#3 Michelle Miller, How to Raise Venture Capital for a Novel

Craftsman Founder with Lucas Carlson and Eliot Peper

If you got a Stanford MBA and then worked as an investment banker... what would be your next career move? Michelle Miller decided to write a novel called The Underwriting. But she didn't just write a novel and hope to get traditionally published, she treated her novel as a startup. She raised investment, secured brand sponsorships, created screen savers and playlists, made a video trailer and serialized her novel (a modern Charles Dickens). This week, I interviewed Michelle in the Craftsman Founder Podcast and ask a bunch of questions:

• Tell us about your background
• What is The Underwriting?
• What’s worked and what hasn’t worked well in promoting your novel?
• With your Stanford MBA and then investment banking background, how is writing a novel like doing a startup?
• What can entrepreneurs learn from authors and vise-versa?
• How does an author promote and do marketing for her work today?
• Are you a plotter or a pantser?
• What writing apps do you use?
• Who inspires you?
• Have you considered traditional publishing?
• What attracted you to self-publishing?
• Is fiction a viable investment for venture capitalists?
• Should more fiction authors consider trying to raise venture capital for their novels?
• What do you like best about writing?
• So what’s next for the Underwriting?