Giving my 10 cent story project a home

September 29, 2015 8:08 AM

I've been busking with a typewriter for two years now, and recently began collecting the stories and photos of the people asking for stories. I had an article about it published in The Toast and it was also the subject of an FPP a few weeks back, but I'm struggling to give the project a permanent home on the web. I've been putting the stories on twitter, but it's not really a good fit.

The format is typically two pictures and a little blurb - one of the story typewritten out, one of the people asking for the story, and then either the prompt or a little bit of background on the person asking for the story. Like this. Is this something for instagram? Should I host a website similar to xkcd.com and post a new story three times a week? Also, if I want to use the photos of the people in a published collection later, what sort of permission do I need from them? (I already get verbal permission to post the photo of them to twitter).

posted by Archibald Edmund Binns to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

If I were you I'd probably create a simple website of my own and use twitter/instagram/what-have-you to promote it with small text excerpts and/or images with links back to the main site.

I don't know about photo-postin-permission, but I suspect that as long as you're not making money off the photos and the photos were taken in public with consent from the subject you may not have much to worry about.
posted by soplerfo at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2015

Tumblr or self-hosted (or both, ideally).
posted by wintersweet at 8:44 AM on September 29, 2015

Response by poster: What's the advantage of self-hosting? I like the freedom to pick the webpage format, but it seems like it would be harder to get people to subscribe or come back.
posted by Archibald Edmund Binns at 8:47 AM on September 29, 2015

I saw the original FPP and thought the concept, in addition to some of the stories captured, was delightful.

I think it would be neat to be able to occasionally check in as to what is new. For me as a reader, twitter or instagram with a tiny picture of the story is not as easy to read, but similar to sopierfo, that could be the small hook to get someone in and back to your site.

I think a blog with text (vs pictures of the text) and more background (ie, similar to the article that was originally linked, like the family without the son there) for each story would be helpful. You could also ad tags (kid stories, grandparent, whatever.).

I think your blog site could have a link for stories per donation, but not the automatic 10 cent price (I think people would pay a little more and there are self hosting costs).

If you get many eyeballs/interest, you could eventually made it into a collection and self publish...if that is what you want to do.
posted by Wolfster at 8:53 AM on September 29, 2015

The advantage of self-hosting, in my opinion, is that you are in full control of everything. Instagram and Tumblr don't have any great reason to care when your site goes down. Also, if you become popular, they may try to use the content you post on their sites in ways that you don't have control over.
posted by soplerfo at 11:15 AM on September 29, 2015

The plus to tumblr is that people can reblog and share effortlessly. So if that's important you should consider it.
posted by O9scar at 6:56 PM on September 29, 2015

I wouldn't do self self-hosted (as in, managing a VPS from the OS up), but I would get a custom domain + a paid account on something like Wordpress and host it there. ("Paid" being the operative word, as opposed to something free like Tumblr, so that when your site gets big and something goes wrong, at least you have some recourse, and, everyone knows, if you're not paying, you're not the customer...)
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 2:37 AM on September 30, 2015

(P.S., a custom domain, even on a free platform like Tumblr, would let you move between platforms much easier than if you're using the basic "archibaldedmund.tumblr.com" or "edmundbinns.wordpress.com" domain offering that many platforms support as the default.)
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 2:40 AM on September 30, 2015

(P.P.S., good luck! I was instantly enamoured with your project when I saw the FPP, and I hope that when you do find a home for it, it succeeds beyond your wildest dreams :D )
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 2:42 AM on September 30, 2015

Chiming in late (and unhelpfully), I didn't see the FFP but saw the Toast article, rad project! I would totally follow this blog or tumblr (I use Feedly for my rss feeds, like an old lady), I find Twitter hard to keep up with. Let us know where it ends up! (not sure if that's allowed per MF rules).
posted by theRussian at 4:43 AM on October 4, 2015