Rebranding? What Rebranding?

If you follow us on Twitter or Instagram, you may have noticed a shift from Steam Powered Dreams the Publishing House to Steam Powered Dreams the Story Studio. On the outside, this transition might not seem like a big one, but it allows us to shift our focus.

We’re being careful with this rebranding, so it’s taking a bit longer than we anticipated. This includes changing the way we post and interact on our social networks, the services we offer, and the content we provide.

As a story studio, our focus is on content that tells a story, whether it’s a fiction piece about writing or a short story. Coming very soon, not only will the content on our site reflect this, but all aspects of Steam Powered Dreams.

What About Rebuilding and Optimizing?

We’re not doing a full website redesign as we did two years ago. I don’t think I could go through that again so soon, honestly! It was a lot of work, and even after the base was completed we continued to tweak things for over a year.

This time, we are focusing the rebuilding on getting that story-first content in the forefront. Everything from the site layout to the post structure will be optimized with this in mind. This means you’ll be able to read our content comfortably no matter what device you’re on.

What’s Coming In 2019?

2019 promises to be a major transition year for Steam Powered Dreams, way too much to explain in a single blog post. Instead, I’ll summarize the main areas we’ll be focusing in this year.

Content

We’ll be focusing on content more in general. When we finished the Full Draft series towards the end of 2019 we decided to take a break to organize and plan what is next, but we’re ready to move forward.

We are in the process of creating a few blog series for writers that are shorter in nature, but nonetheless valuable.

It’s not only writers we’re going to focusing on. We’re looking into tackling subjects that we know are important to readers, such as how to find new books or authors, eBooks vs. physical books, building reading habits, the best way to read eBooks, and more.

We will also be publishing fiction here on our website. This will come in the form of either serialized or short stories. The plan is to get this started with our own stories, but eventually have our community submit their own stories, as well.

We haven’t nailed down the details on the last two yet, but if you love reading, you’ll definitely want to make sure to check back throughout the year.

We’re shooting for mid-year to get all of this started.

Social Media

Our social networks grew in 2018 more than we could have ever imagined. Our Instagram is now over 5000 followers and our Writers Helping Writers Facebook group is not far behind.

Part of our rebranding will focus on our social networks, including Twitter, which has been a hard point for us. When we got started on Twitter, we took a “business” approach that didn’t work out too well. Transitioning to a Story Studio will give us the freedom to change that.

In general, the rebranding will allow us to reach a wider audience and provide better content across all of our social networks

The List

I’ve mentioned our mailing list multiple times in this post and there’s a reason for that, it’s a big part of our 2019 plans. If you’re already part of the list, thank you very much for supporting us, it truly means a lot to us.

Over the past year, we haven’t put too much effort in growing the list, and even less in providing meaningful content for those who subscribe. This is one of the first things we’ll be working on in 2019.

We’ll be adding the ability to get all our site content in your inbox, customized by your interests. We already have this set up for The Authorpreneur Mindset Podcast and the feedback we’ve gotten has been very positive.

Not only that, but those who subscribe to the list will get content that is only available there, including both non-fiction and fiction.

The Authorpreneur Mindset Podcast

Speaking of the podcast, we’re putting together Season 3 content now and new episodes will be published in the next few weeks. We’ll have more interviews, more tips and strategies, and more insight into the writing process and publishing industry as a whole.

Excitment Intensifies

As you can tell, a lot has gone into planning the next steps for Steam Powered Dreams. We’re working with some amazing people to make all of this happen. We’re looking forward to providing even more content about reading, writing, and storytelling over the next year and beyond.

Thank you for everyone who has supported us, whether directly or simply by sharing an article. All of the support means so much to us.

Here’s to an amazing 2019!