The Arts and Entertainment Section
That's where you'll normally find me.
But how can this be if supposedly there's no market for me when I'm done doing the things I want you to see?
Since I started being a magazine here within the confines of the massive content department store known as Steem, I've been subjected to one of the biggest myths of all time:
There ain't no market for that shit here!
Like the parrots over in the pet department,
people say things like:
- There's no money to be made in fiction here.
- There's no money to be made in the arts here.
- There's no money to be made...
- There's no money to be made...
- There's no money to be made...
- Unless you write about Steem or Crypto.
False!
They've been wrong for three years!
Yes, it's true, the Steem and crypto content pays but that is not the only market in existence here.
In three years, I've seen a lot of people come and go. One of the biggest mistakes a lot of people make: chasing the money.
People hear of this amazing opportunity and the potential. One can self-publish and earn money!
Isn't this exciting!
Many are amateurs, which is fine, because everyone has to start somewhere. They always wanted to publish short stories or write a novel but didn't even know where to begin. Suddenly, everything they need to get the ball rolling is right there in front of them so they jump right in.
Here for a month. Published fifteen poorly formatted short stories and a few chapters. Curie found one, the rest were ignored or overlooked.
This place is broken!
Whales this, circle jerks that, only Steem and crypto matters, can't beat them, join them.
So they put the money first, drop what they're passionate about, and dive headfirst into foreign territory to begin producing Steem and crypto related content, assuming that's the only winning lottery ticket in town.
They've now effectively decreased their chances of ever earning anything. For every one successful Steem or Crypto related publication, there are hundreds of unsuccessful posts. The market is over-saturated. The people who enjoy and curate that content can only consume so much in a day and can't get to everyone. Just because it's at the top, that doesn't mean you'll be at the top.
Many fail to realize those content producers doing well with Steem and crypto content spent a lot of time creating their own market.
Just because the shelves are full, that does not guarantee consumers will buy all the magazines.
One cannot create a market for something like fiction,
if they refuse to place fiction on the shelves.
If fiction was the top performing product, that would not be enough to guarantee success to all those writing fiction.
Sure, you've placed your story on the shelf that gets the most traffic, but you still need to establish your own consumer base.
John likes action and suspense and is one of the biggest supporters of fiction around these parts. You write about rainbows and unicorns so John does not support your work. Mary likes rainbows and unicorns but hasn't discovered you yet.
When you hear veterans of this platform mention grinding, putting in the time and work it takes to grow a genuine and organic following, the fruits of your labor is a growing consumer base.
Along comes Mary.
For nearly everyone who decides to place their product on those shelves, regardless of which shelf they're on, establishing their consumer base is thee biggest challenge they'll have to face, and it never ends.
The consumer base should never stop growing.
Can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. Can't sell tires at the tire shop if you don't stock tires. Can't find readers who enjoy fiction if you don't publish fiction.
Let's revisit the mystical myth again.
"There's no market on Steem for content that isn't about crypto and Steem"
There is demand for content that isn't about crypto and Steem.
Two tribes I truly admire are CreativeCoin and SteemLeo. CreativeCoin is for arts and entertainment, including creative writing like fiction. SteemLeo is where you'll find your crypto content. If there's no market for arts and entertainment, why is the 'creativecoin' tag sitting so high above the 'steemleo' tag in the list of popular tags?
For me, personally, that's all I need to debunk that myth. There is demand, the market exists, but an individual's consumer base cannot be established overnight.
If the market doesn't exist,
create it.
How much demand existed for Splinterlands before Splinterlands existed?
Some shelves are empty so of course the consumer won't be visiting those. You can't be angry with the consumer though if they don't feel like staring into a void, waiting for something to magically appear and begin tickling their fancy.
Doing something nobody else is doing means, eventually, you'll have the entire market to yourself. For instance, if you were the only humorist this platform had to offer, you'd stand out like a boner at a feminist rally.
