Yes, 17stories is one year old this month. We’re taking things a little slower than we first intended, but that’s OK because we plan to be around for a long time.
Our first year has been full of achievements, the main one being the sheer number of artists who have jumped on board wih us. We now have several artists and photographers; musicians, writers, and a couple of video producers on board. Many of them with multiple skills. So you’ll probably be seeing some of the same names pop up in varying capacities. It seems that many artistic types don’t just resrict themselves to one art form. Which is amazing!
Jepist and I have already completed Story One, SOUR.
This has already had some great reviews, and the marketing for this and future stories will be ongoing and will increase over time as more stories are written. Stories 2 and 3 are also at varying stages of production, and we also have a few ideas for other future projects. Many of which will be triggered by the books that writers have suggested or have already submitted to us.
We are currently concentrating on building and adding content to the web site and Facebook pages. We need a lot more people interested in the arts to like our pages and hopefully also join our mailing list. Newsletters are sent out weekly, but only if there is new stuff to report. So if you have any friends who are also interested in the arts, please invite them to like our Facebook page.
As the interest grows, we’ll begin adding things like crowdfunding pages to raise money for things such as printing costs. This is so that we can add to the stuff from the digital domain and bring it into the real world, such as releasing the stories as paperback or hardback books, and the art as limited edition prints, either framed or unframed. We will also get the music and videos out on CDs and DVDs eventually. However, the demand has to be there. I know some of you are already holding out for these things, but we’ll need sales in the hundreds or thousands to make some of these items a viable concern. Our ultimate aim is to enable these new artists to make a living from their art, or at least enough income to cover their costs. At the end of the day, most of these artists would like to be in a position to produce their art full time. At the moment this is not possible, but we’d like to change that.
All our collaborative artists will be entitled to their own page on the web site from where they can also sell their existing and future work if they wish. Artists will receive 90% of the net income from sales made through their individual page and 50% of the net income from 17stories items (Pro Rata). So for example, if there are five collaborators on a 17stories EP and the income from the EP is £100, they will each get a 20% share of 50% of the income (or £10)
Once we have the full digital collectors package available for Story One, we’ll be introducing our Master Collectors Club. This will be a five year membership at a monthly subscription. It will entitle the member to free downloads of all the singles and promotional trailers and a digital collectors package as each one is released. Once all 17stories have been produced our Club members will then be offered a physical master package that will contain everything released for all 17 stories. This will include all the physical products that have been produced, plus a lot of bonus extras at a much reduced cost.