Ahoy there, gentle reader. You are probably wondering what this cheerfully coordinated collective of copy-cranking collaborators, Curiosity Quills, is all about. For that matter, why it was created, and where it is going.

In other words – where the hell is the beef, and how’s it done?

To start with, let us consider a hypothetical (though, in reality, all too common) situation…

An Author in Peril

Meet E.P. Schmullen, spinner of captivating and utterly non-made-up tales about his youth as a hen-pecked merkin salesman and the male exotic dancer sidekick who changed his life (by getting him turned into a vampire). It was a grand opus, really. Worthy of a prize of some sort, I’m sure.

Unfortunately, nobody has ever heard of E.P. Schmullen. Neither have I, for that matter.

And herein lies the problem – just like our elusive merkin-loving friend, many authors find themselves stuck in an endless cycle of obscurity. Their battle horn is the sound of an armless man clapping. Their banner is nigh invisible (not to mention their coat lacking in the arms department, too).

If nobody gets to read your work, who cares if you’re brilliant? The next Dickens, Dostoyevsky, or Conan Doyle could be languishing in the slush pile of the intarweb!

So whose fault is it, anyway? Probably yours.

In part, the authors are at fault through their lack of knowledge or experience with the new hats they are expected to wear nowadays.

Here are a few examples of hats we must put on as authors:

  • Community Communicator
  • Entrepreneur Extraordinaire
  • Marketing Master Baiter
  • Public Relations Specialist
  • Seeker of Synergies
  • Search Engine Optimization Expert
  • Time Traveler
  • Website Development Guru

All that, piling on atop your normal daily workload:

  • Actual non-writing day job (for many of us)
  • Spouse & Spawn
  • Exercise, Outdoors, Hobbies
  • Housework
  • Sleep/Coma
  • Legendary Sexual Escapades
  • THE WRITING (hello!)

How DARE those authors not master all of the above, neatly fitting their new responsibilities into the ever-so-accommodating 24-hour schedule!

It’s no surprise that most independent authors are forced to compromise. After all, isn’t this the sort of stuff a PUBLISHER has to worry about?

Oh wait, even traditionally published authors are feeling the crunch!

Yes, it’s true!

Traditional publishing, in a state of flux such as it is, has been handing out increasingly smaller advances, providing less support for their mid-list authors, and generally requiring them to take on many of the same responsibilities that their indie counterparts have had to bear from day one.

And let’s not forget… the competition!

You know, all those OTHER writers, dominating your category searches as if by magic, eclipsing your own meager ladder rankings and sales numbers.

I would imagine our poor E.P. Schmullen felt quite lost in the sea of competitive merkin lit. In fact, I’d say he drowned in it.

It takes more than just luck to stand out from the crowd. And when that crowd is millions huge, spanning websites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Smashwords, and so many others – it becomes necessary to be more than the sum of your hats.

We must become… LEGION

Where a lone-wolf author fails, a dedicated group of authors working in concert – succeed!

And this, my friends, is the moment when Curiosity Quills rises from the smothering darkness, swooping in to unite, instruct, and promote good writerly habits (and some very bad personal ones). Not very different from Santa Claus, really.

The CQ mission is simple, like a 12-step program minus several of the more awkward steps:

  1. Gather like-minded writers, illustrators, translators, editors, and more
  2. Cross-promote, organize, and collaborate
  3. Build traffic, handle SEO/SEM so authors don’t have to
  4. Offer a la carte services to anyone interested
  5. Offer publishing services to the creme de la creme of our contributors
  6. Facilitate open sharing of knowledge and expertise
  7. Learn, teach, and evolve into better, less jaded and overworked writers
  8. Develop new ways for authors to be noticed, and new ways for readers to enjoy their books
  9. ????
  10. Profit!

By working together, we can achieve what we can’t achieve by ourselves – being noticed in social media, organizing events, taking advantage of preferential pricing for premium services to help improve our books, and so on.

When authors work together, there’s no limit to what they can create.

Interested in joining our humble collective?

We welcome talented folks of all walks of life, and welcome a diverse range of contributions. For example:

  • Accountants: offer advice in money management and taxation for authors.
  • Authors, Writers, Bloggers: submit short stories, poetry, reviews, and anything else that comes to mind. See our submission guidelines.
  • Copy & Line Editors: offer your editing services to our visitors.
  • Expert Advice: help authors write convincingly about specialty topics in your industry.
  • Illustrators & Graphic Designers: offer your book illustration or graphic design services.
  • Lawyers: offer legal advice, contract negotiation know-how, copyright consultation.
  • Musicians & Voice Actors: offer audio and voice work for trailers and multimedia books.
  • Programmers & Web Developers: offer website creation, optimization, and maintenance.
  • Research: dig deep to gather information for authors and their books.
  • Translators: convert literary works into other languages.
  • Video/Film Makers: offer your trailer design services.

Don’t be like E.P. Schmullen – join forces with others, and push your way out of obscurity (not to mention helping others do the same).

We don’t bite (for the most part), and with the advent of the intarweb tubes through which you are partaking in this experience, any communicable diseases will be kept to a minimum.

To get in touch with our specially trained team of editor chimpanzees, please contact us.