That's why so many fail when they drop their dreams and enter the nightmare of chasing money. It still takes a long time to catch up to the rest of the pack and even more time to surpass them.
Variety is more important now than ever before.
People and investors, under our current business model, they get paid to be entertained now.
Billions of people consume content and support content every single day.
Providing the consumer with a wide variety of content opens many doors.
From the humourous shit post to the well written essay about quantum physics. The talking head vlogs. The life blogs. Arts and entertainment, music. The hundreds if not thousands of other examples of content I did not list. They all bring value to the platform and potentially more value if the consumer decides to purchase tokens so they can then reap the rewards of being a contributing member of this society by curating the content they enjoy.
Making attempts to appeal to 100% of the world population's desire to be entertained trumps focusing only on the halls and pathways of crypto and Steem. Everything is welcome and all of it can potentially create buy pressure for a lot of different tokens that exist here now and into the future.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist's assistant with a fancy calculator to be able to figure out why a store like Walmart and the variety found there earns far more money than the condom dispenser located inside the men's room of that not so fancy tavern you frequent after work.
Advertisements are also a thing here now and many can agree, the ads help pay the bills and can potentially increase the value of these tokens.
Having plenty of eyes around, all shapes, sizes and colors — that's what you need in order for those ads to do their thing and benefit everyone.
Anyway.
There's money to be made in all content and it doesn't even have to be about that content, that content simply needs to exist.
That is all.
Have a nice day.
So true. So many people come here and try to be like everyone else and don’t do anything to stand out from the crowd.
I used this image as a thumbnail one time to help promote a contest and the 'comedyopenmic' crowd.
That's one way to stand out and get attention. One hell of a lot more effective than buying votes as well.
That will do it
Probably a bad idea if you're attempting to promote something serious though...
No ragrets
Unless you have a serious boner.
Dude. You just earned the You Made Me Laugh Award vote.
I am always glad to receive something so rare and prestigious.
It is a lie that Steem/crypto content gets the votes any differently than other content. Sure, while some get highly rewarded, the majority of crypto/steem stuff gets close or spot on nothing as there is a mountain of it out there. There is no way I can compete with technical content or market content, so I had to create my own space between by mashing life and Steem, creative and photographic and all the other things blended in. If it was so easy to earn writing Steem content, everyone would be
doingearning from it.Make your place, earn your place.
"Make your place, earn your place."
I like that one.
There are plenty of common misconceptions out there. As I said in the post, that market is over-saturated and if people jump in thinking something like generic information will get them places, without ever adding in their own personal touch, they're in for a world of hurt. Then it turns into posts about how the platform is broken.
Once that consumer base is established, one can branch out into all kinds of things. Some people follow my blog for the art, some like the writing, some like the humor, some like posts like this one. Then there are those who like it all. Shit, dude, I've even tried my hand at poetry, yet I'm still afraid to call myself a poet. LOL! I called myself an artist here before I took the time to show off some of my skills though...
Establishing the base is the time consuming part most aren't willing to go through. Of course, most aren't artists, entrepreneurs, traders, developers, creative... People have to find their own thing.
Time consuming and damn never every move you make contributes to it. Even these comment sections and conversations. One might gain a new follower for life for something they said in response to someone else, who also gained the same follower, for something they did or said. Time well spent, if building the base is something you want.
Everyone has their own thing. I don't even write about a lot of the things that make me. You had no idea I like golf and fishing.
haha true yep!! :]
I try to limit my posting on Steem to once every week or two.
I can make more money an hour flipping burgers than dancing for the whales.
If I could only do both.
Someone needs to stream their menial job on 3speak or whatever it is.
I'd upvote, especially if it was a job like toll booth or parking lot attendant, the kind of jobs where people get flashed by perverts. Or a street cleaner who has to be careful not to throw away people's
boxeshomes.I haven't published much content for SteemLeo. I did this and another one recently. More than 90% of my work is more suitable for the CreativeCoin crowd. I was planning to write a bit more about branching out, once your consumer base is established but this post was long enough. Art, fiction, humor, rants, business, life. I'm all over the map now. Something for everyone. I'd like to dabble in some photography. Wouldn't mind creating some Moto-vlogs as well.
