[Sagemerlin's latest post is an update on his findings regarding Salon Media Group and the unliklihood of either Salon or OS going belly up anytime soon. It should put an end to the Chicken Little gabbling (including my post here) but it also keeps alive the thinking about whether or how to start an alternative site for serious writers here who wish to keep the community together. Check his post out: http://open.salon.com/blog/sagemerlin/2012/06/25/on_second_thought_lets_not_buy_os_-_and_why]
Dear Kerry: You might have noticed in recent days a flurry of new posts all reflecting a general theme of reaction to speculation the financial floundering of Open Salon's mother ship might result in catastrophe, leaving its frightened scriveners stranded in outer Internet space.
Many of these posts are part of an Open Call wherein we tell each other what OS means to us and how we would manage to keep on keeping on should a worst case scenario come to pass. It has occurred to some of us that some of you in Salon Media management just might be casting about for a new fuel source to keep your enterprise on course to a destination no Internet exploration has gone before. Might we suggest how and where that fuel source can be obtained?
It's really very simple, or could be with the right outlook. Say, for example, you identify some venture capitalists with a righteous streak along with their business savvy. Say you can show them an Open Salon teeming with assets. Talented assets – wordsmiths. Writers, many of them, and some of them very very good at what they do. All working for the sheer love of their craft. For free. What if you could show these righteous-yet-savvy potential investors these hundreds of very good writers love what they do so much, and love doing it here on Open Salon for free so much, they would be willing to pay $20 a year for the privilege of writing here on Open Salon for free, attracting readers and new members?
And what if you pitched this to some righteous-yet-savvy venture capitalists and they smiled as you pitched, and when you were finished they grew serious and leaned forward in their high-finance chairs and looked you straight in the eye and said, “Yeah, OK, cool. Show us some of the work these very very talented writers have done for you lately.”
And then you would turn on the overhead projector and begin clicking open the links, and you would show them the first eight rounds of Kerry Award winners, promising them there would be more to come, many more to come, so long as Open Salon stayed in business.
And here are they are, the eight rounds of Open Salon Kerry Award winners:
Round One: Please note that these winners were picked by the highly competitive Open Salon membership. Highly competitive, but we are righteous, too!
Round Two: You might point out there were naysayers when the Kerry Awards were first announced, scoffers who said, "Nyaaah, the cliques will pick their own. It won't be faaaair. Nyaaaah." They were wrong.
Round Three: Getting some momentum here. Nominations are coming in from all over. Cliques? What cliques. We ain't got no steeenkin' cliques!
Round Four: My fingers are getting tired here. You are catching the drift, no?
Round Five: You've got some great examples here. This is talent! Free talent! And it's all yours!
Round Six: We love what we're doing. We're poor humble bloggers and poets and fiction writers and political pundits and comic writers. We have it all. Here! Free!
Round Seven: Free!!
Round Eight: All yours!!
Round Nine coming soon...
Sincerely, Your OS Humble Scriveners
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Brazen Princess
Jeana Morris
Deborah Méndez Wilson
Green Monkey
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Dr William Lee
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Comments
obviously i've missed something.
r
i guess
Rated for another great idea.
Da'yam, even the spa'yam is rating this post!
HUGGGGGGGGGG
I'm new out here, remember? BUT once I understand the issues, I am very persuasive. I would take this on. Yeah, baby.
Is that feasible, or just talk? For instance, why would someone want to host a big party like this? How do they make their money? The ads? Nah, have you EVER clicked on one? How many bloggers are on here? Like enough, that they would fork over @$20 to be on.
And how do we have a "cleaner" site? akismet?
hmm..just an idea or maybe it is a question. Kickstarter?
Whatever it takes:I would like to stay with OS.
*Rated for your high responsibility*
I think I'm going to post blogs at OS and link there from my various pied a terre and bolt hole locations.
Where pray tell are they?
And how do you know one if he/she starts talking to you?
They are rather an odd breed.
As for your idea, i think it would work.
It involves money. going to Them. so yeah , they ShOULd
dig that.
I wouldn't mind writing better shit to impress them.
Like, if i actually sat down and edited, it might be good!
I think we gotta take things into our own hands. (Another dream.)
Sheesh - blue Monday at my house!
Hell, one movie's already been made about OS (Julie & Julia). Maybe our efforts to save the thing could inspire another!
"julie and julia?"
???????
Ferns, I emailed it to Kerry last nite.
If you change to a fee based blog OS may lose 75% of its writers. That also tells the advertisers that OS has lost 75% of advertiser views.
So advertisers want to pay much less for the reduced productivity.
Ergo, the ship goes down.
OS tried to make a free blog with advertisers and since it was free, it would make oodles on ads. But it didn't make enough to pay the bills. If it cuts its income by 75% it is still gone.
Kerry is out job hunting.
Gerald, let's be nice to Emily. She's having Tink's baby.
We should all start writing young adult fiction. It's the only genre in publishing that's growing. I have an idea of a future dystopia in which vampires and werewoves from each outlying district fight to the death in an arena. Somehow a human girl, who falls in love with a vampire, gets chosen, but she's a great shot with a bow. Gotta work out details.
Stim, you might be onto something with that story idea. Only problem I see is that when old farts like us try to hop on a trend it's usually the kiss of death for the trend. Maybe gay vampires or transsexual zombies, tho that's probly already been done, too. I posted this before Sagemerlin posted his most recent update (link at the top) which predicts Salon and OS will be around for the forseeable future. My idea with the $20 fee was intended as a good-faith gesture - earnest money, if you will - to persuade potential investors that those of us who pay are committed to see something new come about. I can imagine Kerry and Co. laffing their butts off at all the fuss.
I started working on a series about a group of vampires in a training school for such.
It ALMOST sold to some publishers but they wanted me to write the damn thing and I just couldn't see myself talking about Vamp High on the Today Show with a straight face so...:(
:D
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which is the lack of healthy, tasteful nudity.
this idea of a young adult series is intriguing me.
since noone these days ever actually grows up,
or
since old beards like you and that jmac
are tending to regress rather nicely,
we
have an infinite audience. well,
7 billion at least.