Potential Idea For Donations Through Episode

Hi there,

So this post is actually inspired by something I saw @tish.creates post on IG:

By now, I’m sure you all know what’s going on in the USA at the moment. And I understand that some people in our community might not be able to donate money to the cause but still want to contribute in any way that they can. I really do like the idea Tish had, but I feel that it can be improved on.

My suggestion is that someone in payments creates a story with no content. Then readers can tap through it quickly and have it count towards a donation. My two main reasons for suggesting this change is that I think it’s beneficial to those who are short on time, who can’t sit down to read through several chapters of a story. The second reason is that it would be really ideal for people with unlimited passes who don’t have to wait four hours for a refill. There’s a few other reasons why I believe a story with no content is important for this idea to work efficiently but now is not really the time to discuss that side of it.

If a story with no content sounds kind of familiar, it’s because I organised a forum experiment using one before: here. So many of us came together and read a blank story purely for the sake of experiment… If we could do it then, I’m sure we can do it now while there’s a genuinely good reason to do so.

Unfortunately I am not in payments so I can’t do this myself. That’s why I’m making this topic in hopes that someone already in the payments would be able to do this and so that the reads would count from the get go.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to contribute your thoughts on this thread even if you aren’t in the payments program :heart:

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I think this would be a good idea if Episode allows it, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t because they’d still get their ad revenue, right? I prefer this to using existing stories, because it doesn’t inadvertently promote a specific author’s writing or get a story episode might potentially buy trending. Plus, once the term for collecting donations is over, the story can be disabled, whereas an existing story might continue to accrue new reads and revenue for the author after the donations ended, based on the readership it earned through the donation period.

I think a good way of doing this to be accessible to readers would be limiting the story to the 400 minimum required lines so the reader can tap through quickly without any content slowing down their attempt to donate, similar to your example. It’s not the most “interesting” story, but it’s quick! I hope you find someone in payments willing to collaborate on the idea.

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It would still have to be three episodes though, wouldn’t it? Otherwise it won’t rank.
What if a few people got together and posted the story on someone’s account who’s in payments where each chapter is a short story? Or some bloopers/a skit or something?

Edit: I’m happy to use my account to “host” the story, but I think it would be better to have 3 episodes of something, even if it’s just 400 lines of community creators sharing their experiences, whilst directed in spotlight lol.

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I really like this idea! Though I wonder how it fits in with Episode’s guidelines.

I definitely prefer this method to the other one. I don’t like the idea of exploiting the black lives matter movement to promote your own story – even if you are donating the revenue, there’s still exposure being gained. There’s also the factor that most people might not feel comfortable reading the content of x story, and this just turns away potential reads that could’ve had an impact.

I hope an author with unlocked payments reaches out to you! I’d like to see how this pans out. :blob_hearts:

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I was thinking that as well. The intention of donating is good, but it does still result in exposure which is still a kind of benefit to the writer of the story. A lot of people who haven’t or never intend to unlock payments still get excited when their work is read and trends, so reads are a type of abstract reward even when they aren’t converted into literal cash.

That’s a good point too.

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Could this be an opportunity to promote black writers in the community?

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Oooh like a “spotlight on author” type segment? Are we allowed to cross-promote other people’s stories and other authors in our stories?

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Honestly that sounds like fun :laughing:

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I think so? If they are actually writing the content on there, so they could write their own plug. Flirtual Reality and Love on Repeat are existing stories that do this (not the donation idea, but the “guest author” idea), but they are more heavily directed than what this idea would probably require.

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For this to work though, I think ideally you’d probably want to find someone with quite a large following or a few people to “promote” the story/project? I believe Bronte has a video on YT with a rough payment rate.

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Thank you for volunteering.

I know in my OP that I said a story with no content but I’m quite open to other ways we could use this to help the community, whether that be giving authors a voice or something else, so I’m happy to brainstorm.

I’m not too worried about this because Line 400 has been up for years. But should Episode take it down, the reads will still count towards the payment so we could still donate what was accumulated while it was live… But I do think as long as there’s minimum 400 lines in each episode, we should be fine. There’s bigger fish to fry and I can keep the reviewers busy by reporting genuine problem stories.

