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.
