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"The Creator Revolution" January Update

cyeo.substack.com

"The Creator Revolution" January Update

Crowdfunding, Creating, Contemplating

Catherine Yeo
Jan 21, 2022
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"The Creator Revolution" January Update

cyeo.substack.com

✍️ Welcome to Creative Contemplation! I’m Catherine, and this is my monthly newsletter documenting my reflections on life, technology, culture, and creativity.

In today’s piece, I’m sharing an update on my book The Creator Revolution and some recent thoughts on the creator space.


A month ago, I held a public crowdfunding campaign for my upcoming nonfiction book The Creator Revolution. It was one of the most nerve-wracking and stressful projects I have embarked on; on top of shattering my introvert cave to push out continuous marketing and self-promotion online, I would frantically refresh my Indiegogo page every day to see if we were even a smidge closer to the campaign goal. 

I’m excited to announce that ultimately our community helped raise $7510 (reaching the $6500 goal) and pre-order 180+ copies. I am still blown away and cannot express how thankful I am.

Under typical models, a book that sells 100 copies would earn ~$225 under a traditional publisher and ~$420 when self-published (Elle Griffin has an excellent Substack piece detailing more about this), a far cry from the amount fundraised (even when publishing costs are deducted). It has been an interesting experience, and an endless string of lessons, being a part of New Degree Press’s community-driven publishing process. Just like how I believe in supporting and investing in community-driven products, I’m excited to extend that thesis and conviction to writing. For me, writing has always very much a community-powered effort, and I’m so excited and grateful to have you be a part of this journey with me.

Here in my personal newsletter, I plan to periodically publish updates about my book writing journey. Currently, I'm deep in the manuscript revisions process. Editing hasn't been the most fun part, but it has been a blast doing additional research and interviews with an incredible variety of creators, founders, and investors, particularly ones who can speak to the recent Web3-creator movement that has advanced a lot since I started writing this book 9 months ago. The book is still on track to be released in late May.

Here are my predictions for the creator space in 2022:

Twitter avatar for @catherinehyeo
Catherine Yeo (she/her) @catherinehyeo
My creator predictions for 2022: 💸 More creators on startup cap tables 💫 More ownership sharing (tokens, fundraising) 👀 Smaller creators will cultivate DAOs & NFTs 🌎 Big creators will tap into metaverse 💥 More platform diversification 🛍 Live shopping will grow in the West
3:29 PM ∙ Jan 18, 2022



Some questions I have been thinking a lot about lately, both in writing my book and outside, are:

  • The future of creators as brands and businesses

  • What makes a creator ‘notable’

  • The content creation and engagement cycle

  • Creator economy development in the West vs. East

  • The audience-creator relationship

  • How we can grow Web3 without neglecting Web2 creator support

I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the creator space, any questions that are keeping you up at night, or anything that you’re interested in learning/hearing more about — feel free to directly reply this email, or comment below this post on Substack.

That’s all from me for now, excited for you to continue to join my book writing journey! Find me on Twitter @catherinehyeo for more.


Thanks for reading Creative Contemplation by Catherine Yeo! Subscribe for free to receive new posts in your inbox every month.

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"The Creator Revolution" January Update

cyeo.substack.com
2 Comments
Shifra Steinberg
Writes Absurdus
Jan 25, 2022Liked by Catherine Yeo

My (fictional) book is coming out this year and I never even thought of crowdfunding. Such a good idea. Will look into it for my next novel!

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Elle Griffin
Writes The Novelleist
Jan 22, 2022Liked by Catherine Yeo

Thank you so much for sharing my work, and I’m so excited to learn more from you this year!

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