This was one of the points I was thinking but I didn’t want to mention in the OP. I mean no disrespect to the author, but I do know her stories are of a more mature nature and so I don’t want anyone to think their only option is to read something they’re not comfortable with.

I like this idea. We could have an episode per author. The minimum is of course 3 episodes but there’s no reason we have to limit it there considering every read will count

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This already sounds like an awesome idea. Great community project too. Just need to make sure that it is both quick yet engaging.

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:heart: :heart: :heart: Tysm for this thread angel!

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I decided to break my silence especially since this thread relates to what is happening right now. Thank you for making this thread. I’ll try to remain from being snarky especially now. I do like the idea of someone starting a brand new story with no content in it so people can just tap through it; selecting all of the gem choices. This is a good use for those who can’t see gems so I don’t mind participating in this.

I didn’t read all the comments on this thread, but I did see what @Cee suggested, and I do agree with her. I rather see a black author be the one to create this. I think the idea of an author with a high following doing this experiment leaves a room full of doubt for me. With everything that is going on and all of the authors being on trend, I don’t have high expectations that once this hype dies down, that this story that was once used to help donate to black lives matters, won’t be turned into a regular story.

Don’t get me wrong, I semi like the idea that Tish has come up with. I, however, can’t sit here and say that I think she’s doing this out of the goodness of her heart especially with her past behavior. It feels a bit self centered to me. I do like the idea of that 3-5 hour video on YouTube, and if this is where the idea came from, then I would rather see this experiment from a trusted black author.

excuse any typos… it’s early.

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Just wanna clarify that while this must be a minimum of three episodes, it can also be longer. Especially if someone were to go the blank/minimum content route. You can copy/paste the script as many times as needed.

CC takes over 400 lines. You can code an episode including CC, use labels to skip it. All the reader has to do is watch ads and boom, done. Donated. Paste that 50 times and the reader can donate through as many episodes as they want up to 50. It’s way less work than speed-tapping through an entire story.

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even easier: press the return key 400 times in your script.

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I didn’t know you could publish that! There ya go.

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Actually gem choices don’t really matter whether they get tapped or not once you’ve unlocked the payments program… I think there’s a boost if you include gem choices? but @EliseC might have more information on that. Anyway, I just wanted to clear that part up :slight_smile:

This too! Everyone can replay a story a max of 5 times so if we create 10 episodes, any one person can contribute a total of 50 reads. And we can keep adding episodes on if need be as well.



So I guess the main question is if we should publish a story with no content at all or if we should use it as an opportunity to spread awareness and/or promote black writers (and even artists) within the community? If we go with the latter, we wouldn’t be doing full ten minute length episodes of course, but maybe something like a poem in one episode, an edit showcased in the next episode, etc. I guess the way I’d explain it is that it would be a lot like this youtube video that Aaliyah mentioned, just an episode version of it.

I’ll create a poll to make it easier, but if you have other thoughts/suggestions, feel free to keep discussing them:

  • Blank Episodes
  • Episodes with 400 lines worth of real content
0 voters
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It’s a 25% bonus whether or not the gem choices are actually selected.
So I definitely think it’s a good idea to include them for this particular “story” even if it’s just a "If you can’t see gems, hit “yes” ". lol (Although ultimately, it doesn’t matter if people hit yes or no, since the bonus is calculated on chapter reads, not choices selected.)

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I think if Black content creators want their content displayed in such a story, we should honor that. And we can also include resources for further education, but those resources should be collected by us white and other non-Black people since they’re already available and it’s a valuable use of our time and labour. If a Black writer wants to host the story, then we should respect that. But I do think it’s better for us to be doing more of the actual work to put this together since no matter how angry we are, we always have the ability to “tap out” in a way Black folx don’t. But I don’t want to overstep any bounds here.

Edit: I prefer real content, including resources, over blank content because I think having blank content might end up where people are reading the story and saying “well I read this so I’m contributing a donation” and frankly that’s not enough. We need to be working to get people to understand the systemic issues at play and ways of dismantling them through our own time and energy while centering Black voices on what support is actually needed.

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