This is Project Jade: Phase Two of The Taoist Online
From the Medium ground comes a beautiful gemstone.
The First Goal
When I founded The Taoist Online as a Medium publication in February 2023, I had two goals. First, I wanted to create an online resource where readers of all faiths, religions, and philosophies could share their stories, failures, and triumphs. I believed then, and still believe now, that if we learn from each other and openly share what we have been through, it can make us happier and make the world a calm and safe place.
In 2023, we accomplished what I thought was impossible by bringing together over 800 writers who shared the same passion—to share their stories and journies so that readers could learn. These writers are men, women, and even teenagers from countries worldwide. With their collective voices, TTO articles have been viewed over one million times! Those views total over 1.6 million minutes of reading, which is over three years of reading time! With numbers like these, it’s hard to remember that TTO started in February with only one writer. It is also easy to see that in 2023, we accomplished our first goal. But what about goal number two?
The Second Goal
The second goal was to give spiritual writers an online voice for their stories. After many years of searching, I came to the conclusion that a community such as this did not exist or was too difficult or small to find. So, I created my own on medium.com, using my writing as a starting point.
Medium is an amazing platform for starting your community. It’s simple and clean UI and UX makes the barrier to entry as small as ever! Medium’s algorithm does a decent job of showing your article to at least a handful of people. If you start your own publication and really put in effort to make it grow, there are enough readers and writers to make your dreams come true! Best of all, if you’re lucky enough, you might even make a little bit of money while you’re at it.
However, there are times when Medium can’t provide the experience or platform many publications and new writers deserve.
What if a writer wants to show their own ad or promote their product? The boost program curators will not distribute a writer’s article if they deem there’s too much self-promotion. Writers shouldn’t need to compromise their integrity or their self-worth in order to please secret curators. What if the writer worked really hard on an article and wants to be paid more than a few cents for their time? If you’re lucky, Medium can make that happen. If our writing is to help others find their place and path through life, how can we accomplish this task for those readers who do not have accounts on Medium? Isn’t there a way to reach them, too? Yes, there is!
Project Jade is our solution to our second goal—reach.
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