How does crowdfunding change the author/reader relationship?
It is a unique opportunity to experience the creative process from the inside. Thanks to each project’s blog, the édinautes can follow all the steps in the process: research, storyboards, sketches, inking, setting colors. These are things that comic book readers rarely have access to. They can also interact with the authors, which is also very rare in everyday life where speaking for a few minutes with an author can mean waiting in a long queue at a book signing. They participate in activities and sometimes even see their face in the book, instead of a character. In one of our albums, for example, a mafioso is one of our main édinautes; in another title, D’Artagnan is played by another édinaute. In a two-part work, an author has hidden édinautes’ pseudonyms throughout: street names, car registration plates, etc. All this forms real bonds.
In every case, I should point out that even though the readers can provide feedback on the work, the author remains – with the publisher – master of his creation.
What have been the biggest challenges in developing Sandawe thus far? The main obstacle was convincing people. The publishing community was skeptical about our model. The reactions were either ironic (people took me for a fool) or too excitable (I was going to revolutionize publishing in such a way that traditional publishers would disappear!) The truth of course lies between the two extremes. We have produced a new model which to a small extent revolutionizes publishing, which provides answers to emerging problems, which allows works to be published thanks to readers and allows authors to be paid (which, paradoxically, is becoming more difficult even though over 5000 titles per year are being published). But this is not meant to replace traditional publishing: it complements it.
We’ve faced significant challenges. At first, we developed the website in two months in order to launch at the Angoulême Festival 2010. The company was established in November 2009 and the site was launched January 10th, 2010. But this rapid development was the wrong choice. We ended up with a site that was too slow and under equipped, but we’d used up all of our budget and it was impossible to redevelop it. So we had to carry on with this unimpressive website until a loan from a Belgian investment fund (St’Art) and new shareholder funding allowed us to redevelop it. But we still managed to fund a dozen projects during this time, despite the huge teething troubles.
The project almost met a premature end. On 18 January 2010, 8 days after the launch, I fell while climbing: an 18-metre fall that almost killed me. I survived, but spent almost a year in hospital. I was able to manage the site through an internet connection. Sandawe therefore has two records to be proud of: firstly, to be the first publisher of comics to be financed by readers (I’m especially proud that it was born in Belgium, the birthplace of the modern comic strip) but also to be the first publishing house to have been managed from a hospital bed for a year!