Many times within The Writers’ Block, even before it became The Writers’ Block and was still the MSP Fiction Workshop in the PALnet Discord, our members would be in one mind and one accord to an astonishing degree. Doors would open for us that we’d barely thought about knocking on, and all we had to do was simply step through them.
From the earliest days, before we had our own Discord, we talked about a publishing house. The very day the term “smart media token” became a “thing,” our people were already planning to launch our own SMT. We’ve been tossing around names for that coin for over a year now.
Our discontent with the lack of visibility that quality posts get on Steemit was addressed this past spring by a comment from @SirCork: “You’ll have to have your own front-end to solve that problem.” He went on to explain the monumental challenge it would be, and the consensus was that it would be far beyond our reach.
Until Nashville.
The Day It Got Real, Real Fast
The above photo is iconic for TWB. This was the exact moment when @instructor2121 showed @anarcho-andrei a site built with the front-end template he designed, his vision a perfect dovetail with ours without us ever having exchanged a single word before Nashville. That was the point where the stars aligned, and every dream we had ever entertained suddenly became a realistic goal.
Included in our discussions about the customized front-end was talk of our own SMT and a major marketing opportunity the following September, in Toronto. We purposed to send representatives to this conference to generate interest in our publishing project, as well as our SMT. It seemed like a nearly impossible task, though. Toronto? International travel? For multiple TWB members? Could the challenge be any more daunting? Yet we forged ahead and never gave up hope that this door would open for us like all the ones before it.
Yesterday, it did.
Bless His Eturnerxal Soul
Enter @eturnerx, who has been a friend to TWB since its inception, and a staunch ally through ups and downs and thick and thin. He has shared our vision for the long term and believed in our idea as few others have. He is heavily involved in our front-end project and designed the wireframe that @jasonbu, our IT project coordinator, has been working with.
We confided in @eturnerx several days ago about the hardship we faced in getting our Block members to Toronto for the Steem Creators Conference and SMT Summit. He agreed with us that this kind of networking is critical for the launch of the front end, and in attracting investors for the SMT. Yesterday, he extended a loan to us for air fare to get both our admins to the conference, as well as cover an outstanding loan we had with Neoxian for previous related travel expenses.
The magnificent thing about this new loan is its terms. Eturnerx wants to see us succeed, and was unwilling to saddle us with so much debt that we couldn’t grow our account at the same time we make payments. Read the terms of this loan here. He is truly a team player, a TWB member to the core, and we intend to make him very, very proud of what we accomplish together.
As fate would have it, our IT project coordinator, @jasonbu, lives in Toronto. Go figure! What are the odds that not only would we get both TWB admins (@Gmuxx and @rhondak) on stage to talk about the front-end, SMT, and publishing house, but that we’d get our project coordinator, too?
And there’s more.
Steempress
For several weeks, TWB members have been posting to their personal Wordpress blogs using a plugin called “Steempress.” This plugin was designed by Steemians and so far, has worked flawlessly. We used it to make this post. Not only are we able to ditch the markdown code and use the text editor built into Wordpress, but Steempress posts are whitelisted with Steemcleaners and Cheetah and are fully endorsed to appear both on the Blockchain and on our individual websites.
In Toronto, we will be making sure the Steempress brand is represented both on stage and through general networking throughout the week. We believe in their product. It’s an incredible honor to be trusted with bringing information about Steempress to this conference.
Stay tuned to The Writers’ Block blog for more information about the Steem Creatives Conference and SMT Summit in Toronto. If you would like to attend the conference, check out the Steem Creators website, as well as this post by @thehoneys. They are offering discounted tickets, but have a limited number of them, so don't wait too long!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.writersblockcentral.com/uncategorized/and-the-stars-align/