July brings a critical milestone for Steemhouse Publishing. It marks the end of our first major bookstore tour, which covered many major cities on the East Coast of the U.S. We call it a “bookstore” tour rather than a “book” tour, because we did not focus on author events like book signings or readings at this time. Instead, we shook hands with as many booksellers, librarians, and industry influencers as we could, laying the groundwork for a grass-roots marketing strategy that we hope will lead not only to sales, but to long-term relationships with real people who can connect our writers to real-world readers.
It seems to be working. Let us explain why.
For those unfamiliar with Steemhouse Publishing, a quick recap may be in order. Our team emerged from the @thewritersblock, a now-defunct community that imploded after much internal conflict and leadership failures. Sounds harsh? Hey, no need to beat around the bush. It happened.
Things changed in November of 2018 when @michelios audited the Writers’ Block presentation at Steemfest and quietly began assessing our business model.
actual footage of Michel at the SF3 presentation alongside @ezzy
Michel spent the next few months lurking in the Discord community and finally stepped into a leadership role in February of 2019. He is now co-owner of Steemhouse Publishing, LLC., alongside @rhondak, and under their direction the company is quickly becoming established in the publishing mainstream.
What is Steemhouse Publishing?
Steemhouse Publishing is an independent book publisher with a focus on quality fiction. We intend to build a thriving online community of writers, editors, and skilled creatives capable of mentoring authors from their very first attempt at fiction all the way to publication. Because the company is rooted on the Steem blockchain, we have the ability to generate income in both cryptocurrency and FIAT environments. This gives us an edge when it comes to affording aggressive promotion of our authors.
Our bookstore tour is an example of this. We applied a certain formula to our process, the same formula that was carefully crafted as far back as Steemfest 3 when the Writers’ Block still existed. First, we ensured the manuscript and final product was of the highest quality possible. This was done through stringent professional editing, formatting, and cover design. Then, we purchased bulk ISBNs that ping back to Steemhouse, not to a distribution service like Amazon. Finally, we obtained ringing endorsements from recognizable and relevant people and got a Kirkus review.
Kirkus?
If the name “Kirkus” doesn’t immediately register, we recommend that you give it a Google. (Start here: https://www.tckpublishing.com/4-important-book-publications/) Love them or hate them, Kirkus cranks out professional reviews that are considered the gold standard by most industry booksellers and publishers. A Kirkus review can destroy a book’s chance of success as well as launch the career of an unknown author. They tend to be hypercritical, to the point, and unforgiving. For this reason, those “in the know” take them quite seriously, since there is very little chance that Kirkus will endorse a book that doesn’t well exceed industry standards.
In May, our Steemhouse debut novel, High Kill, scored an overwhelmingly positive review from Kirkus. Then last month, we received an email from Kirkus notifying us that High Kill had also been selected as a featured book in the Kirkus online trade publication. This was at no cost to us and not per our request. They simply chose our novel because of the excellent review and felt it represented their brand well. Fun fact: fewer than ten percent of indie or small press novels published worldwide are accepted into the Kirkus online magazine. It is primarily Top Five real estate (the “top five” NYC publishers) and highbrow exclusive. Yet there we are, and we could not be more proud.
Keep two things in mind. One, High Kill was written, edited, formatted, designed, and published entirely by Steemians. Not one word, design, or creative implementation was outsourced. Two, the name “Steemhouse Publishing” references directly to our home blockchain and features prominently in the quarter-page ad that will appear in the August 1, August 15, and Sept 1 print editions of the Kirkus trade publication. How’s that for “real-world” exposure for Steem?
It will take a bit of time for High Kill to cycle through all the promotions and ads and hit the bookshelves, then find its way into readers’ hands and hopefully onto a few bestseller lists. In the meanwhile we will continue reaching out to booksellers with a UK tour coming up this fall. We also have a second novel in the pipeline as well as some big plans for a Steem book club to promote reader engagement, and possibly a system of book sales, lending, and re-selling that utilizes cutting-edge blockchain technology. Stay tuned right here on this blog for updates. We’ll tag related posts with a fiction tag, a writing tag, a publishing tag, and of course, our steemhousepub tag, so be sure to watch for them.
Michel and Rhonda at a Bitcoin Pizza party in Long Island, NY, to celebrate the anniversary of Bitcoin's famous 80 Million-Dollar Pizza.
VLOGS from the Road
From May until the first of July, Michel Q and Rhonda K traveled heavily throughout the eastern U.S. introducing Steemhouse to as many industry folks as possible. You can watch highlights from the trip at the following links. Some of the videos are long, but they are a form of documentation, not infomercials or entertainment. Except for the gag reel footage--that’s pretty entertaining.