Some reality streams you say? That actually does sound interesting.
Branching out is fun. I'm alllover the place.
Steem.Leo is good, but it is still 90% crypto or similar schemes. I want to see investing. I'm not talking about Jed and his chickens or Billy and his garage sale. I'm talking financial products.
Moto vlogs sounds interesting. There used to be a car guy here. No vlogging. But I'd watch someone struggle to change a flat on the side of a busy highway during a blizzard or lightening storm. You can also try a sexy car wash. Or maybe you have some other ideas.
Maybe Ill live strem several hours of my frog. Y'all can bet on home many times he comes up to breath during the stream as he usually doesn't do much when I'm not around (well I don't know but my viewers can help me answer)
Reality is great especially if condensed.
I spend a lot of time here messing around, being that artist dude. It's all a business though and behind the scenes here I'm still taking things quite seriously. I like to present this business element of blogging to SteemLeo community and everyone else as well. SteemLeo, by the looks of things, has made it incredibly hard to reach the highest slots on their trending page though. Have to break through the official and curator accounts with high value posts, but I still like the challenge.
When it comes to content though, in general, there are so many options. Those who chase the money or become copycat artists make their lives so much harder than they need to be. That's everywhere though. Look at Youtube. You'll see those popular acts, then way down and out of sight, there are people emulating the talent, with 10 views to their name. Mr. Bean took a selfie one day. Now everyone does it.
I also saw steem.leo early. They continually improve and it seems we can both see potential. Sadly, I didn't get an airdrop because I dumped my Pal seeing no potential there. I used to get curated by them early on, but I backed off for a bit because I just got bored of writing that content. I lurk and cirate and will be back.
I don't see steem as a business. I've invested enough to keep interested. I create and curate mostly as a hobby. My Steem Power is my subscription fee for consuming I guess.
My blog earnings I suppose are compensation for my loss of investment due to price decline. It will take a couple more months and I think I'll be square. But I'm in no rush and I didn't expect such a decline.
Just buying more would be the easy way out. I guess I see a challenge in earning it back.
I find maximizing ROI here abhorrent, unless its from a result of damn good content creation or forging connections and reputation and engagement as you are doing.
That one has a lot of potential for sure and those improvements sure do look shiny. People like shiny.
I nearly missed out on the PAL airdrop. My account was inactive while I took leave and went places that didn't even have an internet connection. I arrived a few weeks prior to the inception of all of these fancy new tribes. Found out I wasn't on the list and I'm lucky I peacefully and calmly pointed that out, then waited patiently. Soon enough they got back to me. I staked that the moment I got it, plus traded for some more as well. The SteemLeo airdrop was totally unexpected and since I built up my PAL stake, I got a decent pile, which I staked. I just like the idea of getting paid to be entertained so if I can make my vote more powerful with other tokens, I'm getting more back. It's a good deal. I like it.
I didn't expect the decline either. I think I purchased some token at around $4. Kicking myself for that one. Can't predict the future though. I'd buy more today if I had some fun money but I'm saving cash like I save my crypto.
I've been sticking to my original plan I developed within the first two weeks after arriving here. It's a four year plan of just doing my thing. I guess I'll see where things lead. One more year to go before I make a new decision.
It's interesting for me to read this. I got my PAL airdrop and more but I'm not really sure what it is or what I do with it. At some point I'll read one of those Steem posts that probably explains it...
Wow! So inspiring, thanks for sharing it, I needed it
You're welcome!
You're a great artist I see. Following you now!
Thank you, my friend, Following you too.
That's fine...
There is no money after all :)
We're 'bout the networKING :D
your topic is worth doing it!!!
