Hey everyone, I'm lightnovelist, an aspiring light novel writer.
After reading LNs like SAO, Log Horizon, Mahouka and especially Overlord, I became inspired to write my own web/light novels. There are thriving communities of LN readers in China and Japan, with many popular authors and titles. Yet there doesn't seem to be ANY LN culture for English readers at all. English readers will have to read LNs translated from Chinese or Japanese, and after publishers like Yen Press licenses a particular title, us English readers basically won't ever be able to finish reading the series because Yen is so slow.
So how does an aspiring LN writer with no established fan base and existing LN culture start building an audience? Well, Steem seems to be the perfect platform for content creators who are just starting out and does not have their first 1000 true fans yet.
You see, there are many benefits that Steem brings to aspiring content creators, whether you're an author, a photographer, a blogger, or whatever else, that you can't find anywhere else.
First of all, you can get paid while offering your content for free. This is huge for content creators without an established fan base, because even if people stumble across your work, why would they spend money on some unknown work they don't know will be good or not? Yet, giving away your work for free is also problematic, because not many people can spend months and months without any income, just trying to build a fan base that may or may not be fruitful. Steem allows content creators to offer their content for free, to let potential fans see the content for themselves, and decide whether they would like to support the content creator. At the same time, content creators can also be rewarded for their free content. Fans can also contribute and help content creators they like without having to spend money. It's win-win.
But the other thing that really sets Steem apart from other media platforms like facebook, twitter or youtube, is that Steem is still a growing community. This is really important for new content creators, because they won't be lost in all the noise, like they would be if they were using one of the big platforms. The big platforms are already dominated by a number of extremely famous content creators. While we are seeing this beginning to happen in Steem as well, it is still young enough that aspiring content creators can still have a decent chance of being found.
With thousands of new users joining everyday, Steem is the perfect size, not so big that you'll be completely drowned out, but not so small that you're wasting your time.
I will start writing my first LN here on Steem, hopefully there will be people who enjoy it :)
To all the other aspiring new content creators, if you would like to leave a comment about what you're doing, I would be happy to check out your work as well. We can form a circle of new content creators, supporting each other to make all of our works more visible.
haha, I've heard rumours about the friendly Wang bot, and it's true! Thanks for the advice :D