Introducing The 2-Tier Publication Process

Work hard, play hard — a strategy that would improve our community, salvaging what’s left of it

A collection of old magazines and other paper-printed antiques on sale — Image by Antonio Cansino from Pixabay

In the following months, I’m planning to lay the basis of a long-term strategy that would grow our community and improve it to a degree at which we can even migrate as a group to newer pastures, and why not a platform of our own?

Over the years, I’ve been struggling to bridge the genuine diversity and inclusivity focus of our publication franchise with this platform’s anti-slop (whether human or AI in nature) and pro-quality stance.

This is how Read or Die — HQ (a very restrictive and minimalistic but highly boostable pub, with a boost rate of 50–80%) was born as an extension to the original, newbie-friendly Read or Die publication. My idea was to slowly grow this half of our publication into a legacy for both readers and our writers alike while slowly transitioning into something the platform would be proud of.

However, somewhere along the line, it became clear that what we’re dealing with is a 3-body problem, if you watched the series. No civilization can survive if, every time they adapt to a volatile environment, a catastrophic change takes place and wipes out all the progress they made. That’s all I will say.

Looking back on it, I was too focused on what I thought the leadership wanted from us, instead of building my strategy on what would benefit us.

I got less involved at a “street level.”

I stopped being an involved community leader, following my own directives and ideas, a role that brought me success in the first place.

The focus on quality is not wrong, per se. And while the implementation process has been debatable to say the least, there is more to the volatile platform changes than meets the eye: there is no enemy or different sides out there; everybody is trying to survive these volatile times, including the staff members themselves.

But simply writing good stories is not everything at a platform level. You can’t have quality, diversity, and a stable earning pipeline without a bustling community (volume and inclusivity). Maculature serves its purpose as a filler.

A bustling community gives the observer (shareholder/investor) an overinflated sense of stability that could be used to your advantage — just like how a strong country would exaggerate its military power, while a smaller country would downplay how much of a military threat it could pose to a hegemonic power.

On the other hand, volume can become too much to handle. Management becomes sloppy and delayed, as we’ve seen with the whole Illumination publication debacle.

A few years ago, Illumination editors were screaming all over the place that they couldn’t keep up with the insane number of submissions from their active writers, demanding that the number of editors a publication can have should be increased.

This platform’s “passivity on solving the issue,” as the editors of Illuminati put it, made me believe they never considered or wished for their publications to reach that gargantuan size, so I became more strict with my submission and cut down on the volume in an attempt to mold myself to their long-term strategy.

But this change turned away many of my writers, even though I was less strict than other publications. It was a semi-mistake on my part to ignore the possibility of remaining as independent from the platform as one can possibly be, if that makes any sense.

My theory is that many writers who survived the changes have stuck with what they were always doing, which ironically became the only metric of stability on this platform.

We still have good writers, but a good part of their enthusiasm and earnings is gone. Obviously, that only generates the impression that the community has died. And that serves no one.

What the platform needs now are herders, not professional editors, per se. Community leaders who are able to drive the narrative “in the streets,” appease and motivate the masses to push through these harsh working conditions (hopefully to the people’s benefit).

This is what I’m trying to correct and incentivize now.

If you think this platform wants to take advantage of you while paying you as little as they can, why don’t you take advantage of them to gain the experience and skills that could help you flourish even outside of it?

Why not use them as a training camp?

They still have a sizable community, and there are still a few coins left to milk. Are we smart enough to do it? What do we have left to lose?

Why not make the best out of this situation and grow as writers while exploring multiple angles?

In the following months, I’m planning to lay the basis of a long-term strategy that would grow our community and improve it to a degree at which we can even migrate as a group to newer pastures, and why not a platform of our own?

The problem is that I’d need either a huge budget (which I obviously lack) or a homogeneous, strong group of already established writers with a certain level of skills that we can push forward and market. So this can’t be implemented in the short term.

At the very least, we need to grow as a group, and I can’t do that on my own. For this, I need your help and support.

We don’t have to do anything too differently, focus on the boosts, or anything grand. We just have to show our writers’ teeth once in a while.

We need to show people that we’re good writers if we put our minds to it. We need to make this platform regret losing us in case we want to leave.

I don’t expect us to suddenly turn into Mark Twain, but can’t we all do a little experiment and pour all our wit, time, effort, and human resources into producing just one magnum opus story once in a while?

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to follow what this platform thinks it can be boostable or not, but it has to be the best you can produce at the moment — the type of story you’d be so excited about that you’d read it yourself several times after publishing.

Can you do that?

As long as you’re willing to do that, I’m also willing to host your story in my Read or Die — HQ publication, think of ways I can promote it, and even reward you from my own pockets (in the form of small bonuses that could grow over time).

In the following months, I will be implementing a monthly or seasonal small cash prize for one or several achievements within our community:

• The best-performing story (rewarding popularity & charm)
• The writer who grew the most in the last 2–3 months (rewarding progress)
• The winner of a seasonal prompt contest (rewarding adaptability and task-oriented writers)
• Etc. Just to name a few examples.

And many other interactive strategies that will rejuvenate the community.

Old, new, skilled, or noobies. Nobody will be left behind as long as they’re serious and a constant contributor to our project.

The focus is on growth, not a hard-to-achieve standard of quality. And different aspects would be rewarded other than “groundbreaking talent,” so theoretically, everyone would have a chance to win a few bucks in the form of an R.O.D. Cash Prize.

It might not be much, but it could cover one or a few months of your subscription, depending on how satisfied I am with our progress. And the rewards might grow over time.

As the winner of our last Read or Die Cash Prize Contest, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, can testify, I’m not doing this just to stay on top of the new changes on the platform. I’m just returning to origin, doing what I was doing before I got too caught up in the Boost Nominator Program — building and incentivizing our community.

So, by all means, feel free to write your random musings most of the time. I know how tempting that can be. But don’t just free-write and send it to publish. Polish what you write until it looks like the best version of an average post. Even elevating a lower tier is a form of progress and exercise.

For that, we have the regular pub, Read or Die, which will be recalibrated to its original goal of inclusivity and diversity more than any other publication. Hopefully, in a way that helps our community as a training ground or funnel for our growth.

But if you’re ready for the second tier, something a little bit better than average, I’m waiting for your drafts at Read or Die — HQ!

We don’t need to sacrifice fun for quality or quality for fun, as many of us did for the sake of the Boost Nomination Program. Both Read or Die and Read or Die — HQ will run side by side and will be given the same importance as a 2-tier publication strategy.

Switching from one to the other will not happen based on a system of promotion/demotion but simply based on which publication is more suitable for your draft and can help you more. We’ll decide that together.

This is also an older idea of mine. When I was a boost nominator, I sent the unboosted drafts from Read or Die — HQ to Read or Die, not as a form of punishment or motivated by disappointment, but simply because that would have been more beneficial for the writers (i.e., at that time, an unboosted story would have performed better in the old pub).

All I ask of you is to give me a bit of time to come set up this whole thing. Then we’ll get down to business.

I’m willing to reinvest most of the revenue I’d be getting from the new editor partner program into my community if it helps us grow. My only fear is the revenue will be so insignificant that it won’t make much of a change. But I’m willing to try.