Minnow II – Getting Ahead of Myself
I am writing the text of this post well in advance of when I expect to reach my promotion to Minnow II. The topic is a production tip that is seemingly obvious enough that it will doubtlessly be useful to many to hear it stated directly:
Create a buffer of presentable work and release it over time!
There is a prevailing image in which new media stars furiously type up an entry, whenever the inspiration hits, and immediately press the post button. This is just one aspect of the larger misconception that artistically valid expression must be spontaneous, which might simply be considered an aspect of a larger myth of spontaneity. Regardless of how the finished product is meant to appear...
it is almost always preferable to have a plan!
When one does any work in large quantity or over a significant space of time, one inevitably develops workflows to optimize the process. For most creative endeavors, it readily becomes apparent that creation and presentation are separate workflows:
I. Creation
Both my personal temperament and general situation cause my creative outflow to come mainly in isolated bursts. It to those that find this to also be true of themselves that I most directly address this post. Work when you have ample time and proclivity to work. If your project consists of a series of related parts, work on them concurrently or in quick succession.
Store the work you do in a dedicated place (either physical or digital) for easy access; in my case, I compose all my posts in a document titled “STEEM notebook” along with titles and tags ready for the publication phase. I also put assets such as image and video files directly on my desktop or in project folders (also directly on my desktop) until publication, after which I move them to an archive elsewhere on my computer.
One additional note: Proofreading one's own work is best done after a day or so, when one has partially forgotten the writing process, that is: when one will read the words that are actually there, rather than the internal script of what one intends to write. I am adding this paragraph during such a next-day-pass-through.
II. Presentation
I openly admit that I base much of my understanding of how to achieve success as a digital publisher on the work of (the prolific maker of short educational videos) CGP Grey. He speaks in copious detail about how he does what he does on the podcast “Cortex”. I highly recommend that anyone pursuing self employment in the creative fields listen and adapt some of his methods.
As for peculiarities of publishing on the STEEM blockchain, there are myriad “promotion services” on the platform which operate on a system I which, in an earlier post, I have called “Robotic Bribery”. Therefore, my publishing workflow requires that I post at times when I can set aside two or three hours, in order to make the proper offerings to Our Robotic Overlords (and have the necessary amount of SBD set aside for such offerings). Also, since I started delegating to @steem-ua , my posting schedule is constrained around receiving the maximum of my weekly reward from them.
Previous Posts in this Series:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@thebigwhitevan/plankton-i-soft-money-for-robotic-bribery
https://steemit.com/steemit/@thebigwhitevan/minnow-iii-i-honestly-do-or-in-defense-of-financial-masturbation
I was using bidbots, but stopped when they put caps on their payouts. I see the value but instead I'm trying to get votes in other ways. I get some trail votes, sbi, and other repetitive votes. I also post with esteem, busy and share2steem who upvote my posts when I use them.
I completely see your point in having a plan for posting. I post 2-3 post a day on two blogs, so I do not have your luxury of time. I know what I am going to post to for most days and try to hit that mark. If I don't, at least I get some/most of it done.
I also power down weekly to live off this money in the third world, so my growth is nothing like yours. But in this time of low prices, my sp is creeping up, so I cannot complain :)
I recently learned about SBI and have restructured my budgeting strategy to take advantage of it. I have temporarily changed my settings from 100% Power Up to 50/50, in order to have unbound STEEM for buying SBI. I have been choosing people who comment on my posts as the accounts to sponsor (although I have thusfar refrained from advertising this too blatantly).
Through delegation, I use my SP to build a source of sustained residual income. It would be madness for me to power down for any but the most dire reason.
I am glad to hear that, even with the price of STEEM as low as it is, you are able to use this platform to pay your living expenses. It increases my hope that I will some day be able to do the same.
Thank you for posting this. I am still learning how to maximize my reach on steemit. It is my desire to write full time and earn a living from it. I especially like the part about doing proof reading a day or so later. I am now following you. Again thanks for the info.
Buena Amigo
Couldn't agree more. I often find my ability to write comes in bouts, some days I won't have any will to do so at all. I think that's why professional writers usually prefer to get paid by project rather than by hour. Today I'm sitting here after a grand total of 1 hours work. It's not always tenable!
How old the picture and its seem white and black camera
It is from a 1960s television show. The joke I was making with the choice of picture had to do with the name of the ship, "S.S. Minnow".
So you have to appeal to the bots, rather than your followers to get ahead. That's my main concern with Steemit. When I see Actifit reports in trending I scratch my head.
Posted using Partiko Android
Appealing to the bots is not the only way to get ahead. It is probably not the best way. What I can say with almost absolute certainty is that it is the fastest way. At least, that is the case currently.
If the number of active users expands significantly and/or the price of STEEM rises drastically, buying one's way on to the trending page will become much more expensive and difficult. In that case, I see two possibilities: 1. Trending will be solely the domain of those with exceedingly deep pockets. 2. Other promotion methods will gain traction and gradually replace the bid bots in importance.
To the best of my knowledge, all media platforms have some sort of pay-for-play or thumb-on-scale mechanic. This is quite apparent when examining the quality of content in broadcast television and radio. Typically, the system is something I would consider worse than the Robotic Overlords of STEEM. What I mean by "worse" is that an even greater unearned advantage is given to an even smaller group of people.
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