After scoring a coveted spot on the finalist list at the 12th Annual SXSW Web Awards this year, one community-oriented writing site will experiment with a subscription model–a possible way to maintain a creative writing community in this difficult economy.
Protagonize is a flourishing site where members create Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style fiction and build interactive stories. In March, GalleyCat interviewed the founder Nick Bouton about his site. With 8,400 members, Bouton hopes to grow the writing community through an optional subscriptions and donations.
Here’s more from the post: “First of all (and just to clarify for anyone wondering), subscribing to Protagonize is entirely optional. All of the features that are available on the site to you today will remain permanently free. In addition, I’ll continue to add new free features as the site evolves. Subscribing just gives you more cool stuff than you’d get as a free account user … This feature list is preliminary and is obviously subject to change before subscriptions are officially live, but I figured I’d give you guys a sampling of what’s coming up.”