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Making a Difference by Crowd Publishing: CausePub

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StudentsDesktop1280x800-e1355207552795 Griff Hanning had an idea, a wild idea.

Why not create a for-profit, crowd publishing company which gives writers the opportunity to create best-selling books and do serious good for others all at the same time? Enter CausePub, short for Cause Publishing.

The idea behind CausePub is simple: Choose a cause, rally writers and artists to submit work, edit and publish a book, donate half of the proceeds to the cause, give contributing authors a portion of the profit. Repeat.

The first cause slated to receive funding from CausePub is Blood:Water Mission. CausePub co-founder , Griff Hanning, explains the reasoning behind CausePub's pairing with Blood:Wather Mission. "Clean Water is hot right now. People understand the need. The mission resonates with them. Since this is our first book project, we wanted to make sure everyone who visited the site would understand the goal of the project. Blood:Water Mission was small enough to approach with our idea and big enough to help us make an impact. Plus, Blood:Water Mission is an organization full of Couch Rebels both here and in Africa."

Couch Rebels? Yes, Couch Rebels.

Couch Rebels are people who work to create clean water for 45,000 (CausePub's goal). They embrace life, take risks, and respond in a positive ways to  negative circumstances. Therefore, the title of CausePub's inaugural book needed to represent rejecting the ordinary. Those who are willing to ditch the idea of living life from a couch.

Enter the book. Couch Rebels: Because Stories Like These Aren't Told by Potatoes. 

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CausePub is searching for stories from people who have positioned themselves in uncomfortable places. Maybe uncomfortable has come about because of traveling to new places or maybe uncomfortable snuck into your life when you engaged with people different from yourself. Regardless, Couch Rebels are people who dare to live big and tell about it.

Couch Rebels aren't all professional writers (although watch for some familiar names to join in the fun).

"You don't know what kind of writer you are until you actually start writing. CausePub gives the good, bad, and ugly writers a chance to share something that means something to them," states Hanning.

Hanning encourages everyone to submit a story.

"So what if your story is not chosen to be published! At least you wrote it. At least somebody read it. At least you gave your story an opportunity it didn't have before. At least you learned something in the process and maybe your writing skills will have improved by the time the next CausePub project rolls around! Oh yes, we are going to do many, many more of these!"

Hanning goes on to tell us how CausePub is already impacting people and not just people in need of clean water.

"Abby Andrus wrote about her dad. She told me that she was so glad CausePub gave her a little push to do this. She had not let herself revisit the day her dad passed away and that it was very therapeutic to be able to reflect and write this down. If that's the biggest impact we make through Couch Rebels, I'm satisfied. Stories change lives. Everyone's got one. Just write it down."

4 Ways To Become Involved in CausePub's mission

  1. Go read the stories people are cranking out and vote for your favorite.
  2. Submit a story of your own.
  3. Share about CausePub on social media.
  4. Preorder Couch Rebels: Because Stories Like These Aren't Told By Potatoes

Your turn. Tell about a time when you rejected the couch and embraced living.

amyblog pic Amy L. Sullivan. Word lover. Book devourer. Music addict. Amy is a Northern girl who found herself living in the South. She drinks sweet tea, turns her nose up at okra, and attempts to tell her daughters “yella” isn’t a color.

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