When I decided to publish The Six Swans with Coming Together: Neat, I agreed to a pretty unusual payment plan. All proceeds for books from that particular line go to Kiva, a website that distributes microloans to entrepreneurs around the world. Think Kickstarter, except that the recipients have to pay the money back and you don't get stickers and tchotchkes for contributing.
Royalties from The Six Swans show up as Kiva gift cards, and I can lend them as I choose, along with other members of the Coming Together: Neat lending team.
The book came out in early April, so I'm just getting the chance to get in on this. I've written before that my participation in Coming Together has often surprised me -- I tend to show up for the erotica and the chance to work with the awesome people, and then later I realize I'm really happy about the "altruism" in the "erotic altruism" that Coming Together espouses.
This was definitely the case here. Only when I went to actually make my Kiva account did I realize how exciting this is.
Here's the deal: Writing is a dream come true for me. How cool is it that I get to help other people achieve their dreams as a byproduct of pursuing my own?
Kiva also allows a really cool sort of transparency. If you want to see where royalties for The Six Swans are going, you can check out my lender page and see who I'm supporting. I probably spent two hours picking out my first loan recipient, Leala. I picked her because I wanted to help a fellow Pacific Islander female.
I plan to periodically update this blog with information about what's going on with Kiva. And, as always, a big thank you to the folks at Coming Together, for helping me learn to do good while being bad.
If you'd like to contribute to this (and read hot stories in the process), you can pick up The Six Swans, or any of the other books in the Coming Together: Neat line.
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