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  1. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    Your thoughts: Idea for a new format and a new source of incomes

    Discussion in 'Writing Software and Hardware' started by Flooo, Dec 13, 2018.

    Hi Everyone!

    I would like to share with you an idea of platform i'm working on, i would love to get your comments about it and possibly give me some directions to make it better.

    Here is the plot: On my website you can create a fictional character then write his daily life, the style is up to you, blog, diary, journal for exemple. So the idea is to write everyday a new piece of his life, that can be few times a week or several times a day, as you wish. There are only two rules, write in first person and write in the chronological order. The character can be whoever you want, whenever you want.
    There is a support system included in the core of the project, we want writers to be able to get revenues from it, the idea is to let readers enter in the life of your character, only the last publication will be locked for a duration of 24h, people can subscribe to your character for $1/month to get it in real time (if the story is absorbing enough they will want to see the last publication and also support your work to get more of it.).

    Thoughts:

    - It can be ideal to test a character / universe you have in mind before writing a longer story or a book.
    - It could be great to generate some extra revenues with a spinoff of one of successful work.
    - It's great for beginners, make them write every day, engage with readers and it's frictionless to publish the first piece.
    - You will be able to engage more with readers by finishing a publication with a multiple choice, so they can decide the direction of your story, it could be a funny exercise to write "in live".
    - More tiers for support will be available later, for example $3/month to unlock bonus around the character.

    A beta will be available soon, in the meantime i would be more than happy to get some feedback and critics from the community!

    Cheers :)
    Florent

    (sorry for my frenglish)
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I don't see the income element of this as realistic, and the income element seems to be your primary focus. There are infinite schemes for making money on the Internet, and few of them work.

    I think that you need to figure out a model that would be fun/interesting/motivating even if the writer never makes a penny.
     
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  3. Artifacs

    Artifacs Senior Member

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    Sounds interesting, First question: why the first person narration restriction? Is there any particular reason to reject the third person POV?
    :pop:
     
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  4. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    Hi Artifacs, good question indeed, in fact i was a long debate with people around me but my point is that i want to avoid to be a new "stories" platform. I want this format to be original and closer to something like a social network, more alive, where the characters engage directly with their audience, the idea is to create a strong link between the characters and the readers, characters that can be on the moon while writing or living in 1763. And i think that some constraints can be a good stimulus for creativity, Twitter without the 140 characters limitation would have been no more than an other Blogger :)
     
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  5. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    I could totally add a setting so a writer can make the publications free.

    In fact, what matters most for me is the quality of the content for the readers and i think that being able to write professionally on the platform will really improve the general quality while giving a new way for writers to live from what they like. Patreon is working well and it would be a mix between freemium and patronage. Maybe i'm totally mistaking and i'm happy to have your opinions on that.
     
  6. Carriage Return

    Carriage Return Member

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    I hear "Wattpad" took years to get up and going... and even still.
     
  7. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I think that the primary issue is getting readers. How will you do that?
     
  8. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I R Conffused...:bigconfused:

    How does someone subscribe to a character?
    This is writing, and characters in that media
    do not become real entities unless the creator
    writes about them.
    I don't follow what you are trying to do with this.
    But for a moddest 50k$ a piece you can buy the
    rights to my characters and do what you like.
    Sounds fair, and I will see a profit in the end. :p
     
  9. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    As long as there's no cost to the writer, and the site does all the marketing, it's worth a try.
     
  10. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    We have an extensive experience in media buying, we plan to start by buying traffic from mainstream platforms like Facebook, Reddit where reading lovers are easy to target, also from specialized websites that sell advertising. I also hope that experienced writers with a built base of followers will generate their own traffic as they do toward the online platforms where they sell ebooks in order to build a new follower and supporter base around their character. If the model starts to work we will add a referral program/affiliation (which is my personal expertise) to get even more visibility. Traffic generation and growth hacking is part of what we do since long time :)

    Imagine a character as someone on Instagram, he has a dedicated account with a feed of publications. So anyone can "follow" a character and then his publications, similar to a social network.

    You're more then welcome to develop your character through the platform and try to get those 50k$ from it :p If writers arrive with a nice project we are more then happy to give them some visibility and push their work on our media buying campaigns!

    Indeed it's totally free for the writer.

    As was saying @ChickenFreak earlier, it's first all about finding a format that's working for both writers and readers, without that there is no business model possible, this project is a bet and will maybe never find his public but i thought it was worth to try and to include a viable business model for everyone from the beginning. I really feel that writing is under-rewarded today and very few online platforms provide a solution to this problem.
     
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  11. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    There are so many people chasing readers. There are so many books, and so many of them are practically free. Why would a reader read your site instead of one of these sources?

