SETTING THE BAR
The nature of Steemit is de-regulated and open to all. This means anyone can post anything, regardless of quality. It’s a beautiful concept and I applaud it. What about the serious writers, though? The ones churning out valuable content and setting the bar for excellence? What if we find a way to reward their contribution to this community and offer them the option of even more exposure through a public digital library?
The Steemhouse Fiction Trail is a curation project started in the Fiction Workshop at the Minnowsupport Discord channel. We are fortunate to have professional authors and editors in that group, people who see a tremendous opportunity for Steemit to impact mainstream publishing. This curation project is the first step toward a much bigger goal. We have already envisioned an independent publishing imprint powered entirely by crypto. This is the time to build momentum, pique interest, and find sponsors willing to get on board the project. Eventually The SFT will generate its own voting strength and be able to offer substantial reward through a simple upvote. For the immediate future, we will appeal to potential investors about helping us offer SBD incentives for curation. This will take time to develop, but we’re starting now.
I’m a moderator at the PALnet @minnowsupport group, and also a “mini-mod” at the Fiction Workshop. The sense of community there is profound. We’re a close-knit group, but also a very welcoming group in the Workshop. We laugh and joke and kick up our heels, but the overall atmosphere is very workmanlike and productive. No promotion of posts is allowed in the Workshop, and spam links get deleted quickly. But if you’re looking for serious feedback about your fiction, it’s the place to be. Some of our mini-mods in that group have decades of experience as professional book critics and editors, along with published novels available at major booksellers. Our workshop isn’t the featherweight corner. If you tell your story instead of show it, we will tell you. If you need to practice Deep POV, we will tell you. If you’re head-hopping, we will tell you. If your grammar and syntax needs so much work that it interferes with your voice, we will tell you that, too. Find us at the Fiction Workshop HERE.
The SFT emerged directly from the Fiction Workshop. The Workshop and the SFT Library are my dedicated projects as PALnet moderator. We are a minnow group in the Fiction Workshop because we’re new to Steemit, not because we’re new to publishing. The MSP Discord channel has several honorary whale members, as well as dolphins and witnesses. So I encourage you—if you’re serious about your fiction, pay us a visit. The only people not welcome are bullies. 😊
See the first curation post from The SFT HERE.