IMHO @markrmorrisjr is a great Steemit success story. I checked out his posts from day-one which was four months ago. Like most of us, he paid his dues with $0.00 author rewards on his first Steemit blog posts, but within a month he started to gain some traction and was publishing posts at $300, $400, $500, $600 a pop. Not every post, but this level of remuneration is a big chunk of consistent money for a free lance writer. There are freelancers in the world who make a lot more, but most make less than this in my opinion.
On a more hard nosed level, his last 7 posts grossed $250+ which works out to $35+ per post. His last story ran 2000+ words and 35/2000 is very roughly $.0175 per word. I can't speak for Mark, but if I hustled, I could crank out 2000 words in a day; like a really long day. It would not be as good as his writing because he is a gifted writer, but I would guess he produced his 2000 words in 3 or 4 hours because he is a disciplined professional writer.
To sum things up, a professional freelance writer may be able to average $10 per hour on Steemit. This begs the question, so where can we get more writers of Mark's caliber?
- All over the country, writers meet in groups to read and discuss their work. They each read a chapter, poem or short, short story and criticize each other's work. There are various levels of writers to be found here, from wannabe novelists hoping to break into the field to very seasoned, veteran professional writers. I am going to tell my local group about the possibilities with Steemit. If Steemers joined these writer groups and informed the members about Steemit, my guess is there would be many interested parties because writers are always looking for ways to monetize their work and @markmorrisjr's case is an excellent example.
- Perhaps someone (or even Mark himself) could write press releases to the media telling the story of a freelance writer self-publishing on a new and not well known invention called a blockchain which has financial remuneration for writers and other artists built right into the Steemit blockchain system.
Thank you for a well thought out answer! Absolutely we have many success stories to talk about, and people love stories especially those with a happy ending. I love that idea of meeting with writers groups! This is true, serious writers struggle to monetise their content and often have to wait until their book is published (and perhaps rush the job for that reason) before they make pay day.
Perhaps some of us could even START writers groups. We wouldn't have to mention that it's a steemit writers group. Just have the logo on the leaflets/posters and when they get talking to the writers they'll hear all about steemit - without that being the focus of the group.
I like your ideas and to take it a step further, here is a map of the Writers MeetUps and other MeetUps throughout the world: https://www.meetup.com/topics/writing/
Writers: 2,010,661 members 4,172 Meetups
Musicians: 2,031,372 members 3,855 Meetups
Artists: 2,909,703 members 4,696 Meetups
etc.
The top 10 groups (see middle of page) would be the best place to start with 100,000+ writers to pull in. We could contact their leaders, but that creates a bottleneck for information flow if the leader is not interested. Ideally, an individual should attend a meeting and address the group in person. Tell them the story and invite people to check out Steemit. What we need is motivation for someone to go to the MeetUp and speak. Perhaps, @ned would provide a "bounty" for successfully completing the mission.
For example, the presenter gives a code to those interested along with a writing assignment to submit something on Steemit. When they submit their post, they send the code along with .001 Steem to a particular account (perhaps the person who distributed the codes and did the inviting) and receive some Steem Power in return and we can track the success of the program by collecting the codes. Technically, the whole process could be administered with a smart contract on the blockchain.
Of course, there are variations of the above. What do you think so far?
I love it. Challenge writers outside steemit. I don't know about volunteering Ned, I'm sure there are lots of users here who could volunteer a bounty or a prize for a challenge as it's in all of our interests to help this baby grow.
Also I think it could be better to work our way up to biggest member meetings. If we start with smaller groups, by the time we get to the bigger ones there will be many people at those meetings who can back up what we've told them and verify it as a legitimate source of revenue for writers. 10 people telling their success stories is much more powerful than one.
I agree with everything you wrote. We could develop a sales plan. Practicing on smaller groups would allow us to gather intelligence on what will and won't work. We can refine our sales pipeline to increase the effectiveness of the campaign.
One problem is that pitching Steemit is not on the MeetUps agenda. They are their to critique each others writing. You could be giving a billion dollars to writers, but that is not what they are interested in there. This is just human psychology and we need to avoid generating any hostility for any reason. I spent many years as a successful salesman and I am familiar with sales techniques.
One idea would be to present a piece of copywriting for their feedback. It would be a flyer processing (attracting) writers and artists to participate in Steemit. Since they are writers, they constitute a "focus group" in a guided discussion of our program to attract talent. If they ask if it is for real, one can respond with: "Absolutely! It is for all writers." The psychology here is that salesmen don't really "sell" anything, but people do "buy".
The proposition is spelled out in the flyer, they have analyzed it as per the procedure of the Writer MeetUp and they can take it or leave it. And importantly, it was all done according to the rules of the game, analyzing a piece of writing. The take away will be the writers' candid feedback on why the program does or does not attract them. They write their feedback on the copywriting flyer and we then use this intelligence to improve our campaign.
Brilliant ideas! I love that concept of not selling, just make it open for them to buy! I believe that's a great strategy. Perhaps it doesn't need to be sneaked into their attention though. It could simply be a writers meetup - advertised on and off steemit - that brings writers from both a local area and steemit to one place. From there, nobody needs to actually pitch steemit, they can simply do what they do at these writers groups - critiquing each others work, but since some of these writers write on steemit, it would naturally just pop up in conversation. Somebody might want to talk about a post that didn't get so many upvotes, somebody might say "I remember reading that on steemit". There may not need to be any sales plan at all. Just getting these people in the same room could spark some interest, and after that, if even one writer from that group joins, they will continue spreading what they gained from steemit at any other writers groups they attend!