Death of a publishing dream: how the Unbound revolution became untethered

Three friends – John Mitchinson, Justin Pollard and Dan Kieran – were launching a new company, one that they hoped would “democratise the book commissioning process”, with authors pitching their ideas directly to readers, who would choose whether or not to invest. Writers would crowdfund and profits would be split 50:50 between publisher and author – far more generous terms than the 10% royalties usually offered by others.