    And if a writer is already successful enough to have a base of followers, why is he giving some of the resulting possible income to you? (I assume that your site is taking a cut.) And if you're accepting just any writer, then most of the writing is going to be pretty bad.

    I'm still not "getting" it.
     
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  12. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    I wouldn’t do it, because of three concerns:

    1. Who owns the rights to the characters I create? I’ll bet it wouldn’t be me.

    (ETA) 2. How much control would I have in my character, or the words he/she says becoming a piece of Merch? Am I going to log on to write something to discover an artist-rendered version of my character emblazoned on a tee-shirt with my having no say in it?

    And if I did own the full rights to the character:

    2. Creating a character in enough rich detail to make people want to subscribe to the character would constitute “previously published” therefore eliminating any possibility of using that character in anything I’d want to have traditionally published, as well as potentially making copyright registration difficult (I’m not an attorney but it could constitute “public performance “) if I wanted to register the copyright before self-publishing. So, I’m out.

    ETA: 3. You’ve joined this Forum with no information in your profile, so none of us know who the fuck you are or anything about you, and you’re asking us to create content for you and consider entering into a financial / business arrangement with you using our content. You could have the best intentions in the world, but none of us has any way of knowing that, because we don’t know anything about you. Transparency, please.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2018
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  13. David Lee

    David Lee Member

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    This.
     
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  14. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    The readers would be willing to pay for the good stories and the bad ones won't get traction, the natural selection will occur like on every premium platform i guess. We will provide a technical platform, support, marketing, traffic, as all existing platform, it's our part of the work and could provide a new source of readers and incomes which should be appealing enough to bring writers on it i hope.

    There are interesting points, thank you.

    About the rights yes you keep the full rights of all the content published, the terms of the service will be very clear about that.

    That's a good point, could it be possible to make the copyright registration before creating the character on the platform so you keep the full exclusivity on it?

    About who i am i'm not sure how to share more as i don't have a public website running at the moment. I'm not asking to sign a contract with me i'm just sharing an idea that i hope can be useful for the community, if the website arrives online there will be a clear presentation of the team and also terms of use that will make everything totally transparent. I'm Florent, 35 yo and 17 years working on internet, we don't know us yet but we have to start somewhere.. :) I'm coming here very humble and i'm really not trying to take advantage of you. I'm a big reader and i did some amateur writing myself but i admit i'm not an expert in your domain this is why i thought it would be the best place to get some constructive feedbacks about this idea.

    Edit: i quicky updated my profile.
     
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  15. Artifacs

    Artifacs Senior Member

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    Second question: Let's say, for instance, that I have a male character I want to write about. Does he must to talk about his daily or weekly endeavours and chat with the readers and things like that like in a social network?.
     
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Why would the readers be willing to pay for the good stories? There's an infinity of free reading out there--and much of it has already been edited and gone through some sort of quality gate.

    That's the critical point: Traffic. Why do you think that you can provide traffic?

    Your plan depends on there being a very large number of people who are so desperate for fiction to read that they're willing to work their way through tons of really bad writing, and pay for the privilege(?) in the hope that they'll find some good writing. Even if I've misunderstood and they don't have to pay for the bad writing, they still had to "pay" for it in terms of time.

    They can either go to a bookstore and pay for an edited book that has been through some editorial selection gateways, or they can go on Amazon and pay little to nothing for a self-published book. Or they can read fanfiction for free. Why would they reject these options in favor of your site?

    But first publication rights will be used up. They're gone.

    You shouldn't need to ask that question. You should know. You should be spending a great deal of time with an expensive and experienced intellectual property attorney.

    You're talking to writers. I urgently suggest that you take the trouble to capitalize your 'I's and otherwise proof your writing.
     
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  17. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Your intention is to kidnap a selection of our digital personas/and retain these icons for ransom, masked or otherwise, in your Bastille prison[?] Below see pictorial representation of this jail garnered from web research. Nobody must fall for your schemes, and we must save the little people already enslaved in your captivity:

    iiiiiiiiiii,iiiii

    A single comma shared between your victims. And below, again, is a representation of you as YOU eat our fresh money, the heads of writers at your feet:

    I........
     
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  18. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    The style you decide to use in the publications is up to you, it could be a personal diary or journal where the character writes for himself, it could be something more like a blog or even more interactive like some social media publications. In the comments section, the writer will post in his own name and not in the name of the character.


    I think people are willing to pay for the same reason they pay for books or ebooks, if the quality is there they will do it.

    We know for sure how to buy targeted traffic, then the retention of the reader depends on the success the format gets.

