s Co-op, a Seeds for Change short guide:
https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/setting_up_a_workers_coop.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative