Founded in the latter half of 2017, The Writers’ Block now heads into its second year as one of the most active writing communities on Discord. While many of our members are professionals in the writing and publishing industry, the structure of our group is set up to accommodate writers of all skill levels as long as they’re serious about their work and willing to learn.

Peer support, critique, and editing help are the strong points of TWB. However, we’ve grown as a group and ventured into some other territory as well, such as a front-end interface for the Steem blockchain and a publishing house. The front-end site will feature hand-picked stories and articles from whitelisted authors. The publishing house will represent commercial fiction in a traditional market, invest returns from book sales in the Steem blockchain, and disperse payment to authors via their Steem wallet.

Because we can leverage in-house talent and use print-on-demand technology, our startup overhead will be low. We still, however, need to purchase ISBN numbers (the ones offered for free through services like Amazon are not appropriate for our purpose) and invest in prelaunch marketing. Promotional campaigns for novels can cost several thousand or several hundred thousand, depending on the amount of advertising the author buys. We expect to spend around $5,000 USD on the launch of our first book, both prelaunch (NetGalley, etc.,) and after launch (Bookbub, Kirkus, etc.) There will also be many smaller promotions run during the course of the first year that will require funding.

TWB administrators are also incurring quite a bit of personal debt in travel expenses. Speaking at events like the Steem Creators Conference in Toronto seems necessary to promote these initiatives, but it is creating financial hardship. We’re trying to give everything we can to add value to the Steem blockchain and encourage widespread adoption of the technology. We believe our business model is solid. It’s revolutionary and bold, and could very well be a gamechanger for the entire publishing industry.

We hope to find a measure of support from the community, especially during this startup phase. Steemhouse Publishing has been incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, and wordrow.org is currently in development. If we could raise $1675 now, it would bring some much-needed relief to TWB members who are struggling to finance the launch out of pocket. This money would go into promotional resources and bulk ISBN numbers.

If sufficiently funded, Steemhouse Publishing, Wordrow, and The Writers’ Block will combine to form a triangle of influence that will promote content to mainstream audiences, sell products for FIAT currency, and bring both audience and currency to the blockchain. The opportunity to be widely read on a respected platform (Wordrow) will be a catalyst for many authors to sign up for accounts, so we expect to onboard quite a few new users once the site is launched. Add Steemhouse to this, and we believe we have a solid proposition. Publishing is a lucrative industry and we want to make sure the Steem blockchain and its content creators get a bite of it.

Breakdown of Immediate Costs (amounts are approximate)

10 ISBNs (Bowker) $300.00
NetGalley Marketing-Plus Title Listing (prelaunch) $700.00
Books Butterfly (promotional service) $250.00
Kirkus (professional review service) $425.00
TOTAL USD $1,675.00

Publishing House Project Needs Backers