    I don't say they will for sure, it's a try, every successful website had to jump in the unknown at some point and for sure a lot never got traction, the fact is that new format are still appearing like Hooked with their chat stories but you're right, the readers decide, not me, we will just propose something.

    It's the exact reason I'm here, to find the good questions to ask. I already have a lawyer but will search for a specialized one.

    It's not my native language, I'm French, I do my best, by chance at least you don't have to endure my accent :)
     
  19. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    Beautifully said :D But there are no schemes here, everybody is free to come and go as they want.

    ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
     
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  20. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    That's a very optimistic, and IMO incorrect, belief. You're not addressing the fact that readers will have to invest many, many hours to find these quality stories--and they won't have any assurance that there are any quality stories at all.

    Why would they do this? You're ignoring my questions. Why would a reader do this instead of buying a book, getting a library book, or reading the tons of free fiction already on the web? What makes this better? Why is the reader terribly eager to spend hours and hours reading amateur writing, instead of reading something else? If he's already reading amateur writing, why would he stop reading amateur writing for free, and rush to your site to pay for the privilege?

    "Targeted traffic" means that someone may land on your site. That doesn't mean that there will be anything worth staying for.

    Most of those successful websites did some serious thinking about why someone would use that site. You don't seem to have answered that question at all. Your answer seems to be, "Because it's got fiction!" or "Because writers will make money!" Countless places have fiction. Why is your site BETTER than those countless places? Countless schemes claim they'll make you money. Why is your site the rare place that will make that come true?

    There are tons of places where people can post their amateur writing. Your main distinction seems to be that on your site, they can charge for it. But readers aren't saying, "Wow, I wish this weren't free. I want to have to PAY to read!" Charging to read isn't going to attract readers.

    You need something that will attract readers. Not something that will lure them into clicking once and landing on your site. You need something that makes them want to stay, and return.
     
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  21. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Most of those successful sites and apps also make their money through ad revenue. My biggest concern with this person’s concept isn’t that it wouldn’t be successful, but rather that it very well could be, and that his site would make tons of money from ad revenue, with the writers—who would be providing all the content—earning zilch. Then of course eventually there’d be premium levels writers could sign up for and pay for the priveledge of staying broke—-errr, to “boost” their stories...Yeah, I’ve seen this rodeo before.

    (Edited to add a missing word.)
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2018
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  22. Flooo

    Flooo New Member

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    I don't answer exactly your question for the simple reason that I don't read the future, I can't exactly say why that could catch up neither IF that can. As I said we will try something, see how that works and make it evolve through the feedbacks of users, we have time, we have good developers and we are very open-minded, a website is like a painting, we start from some drafts that we have in mind and then follow the flow of data collected to shape it better. Someone that can tell you before launch exactly how his new concept will work and retain customers is either a liar or delusional.

    However what I can say about why it COULD work is:

    - It WILL be free, just limited with some mechanisms that push readers to pay a small amount to get more content, which is a vastly used strategy on the internet (even in tapas.io for some novels, Wattpad is entering this system too), it's also about supporting the writers we like, it's not only a cold financial transaction.
    - The format is new, it's a risk and could be a flop but it could bring something fresh that's no existing somewhere else, so this is one of our unique proposals.
    - Writers, amateur or professional will communicate to push their existing followers to discover their work on our website, so we gain visibility from trusted sources (once again in the case the new format is a success)
    - The content will be ranked through algorithms like all the big platform so the interesting and popular content will be pushed on top to avoid endless research for our readers, it's classic UX optimization.

    So the main reason people will stay is the new format, as it's unique we have an obvious unique proposal in comparison with other existing stories platform. Once again I don't know yet if this format will be a success or not.

    At least we agreed on that one :)

    There won't be advertising at all, I'm against that for many reasons, in fact, the amount paid monthly by a reader will be split 70/30%, 70% for the writer, all fees being included in our part. It's a very transparent system and we want to avoid advertising because it can't generate enough money to pay decently the writers while being annoying for the readers. We want a simple, fair and transparent model working for all writers the same way, no privileged.
     
  23. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    .... sigh.

    Allow me to make this final suggestion: READ

    If you had done so, you would know that threads such as this concerning offsite ventures are a no-no in our forum. I don't think you mean any harm, but research (reading) is key. We are all writers trying to get our tiny place at the table. We are also readers, obviously, but when we come to this venue we're wearing our writer hat.

    Many members have already mentioned that there are countless venues where one can receive this kind of service for free. I would make your query there, where readers are engaging as readers, not writers, and are thus your target audience, engaging as your target audience. Archive forums. That's where you want to go. Places like Wattpad, like FFN, like AO3. Those are the people you want to talk to and find out from them what would get them to pay rather than just getting it free.

    :closed:
     
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