An Open Letter to Prosers

It has come to our attention that there are a number of you who are frustrated and aren’t happy with Prose right now.

We want to change this.

We put our hands up and admit that our listening skills weren’t good enough. We didn’t ask the right questions, and we didn’t make it clear those of us who are contactable in-app or via email. In this respect, we failed you, and we are sorry. We are working on steps to remedy that right this very second.

We want you all to know that we are here to listen and, even if your question, concern, or feedback is not something we can address immediately, we will pass your comments on to the right person straight away. That will ensure that the relevant team member is made aware and will work on those improvements for you, our users.

Prose is a year old and, while we have achieved a lot over this past year, we have received feedback from a number of you that have voiced concerns over speed of improvement within the app and website. There are times that it may not look like anything is happening within the app in terms of progress, but this most definitely isn’t the case behind-the-scenes. We are all working non-stop to provide you with the best writing app with social integration, ever.

To give you an update on HQ activities, we are working on the next release of the iOS app right now and with it will come significant and welcomed changes here. So, while we understand that you’re frustrated right now, please bear with us. We are working hard to deliver answers and solutions to your requests.

To give you better understanding of Team Prose, I’d like to share some insight with you.

Prose currently has seven (7) team members working full-time, four (4) within the marketing and relationship management division, and three (3) within the tech and development team. Although we are still small in terms of team numbers, the community is still growing and our social media following continues on an upward climb each day.

We manage, between us, everything Prose-related: from the emails that hit your inbox, to the images, tweets, and posts that you see on social media, to the blog and its contributors. Every button you press, every heart you touch, every comment you make has been coded within an inch of its life. We also spend countless hours networking with like-minded writers from elsewhere to spread the word about Prose. All of this is done with the goal of bringing you guys even more fellow writers and readers with whom to interact and share your words.

We understand that you feel that interactivity is low right now. Admittedly, we as a team could do more to read, write, and engage with the community. That being said, we can’t improve this aspect alone. We need your help.

It's easy to fall into a trap of feeling deflated and discouraged when a piece you’ve painstakingly written and re-written isn't being “liked.” This, however, doesn’t mean you’re not being read. It also doesn’t mean that people didn’t enjoy what they read. We are addressing this issue on a technical level for the next update. In the meantime, you all can read more, write more, encourage more, share more, and provide detailed feedback, or just leave a comment. This will improve interactivity immensely and we promise to do the same. We want you to know that we believe in your words and your talent as writers, perhaps now more than ever before.

Prose isn’t Prose without you. We could provide every single feature you desire, but without you, our Prosers, there is no Prose. Team Prose is striving, and will continue to strive, for the same goals you are.

When frustration is playing a large role in a writer’s life, it's easy to focus on negativity. However, within the last 3 months, we have improved. We are still improving. And, for the last portion of this blog piece I’d like to focus on the positive things that have happened recently:

- 2.0 was released back in June. With it came a new look, easier navigation (including global search on mobile), and direct messaging. The Leaderboard is no longer prevalent and a randomisation option was provided to further your ability to find more like-minded writers. There also were numerous bug fixes and glitches addressed.

- The Partner Program was released in May. We currently have 30 partners who are all helping to improve the visibility of your words by proposing your pieces to be spotlighted. Spotlighting is a great achievement. Because of it, for any new people that look at Prose, the spotlight pieces are the first words they will read. You guys are the biggest asset to Prose, and we want to showcase your talents by having your content Spotlighted.

- The official Prose blog was launched in June and this gives ALL Prosers the opportunity to blog for us here: blog.theprose.com/blog. Our aim for the blog has been networking with influential writers, publishers, and other creatives to bring you the most cutting-edge, up-to-date information within the Prose network and beyond.

- We have now offered beta testing to our Partners as a part of the partner program. This, enables them to give us more feedback and allows them to have a hand in shaping the future of Prose.

- We have had a number of sponsored challenges, one of which is still live. It is hosted by fellow Proser and Partner, @rh, who we thank greatly for this contribution to the challenge stream.

- We launched the KDP challenge initiative which has given a number of unpublished authors the chance to now say they've been published. It is open to everyone and everyone has an equal opportunity to see their words in an eBook collection. These will continue, so if this is something you’d like to take part in, check out the current challenge: www.theprose.com/challenge/2404.

Again, it may not appear that progress is happening, but it is indeed. We have already achieved a notable list of improvements over the last 3 months. Rest assured that we will continue to deliver to you, our community. That is a promise.

As of today, three (3) members of Team Prose, including myself (@sammielee46), Maggie (@MaggieGreene), and HB (@hbaugustine), will change their profile bios to say “Prose Admin.”

If you have concerns or feedback, or would like to help out the team in any way, please either:

Drop one of us a direct message on Prose;

Visit our contact page and email us directly;

Or send a direct message to the Prose profile here.

Going forward, we can assure you of the following:

We are listening.

We welcome feedback.

We will do more as a team to interact with the Prose community.

We will continue developing new features and functionality for you to enjoy.

We will communicate with you guys as much as we can.

Now, let’s get back to doing what we do best, shall we?

Why write? Because Prose.

Kind regards,

Sammie

Marketing and Media Director

on behalf of The Prose Team