oh… i didn’t realize this is what i was feeling before pagebound existed… but to see it in writing… 🥲

“It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when nobody really gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feelings by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they’re all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart.”

Quests, created by Top Contributors, are such a labor of love, and there's so much time and effort put into research and curation. As Pagebound grows, we have been brainstorming sustainable ways to create more Quests that the community is eager to see. We're trialing a new idea for a community-voted Quest, inspired by a List.

How this will work:

1. Royalty members can nominate a List (their own or any community List) that would make a great starting point for a Quest. Royalty members will receive a notification tomorrow + an email with a link to a form to fill out by EOD March 31st to nominate. The form will include context about what makes for a great Quest.
2. The entire Pagebound community will then vote on which nominated List will inspire a Quest. Everyone will receive a notification on April 1st with a link to vote.
3. The creator of the winning List will be able to accept/reject.
4. If they accept, we will create a Quest inspired by their List, adapting the title & book list if necessary to fit Quest guidelines (for example, if a List has 20 books, we will reduce it to 15 for a Side Quest; if a List includes all 7 books of a series, we would put book 1; all books from the Quest would come from the original List curation). In the Quest description, the List creator will be credited and their List linked. The resulting Quest could be either a Main or Side Quest, but it will not be open to book additions since there will not be anyone actively maintaining the book list (similar to when a Main Quest hits its 100 book cap and is closed to further additions).

We hope this idea will encourage quality List-making, give the entire community a voice in Quest creation in a sustainable way, acknowledge our Royalty supporters, and result in more diverse Quests. We think it can be a fun community-building activity! That said, we will see if this trial achieves those goals before deciding if and how often we'll repeat it.

Thanks for helping us trial and your open-minded participation! Jennifer & Lucy