UPDATE on eBook "How to Get 1000 Followers on Steem" -- 32 Book Cover Designs (!) and an Updated Roadmap

When I asked @fivefiveeleven for some book cover ideas, I did NOT expect him to create 32 options to pick from. But that’s exactly what he did.

WHOA.

Keep in mind that for the Musician's Guide logo, we went through maybe 10 variations in total. This is a threefold increase in quantity. They say that you need to create 2-3 times more work than you end up showing to other people… if so, we are well ahead of schedule.

Feast your eyes on all of our options:

Which one do you think is best? Let us know in the comments, we will take all feedback into consideration! Make sure to say both the number AND the side (left or right half).

Book Updates: From Second Draft to Final Draft

The full second draft is in the capable hands of our editor, @thegalavantgirl, and she is currently editing it and fixing it up for me. I'm hoping that by next week I can share the final text of the book!

After that, there are two remaining steps:

• Hire artists for in-book images & get all the images made
• Put the text + images + final book cover together into the final book design

These are big steps — but the last of the big steps. I’m confident we can handle them both, and once we do it is going to look amazing. After we have graphics and a book layout, we will for the first time be able to look at the book itself in all its glory.

I will admit we are moving slowly on the book layout design. I'll get it sorted out and give you a much better update on that subject with next week's post.

The way I see it, we are 2-3 weeks away from finishing this book.

• Week 1: Hire the graphic artists and get them started on working
• Week 2: Finish graphics, finalize text, and finalize book cover
• Week 3: All Book Layout work -- at end of week, book is done.

Once the book is done, the pressure is largely over for the current team. Promotion is largely a "phase 2" with a different team.

OK, one piece of bad news: As a result of the recent market fluctuations, we will face new challenges with fundraising. This is NOT a big issue - nobody panic!

What happened is, we were originally fundraising with the average steem price at around $4. As such we are losing all of our fundraising progress each week as the steem price goes down, today it is around $2.00. There is no predicting what prices will come next.

In the future I will not peg the fundraising to any USD value. It seems unwise in a volatile market.

On the plus side: All of our current freelancers are contracted in Steem / SBD rates, not USD rates. None of our current operating expenses or projected liabilities are affected by the price movements in the markets.

For "How to Get 1,000 Followers on Steem" we have nothing to worry about. There may be complications for funding the second book (The Musician's Guide to Steemit) - but these obstacles are well within our tolerance, and we will cross the bridge when we get to it.

More detailed budget updates will be shared later this week - including an update to our overall fundraising plan.

Moving Forward and Growing the Steem Music Community

_FORWARDS

We want to keep pushing forward, in fact double down, on our current momentum. Steemians are loving the early drafts of the book and all of us on the team feel a duty to create this thing as well as we can, and as quickly as we can, so we can share it with the Steem community.

With Steemit in the top one thousand websites of the world, it is clear that we are destined to be a bigger part of the global social media ecosystem. And within steem we can make a real difference in defining how the music scene conducts itself here.

Will we encourage honesty, collaboration, and creativity?

Will we reward community-minded members who act as responsible stewards for Steem within their own cities?

Will newcomers join Steem and be encouraged to work hard and create music? Will this platform be a positive force, rather than a necessary evil, for the musicians who live on it?

With this book and this project, we aim to help craft Steem into a healthy and fertile soil for the world of music to plant new seeds in. Your support is our oxygen as we build momentum towards a brighter future. THANK YOU for reading, for all of the kind words, and for everything else you do.

In the comments of this topic, feel free to share any concerns or criticisms you have. We are learning and evolving every week based on your feedback.