Certainly can't expect to have sales in a department store without a network of roads leading to it!
I'm trying to not post too much about Steem/crypto and am not giving big votes to posts about it as I want to encourage more creative content. There is a lot of it here, but much of it makes cents. If a few whales could be more patrons of the arts it would help. Some of them are getting votes from the new (or some older) curation services and that's great. The market for posts about crypto is probably much smaller than the one for comics. We each get to use our vote as we think best.
There are quite a few taking the same approach as you. I focus a lot on the arts and entertainment as well because that content, behind the scenes, takes a lot of work. It's easy to write an opinion, especially when the thoughts are drilling a hole into your head and the words come out like talking.
The overall worldwide market for comics is indeed much larger than crypto. I think the entire entertainment industry makes more money in one year than what all of crypto is worth. That's why I feel it's so important to embrace these things here, put that stuff up to the top, so we can attract regular consumers willing to purchase tokens much like they would if they bought a movie or a book or subscription, to support the content, as they do anyway.
I use comics as an example, but we have a good core of people here in that field. We also have a lot of musicians. Steem seems a great way to get money to creative people as you can vote them some rewards as you consume their art. The 7 day limit is a bit of a pain for that, but I hope we can find ways to work with it.
We also have outsider artists like me! I also do comic like characters. Have you seen them? I don't think the comic community pays much attention to me, because of the unorthodox approach, maybe? That's okay though.
Have you heard of my #showcasesunday? The basic premise is to take old work and rework it into new posts somehow.
I have seen some of your art and it's great that you have your own style. We don't have to conform to what others expect. One of the great things about the internet is that you can reach out to the whole world to find your particular audience. I am not sure if I had seen the tag. Do you have a post about it?
The style is constantly evolving but I think a lot of folks can recognize it and know it's mine without seeing my name next to it. Some folks like it, some don't, that's the life I signed up for and I still enjoy it. I admire this platform because I can use humor or fiction or just random life ramblings and those words double as marketing; they help brings eyes to the art. Don't have to be a sellout.
I do have a post:
https://steemit.com/life/@nonameslefttouse/still-pissed-off-about-that-time-you-did-something-awesome-and-nobody-noticed
So far quite a few people have tried it out. Two even hit top 10 trending slots. People are being creative in how they present this old work for the second go. The one thing I don't want to see is folks copy/paste an exact duplicate, because if it didn't work the first time, it would be wise to improve it the second time. And of course sometimes our posts get overlooked early on, yet we worked our butts off. That's the same struggle everyone goes through at the start, so with something like this, all is not lost.
I think when people write about what they are truly interested in it shows.
I also think every one should upvote what they like, ignore what they don't like unless they think it is harmful and then downvote it.
I'm tired of everyone deciding what everyone else should or shouldn't write about. :)
I agree with you. If I was giving specific advice to anyone when it comes to what to write about I'd just say go for it. Do whatever. I truly see value in majority of it, when produced by someone with good intentions. There's a bit of fine print there. Life has to come with a disclaimer these days for some strange reason. I certainly don't support things like spam, plagiarism, whatever, you get it. I also have my own tastes and value some more than others but that doesn't mean I can't accept the fact what I don't like is still valuable to someone else.
When I started here I never thought I'd be writing about the platform, some of the local politics, the potential, the business side of things. That's just something I became interested in over time. It grew on me.
Yes, your fine print is good. Don't steal stuff and pretend it is yours. If you want to share a link, share it, but maybe say why...
Sing, dance, paint, make a joke or a meme, if you are sharing something say where and why...
Reminds me of Kindergarten... Share and keep your hands to yourself. :)
I remember my first day of Kindergarten. A kid handed me a plane to play with, then said I was doing it wrong and took it away...
Downvoted.
I don't think you should have written this.
And you shouldn't have responded.
Another social fail.
