Create the content.

Create the website.

Set-up a PayPal link.

Sit back and watch the money flow in. Right?

Wrong. Making money is hard (Who would have thought?). The average Joe is simply not willing to open their wallets and hand their hard-earned cash over to you.

Let's go back to the beginning. I decided to write a book earlier this year with no goals in mind. It was a bucket list project of mine. Now, the traditional method to get your work out there is to compose a manuscript, send it off to a publisher, and then cry when no one responds. The rise of the internet has allowed writers to bypass the publishers. So, like many other anti-establishment millennials, I was not going to let a publisher control my destiny. I started releasing my book chapter by chapter using Reddit as a platform. To my surprise, I built a small following. It was fantastic. People were enjoying my stories and asking for more. It felt good to know others were reading the stuff I put out. I was gaining followers faster than I could have imagined (Tens of new followers every month!). It was a matter of time before I reached Kardashian levels of fame.

So, now I had the fame (Not to brag, but currently I am sitting at 185 subscribers on my sub). I needed the fortune. I decided to branch out and create my own website. (Shameless plug time: Vengefulsevenstories.com). Being the technical savant that I am (Note: I still must call IT whenever my work makes me change my email password), I used Wix to set everything up. I enabled a Paypal link, I set up the site to accept donations through the Brave Browser, and I enabled it to receive Coil donations. Now it was time to sit back and start planning out where I was going to buy my vacation home.

Or not…

Two weeks later all of those accounts were still sitting at zero. What gives? I should be eating filet mignon while sipping on diamond filtered tequila at my private resort in Mexico by now! (FYI, the diamond filtered tequila is a real thing…Surprisingly only 50$...don’t tempt me. This is something I would absolutely buy.)

After doing some soul searching and critical thinking, it came to me. When is the last time I personally donated to someone online? (I know…I’m a jerk). It is not that I don’t want to support people. There is just some psychological barrier that keeps me from opening a PayPal, entering my info, and sending ten dollars. I’ve spent ten dollars on far stupider things for myself, yet I will shamelessly convince myself that I have groceries to buy, or a car payment to make, or diamond filtered tequila to buy. (You know, the essentials). So why in the world would I expect others to be different? The fact of the matter is, most of us don’t want to simply hand money over. There is something that psychologically stops most of us or at least makes us think twice.

This brings me to Coil. Coil is a fantastic idea. For 5$ USD a month you can become a Coil subscriber. Again, that is a barrier to get over for some people. I totally get it. But once you have it, that is it. All you need to do is open any Coil enabled website, and now you are donating to the creator simply by spending your time there. That is about as simple as it can get.

“Well Mr. Smart guy, If it is so simple, why are you still so poor and handsome?”, you might ask.

Excellent question hypothetical reader. To answer the second question, I stick to a rigorous diet of Doritos and sadness, and I exercise at least once a month. To answer the first, we have to identify a problem. Coil is simply a tool. In order for it to work, we need a community to form around it. Trying to find a Coil enabled site is like finding a needle in the haystack…or a good video game from EA in the last 10 years (ZING!). It is simply too small right now to expect a Coil subscriber to stumble on a Coil enabled site. The odds of that happening are about as good as me becoming an NFL quarterback (I’m nearing 30, can’t throw very well, and I don’t like to get hit…so the New York Jets should be calling me any day now! ZING again! I’m seriously on fire today guys).

This brings me to the Coil Community. We’re starting small. Right now, a sub-reddit (r/CoilCommunity) is dedicated to connecting these Coil enabled content creators to Coil subscribers. I’ll be honest, I was expecting the majority of content to be all about how great XRP and Ripple are (Nothing inherently wrong with that!). To my surprise, I’ve seen a diverse range of content. We have a blog about an American living in Japan, a podcast dedicated to hilarious Dungeons and Dragons sessions, a blog about car restoration, and a Youtube channel about motorcycles in Japan. The diversity of content on the first few submissions alone has truly surprised me.

If Coil is a tool, then the Coil Community is the movement. Make no mistake, this is a movement. We can change how content creators are paid for their work. They will no longer be required to shove advertisements down our throats to scrape together a few dollars. Coil subscribers will be able to see the content they want to see and contribute to the creators they think deserve their time. We’re creating a world where the user is in control. For those of you who have wondered how they can support the XRP ecosystem without coding or technical knowledge, this is the answer. Join the Coil movement.

My blog will be focused on exploring the new content added to the community each week. I want to give you guys a window into the great stuff already out there and give these creators a little more exposure. We’ll also be discussing other initiatives to get Coil into the mainstream. There is so much untapped potential for Coil, and I cannot wait to watch this community grow!

Thanks for reading! I’m going to head out and buy some diamond filtered Tequila now.

Until next week!

-VengefulSeven

I have a twitter and no clue how to use it. Tweet me @SevenVengeful, and I’ll respond to you as soon as I learn what the hell I’m doing.