Hello Steem,
This is an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a little while.
Steemit for Musicians eBook
Here’s the deal: Steem is a viable income source that any hard-working musician could use to fund their work.
A few examples of what Steem enables:
A band can post content until they raise enough money to fund recording sessions for their next album, or to buy a tour van, or fund a PR campaign, etc.
An amateur musician who wants to go pro can develop a part of their future music income stream here, earning upwards of $50 per day for posting and engaging on the steem platform.
Music Journalists can crosspost content here to create additional monetization - without harming any of their current media/monetization channels.
It’s amazing. I know that if more musicians knew what I know, they would be here earning money. It’s just a great idea and you can do well on Steem with maybe 10 hours per week of hard work.
Improving the Conversion Rate of New Users to Active Users
Some people are aware of Steem, but to be honest I am surprised sometimes by the low adoption rate. I feel like once people make the leap to get more involved here, they have a great time.
The question is - how can we increase the number of new users who become active, everyday posters?
To that end, I suspect that a free ebook could be perfect: a guide that would walk any musician through their first 30 days on Steemit. The goal is to simplify the process - how can somebody get hooked on Steemit before they understand all the blockchain stuff?
How can a more casual person learn about this? I want joining Steemit to be like joining Reddit - you don’t need to know how the internet works to join Reddit, and you shouldn’t need to know how the blockchain works to join Steemit.
A guide that gets people to connect with exciting new opportunities on Steem is exactly what might convert casual users into diehard steemians.
And in the end - the more musicians become active here, the stronger the music industry gets. Because this is a new, better form of music monetization. The world doesn’t know it yet - but it will find out over time.
Just like Bitcoin was once worth $1, so too is steem in its infancy today. Perhaps a great ebook guide for musicians will help us push things forward.
Proposed Hypothetical Table of Contents
I’m thinking off the top of my head right now… but here’s an idea of how it could go:
——
Intro: What is Steem and Why Should You Care?
Chapter 1: Opportunities on Steem (Open Mic, Illuminati Inc, OCD, Sndbox, etc)
Chapter 2: How to Create Your Steem Account
Chapter 3: Your First Week on Steem: Meeting People & Joining Communities
Chapter 4: Creating Content - How to Build a Steem Post Schedule
Chapter 5: From Good to Great - How to Grow From 100 to 1,000 Followers
Chapter 6: Advice from Successful Steem Musicians (interviews)
Conclusion: Where Do You Go From Here?
Appendix A: An Explanation of Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency
——
That could be cool, right? Each chapter would be as short as possible while still having all the details, probably 2,000 words (5-6 pages) or so per chapter.
I would plan to do the bulk of the writing (I’d do first drafts at least for all chapters, pending edits / suggestions / added content from other steemians). That way the core of the work is guaranteed to happen on a fast pace.
What about the other stuff? Designing a cover for the book, font / text layouts, original images for the chapters, even advertising on Facebook and beyond?
That’s where it gets cool. We can use utopian.io to get paid in steem for our work while crowdsourcing the entire creation of the book.
How Utopian Can Pay You to Help Create a Book
In case you aren’t aware, utopian.io is an open source platform built on the steem blockchain. It’s designed for open source projects that push the steem platform forward.
You can think of it as an incentivized open source platform. It’s like open source on steroids.
source: utopian.io
What I will do is I’ll set up something akin to a code repository, except for a book. Rather than having lines of code, it’ll be chapters of text for the book. Anybody who wants to contribute content - imagery, text, interviews with other steemians, whatever - can do so as a proposed “fork,” and then I can merge the best content into the book.
The important part is that every contribution to the book, when posted on Utopian, will be eligible for big upvotes from the Utopian account. You could easily earn $20+ for your contribution, and I think the sky’s the limit (upwards of $100 for huge votes if I’m remembering right).
My previous experience with Utopian was awesome and this experiment is a way to take it to the next level.
What Comes Next?
It’s simple.
(1) You tell me what you think in the comments on this post. Can you help me? I could use anybody who is good with: Making images, designing the cover for a book, and even editing/writing the text.
(2) I’m going to figure out the best way to host the project, and will also coordinate with some other people from Utopian and elsewhere re: supporting this endeavor.
(3) Once I confirm the technical and financial aspects of this, I will launch. You can expect 1-2 updates per week through December 2017, and a launch in the first 3 days of January.
The schedule will look something like this:
Now until December 31, 2017: Finalizing details, preparing the technical side of hosting an open source book, and talking to Utopian staff to make sure this project will be eligible for upvotes there.
January 2nd - January 31st, 2018: Create the book in open-source fashion. I will have several chapters written in advance to kick-start the progress. Daily progress posts from here until the book is done.
February 1st: Launch advertising campaign on Facebook ads and possibly other platforms - all expenditures will be documented and funded via Utopian support.
That’s It For Now
Please let me know what you think! Tell me: (1) Do you like the idea?, and, (2) Do you have skills you can contribute to this in January 2018?
This is a Sndbox project. For more info on Sndbox check it out: https://sndbox.co