Being organic and diversifying your content has helped her to provide a better magazine. I've always tried to do my own thing and not follow the crowd. You offer wise words thanks for sharing
It's good to be all over, provided your own personality exists within each thing you try. For instance, it wouldn't make much sense for me to write about world politics, since I don't really pay much attention to these things. I see a lot of folks, everywhere not just here, they try to emulate and just end up regurgitating the views of others, rather than providing their own perspective. If I already heard it on the mainstream news, it's kind of silly to hear it again from someone who yesterday wrote an essay about ducks.
It took me 6 months to finally look at steem as anything but a waste of my time. Finally @tarazkp nagged enough and I got onto the platform. That was over 2 years ago and I've posted 1.5 times a day on average since. So...
I post for myself and enjoy what I write about generally. The variety of things I post about mirror what's in my head, my day or week, or my past sometimes I guess too. My posts reflect my interests in real life also I guess. I de-monetised it in my mind a long time ago which is probably why I'm still here and know that most do not read my posts and so...I post for myself. If I get sick of it, like I did with Facebook, I'll stop and curate only probably. For now though it works and I'm hopeful that it lasts into the future.
I have a few people who interact and that, plus the enjoyment of writing and posting, is the focus. The other stuff is secondary.
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This place needs more nags like that @tarazkp. I've brought a few in both directly and indirectly by sharing my links in special places. Some stay, some go. Many don't have the time and I've been pushing hard to explain this concept of earning to consume now, since most consume anyway, and earn nothing. I really really really hope this catches on.
It wasn't long ago I was struggling here, monetarily. I did the same as you. Stopped thinking about the pay. Still the same way. A gig as a digital artist would pay a lot more, a job even more than that, but I enjoy this freedom to experiment and just being here doing my thing means a lot to me. I get tired and when that happens, I take a break. Just came back from a week off, curated the entire time.
I haven't taken a break yet. I think I missed a day or two here and there but have mostly kept on going. I'll take one someday, when I have nothing to say.
I've on-boarded two here, both didn't last. I gave up. People seem too blinded by getting paid to take the time to build themselves up to it.
When my words fail me, I have the art to fallback on. When they're both gone, I'm gone, until I can come back. I left for quite a few months not long ago to catch up on a lot of the life I was missing being inside a digital art studio nearly every spare minute I had, for months straight. Been trying to find a good balance lately. Sticking around because I want to help as much as I can keeping this place moving forward. I want to see what these communites and smts are all about as well. Might be some getting in early advantages there I don't want to miss.
Same problem with a few I've brought in. The junk posts pushed high with paid votes turned a few away as well. It's not easy to be something like a slow typer and somewhat of an amateur, spending days on something that might take me only a few hours, earning a dime, while someone with a meme gets $80 and no views. Been trying to bring a few back that left during the paid votes fiasco but many are reluctant.
Yeah,I hear you...Those high-paid memes...And then someone puts in some real work and gets nothing. A bit of a turn off for new people. Still, let's see what the future holds.
Posted using Partiko Android
The past is where we learn for the future.
Something like that. Sounded better in my head...
Nah, that actually sounds legit. Makes sense.
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Very rarely do I even read a post if it's about crypto or STEEM.. I'm more interested in the people.. entertaining them.. keeping them smoking..
Plenty of people here and we all have different tastes. Can't have a peanut butter sandwich without peanut butter.
Whatever that means...
Damn, there was some fire in this post. I like it.
This is the truth though. I like to think a lot of my writing at times but when the edible haze fades, I realize that I am essentially a desk chair philosopher with a counter-culture/"druggie" spin. There is nothing wrong with that but it is never going to more than a niche market. However, I did manage to find that niche and build a cozy little blog there and it seems to be growing beyond all my expectations.
This shit takes effort. Some people are lucky and find an audience right away and some of us have to grind and sweat to make this work. Anyone who chases what is popular in an attempt to earn is just trying to take an easier path when there is none.
Thanks for the much needed pep-talk. :)
- "a somewhat burned-out writer"
😄😇😄