Hey, nobody ever said work couldn’t be fun!
Gatlinburg
Savannah
Cape May
Eastern Virginia
Richmond
Pensacola
High Kill can be viewed and purchased at the following links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Ingram Spark (with an account):
Huge congrats on such great work getting Steemhouse into the real-world publishing industry. Not an easy task. I know you’ve been working tirelessly, and I hope the UK tour is a sparkling success for Steemhouse Publishing! Good luck! 🎉
yes ! we are definitely getting a lot done, and we'll come back with more in the future
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Yep, we've been busy busy busy! And I agree--Michel and I are a great team. We've gotten more done together than I ever would have dreamed about doing without him.
That is such an achivement 😉👍 Congrats on The Great rewiews and I can only imagine The amount of work behind. Mad Respect! ❤️
Thank you for sharing this in #pypt
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Yah! The bridges built between the blockchain and new users are awesome and the key to a thriving community. When those bridges are being walked back and forth by authors, well that is just even better.
I love it! Pimed nicely! #pypt
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What an achievement! I really do wish you continued success in the future. I am so glad you shared your project with #PYPT. It is inspiring to hear of the work that the two of you are doing.
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found in #PYPT channel in discord, going to read it later, I'm still on the show..but I resteemed it, sorry not to upvote as of now, I'm drained..maybe tomo
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I had only seen these individual few dtubes before so I wasn't really up to speed what this was actually all about.
It's nice to get some background here and kudos for your accomplishments there, carry the steem-flag high and more power to you!
Thanks for sharing on #pypt!
It has been reeeeeally difficult to travel and network and still produce quality content to post. So we've struggled. But we're moving into a new phase now, and I'm glad to know our first attempt to provide cohesive information is reaching readers! :-)
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Congratulations on your good reviews! Super amazing to see how far you folks have come!
Congratulations on your recent success. Perhaps Steemhouse Publishing will turn out to be a good litmus test for the use of Smart Media Tokens once they are up and running? And, just maybe, this new paradigm will provide a compelling alternative to the big established players.
Yep. Exactly what you just said. :-)
Jazzed at how well you've done, @rhondak, and how much you and Michel have accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
And congrats on the great Kirkus review! So clearly I'm not the only one who couldn't put the damned thing down!!! ;-)
Here's to even greater success down the road! Big things to come.
@jayna brought a copy of the compilation to @thealliance Block Party in Colorado, and it looks great!
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The compilation? The book?
It’s a different entity, @crescendoofpeace.
Yeah, Steemhouse has nothing to do with that. At all.
The Steemhouse workproduct can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/High-Kill-Diane-Ryan/dp/1733604006/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=high+kill&qid=1562269506&s=gateway&sr=8-5
Here:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/high-kill-diane-ryan/1131509762?ean=9781733604024
Here:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/high-kill
And here (with an account):
https://www.ingramspark.com/bookstore
With the Kirkus review found here:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/diane-ryan/high-kill/
My mistake. Thanks for the clarification.
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CONGRATULATIONS!
Wow there is so much awesome work going on and I wouldnt have an idea unless I'd come across this on pypt.
I like how something so valuable is moving from just steem to IRL. I wish you all so much luck and a huge success!
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Without a doubt, PYPT is one of the best initiatives on Steem. It has brought more people together and provided more information about critical issues through witness chats and community participation than almost any other project in the history of this blockchain. And yep! Steem --> IRL is the future. Rock on, Blind Spot!
even if shadowspup is a bit of a PITA eh
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Shadowspub? A PITA? NEVAAAAAHHHHHH. . . .
you missed the spelling LOL
Oh gosh, I DID!!!!! Haaaaahahahaha! Shadowspup! The typo that started it all. LOLOL!
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Visited Cape May, New Jersey? I grew up in South Jersey but have not been there in years. I am glad for you that everything is going well with your promotions of the Steem Publishing House.
As that is keeping you so very busy, I guess Glory will have to take care of the homestead. Thank you for keeping us updated on your adventures on the #PYPT Podcast.
Glory has disappeared. I wish her the best but fear the worst. Ah well, she had a good five years here.
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Hi sgt-dan the SHADE tokens are on the way.
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Hi @steemhousepub!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.835 which ranks you at #12334 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 13 places in the last three days (old rank 12347).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 154 contributions, your post is ranked at #30.
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Excellent story! I'm wishing you all much success as you continue your publishing journey, on behalf of @blockurator and @gardengnomepubs.
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