Earlier this week, Steemhouse Publishing directors and editors met via voice conference to talk about the progress we’re making as a company. The meeting lasted two hours, which is twice the anticipated length, and everyone stayed the course with high spirits and loads of constructive dialogue. We are happy to report that, while differences of opinion are inevitable and can actually be a positive force to shape the future, at this point in time everyone who makes up the Steemhouse drive train shares a single vision. We chose our editing and executive team with great care, capitalizing on decades of combined experience in the mainstream publishing and editing industry. It’s times like this that our diligence in selecting a team truly pays off.
What follows is a summary of the conversation.
Old Business
The decision to proceed with another round of our “book club” experiment was unanimous, as was the choice of material to use in the discussions. Two months ago, we shared a post to encourage engagement focused on a pre-selected choice of reading, complete with questions to help guide the conversation. Response was better than anticipated. It was enough for us to analyze each reply in depth, allowing us to determine what constitutes a “high value” comment, which for us is one that triggers further discussion. This will eventually form the basis of an algorithm for awarding higher rewards to higher value comments and establishing “waypoints” for progressive levels of participation.
We also agreed on ways to improve the experiment, which include an announcement post prior to the actual participation post which will state the chosen material and provide access to it. This added layer of publicity may result in more engagement. We are all interested to see how this plays out.
Another item on our meeting agenda was the literary journal, which is still in development. We are all beginning to chafe a bit at the length of time it’s taking to prepare this site for launch. Our front-end will be unlike most front-ends built on the Steem blockchain. It will not be highly interactive but will retain a sleek, minimalistic appearance with most blockchain functions hidden, such as upvote value and comments. Those wishing to interact with the carefully curated selection of posts appearing there will be given that option, a feature which will act as a funnel to onboard new Steem users. The goal of this strategy is to create a front-end for Steem that is capable of competing in the world of mainstream online publishing, with a secondary purpose of attracting new users who may otherwise be put off by the appearance and function of traditional Steem interfaces.
The last old business we talked about was our upcoming release of a second novel. This second title has been selected for quite some time but progress has been slow. We used this meeting as an opportunity to familiarize everyone with our choice and make sure all were in agreement.
New Business
Most of our directors are new to the blockchain with a limited understanding of cryptocurrency. In other words, they well-represent our target audience. We were able to explain the technology in simple terms during this meeting, which led to an offer by one attendee to write a post--or series of posts--geared specifically toward the new users that Steemhouse onboards. The language and syntax will differ substantially from most blockchain articles written on this topic, as we recognize that writers and literary types have a drastically different set of priorities for using this technology.
We took time during this meeting to explain what a blockchain is and how it works, what role the Discord community will play, what will change for us now that Steemit Communities have been launched, how Steem translates into spendable FIAT and what it means to “hodl,” as well as the token we hope to offer in the future and how it can serve a very utilitarian function within our community as well as be traded for cash.
Suggestions and Discussion
Lastly, we held a bit of a town hall meeting about the topics covered by our formal agenda. We heard from seasoned editors and authors about what makes a literary journal, or “litmag,” something people actually want to read. We talked about exclusivity and the benefits of having a highly selective public-facing flagship site. We also discussed the new format of online literature that is emerging from communities like Steemit and Wattpad and Patreon and other writing-based platforms, and that is serialized fiction. We intend to exploit “first mover advantage” with this concept in the mainstream.
Additionally, we touched on account creation tokens, specialized tags and mentoring for writers who we onboard, and ways that multi-community contests can work to establish us in the Steem ecosystem.
Until Next Time
Hopefully, by the time our directors meet again, we’ll have a working front end to show them. We intend to proceed with account creation and mentoring in the meanwhile as well as acquire material for online publication. We’ll also continue to brief the Steem public about our progress and plans, at least in summary form. Steemhouse Publishing has a lot on the burners right now, and we hope to have more news to share with you soon.
cover image by GraphicMama-team from Pixabay