Inkshares extends its reach to Hollywood through Inkshares Properties
The online, crowdfunding publisher, Inkshares, continues its expansion by making itself more accessible to people in Hollywood, reaching out to agents, publishers, scouts, and more. Inkshares is proud to present Inkshares Properties, a brand new marketplace to connect agents, publishers, scouts, and other parties from or with Hollywood connections to the Inkshares community and to show all of the wonderful stories the talented writers of Inkshares have to offer.
Jeremy Thomas, CEO of Inkshares, said that Inkshares has been active with Hollywood for a while, but that the idea to organize their properties initiative came to Adam Gomolin, the VP of Business Development at Inkshares this past March. Thomas said, “We started building in May and rolled it out in June. We’ll be rolling out some big updates in the coming months, including templatized contracts and property payment processing.”
What exactly is Inkshares Properties and why would people from Hollywood be interested? Books are always turning into other forms of media: audiobooks, TV shows, movies, video games, and much more. Inkshares Properties simply opens up opportunities for Hollywood people to find new stories from Inkshares writers to turn into these various forms of entertainment. As of now, Inkshares Properties is wait list only and companies interested in becoming a Property Subscriber can fill out a few questions asking what their company is, what industry their company is in, and how best Inkshares can contact them (i.e. email address).
“Property Subscribers who clear the wait list are given an invite code to help colleagues jump over the wait list. We also clear people who are on the list from time to time, as spots open up.” Thomas said. “We haven’t seen anything else like Inkshares Properties. Most publishers leave it up to agents to work out derivative-rights deals. We’re the only publisher we know of that both represents its authors and their properties, and uses technology to do it.”
Once given access, Property Subscribers are able to see a list of every book that is available for various properties. These books are all published through Inkshares and are either already published or in the publication process for release in the coming months. The Inkshares team work with the Inkshares writers who have a funded book to create a Properties page that will appeal to interested buyers. And, if an industry is interested in a certain property for a book, they can simply click on the property they are interested in, which then sends a message to Inkshares.
“Our system marks the property as ‘inquired upon,’ and that will notify others who have inquired that someone else is also interested. After that, we (Inkshares) receive an email with a message from the inquirer. We reach back out through email and negotiate the deal ‘the old fashioned way,’” Thomas said. “This will soon change, likely for foreign-rights deals first, as deals will be processed entirely through the Inkshares Properties marketplace.”
This is an incredibly exciting development that promises to open up many opportunities for Inkshares and its writers. For only being around for a couple of years, the online, crowdfunding publisher is developing quickly and efficiently and, within the first month alone, Inkshares Properties has already received a promising response. “We’ve already had over 25 inquiries and are actively working on deals that would not have been possible otherwise. We’re really excited about what this means for our business and, more importantly, our authors and their books,” Thomas said. Industries have already given properties to popular Inkshares books such as Welcome to Deadland, Trekonomics, The Astronaut Instruction Manual, The Show, and Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory, with even more to follow within the coming months.
Originally published at www.examiner.com on June 29, 2016.
