How to prepare for your first Sloika drop
Ev Tchebotarev avatar
Written by Ev Tchebotarev
Updated over a week ago

👛 Create and secure your wallet

  • Create your wallet (with Metamask, Rainbow, or Coinbase Wallet)

    • Every wallet is a string of letters and numbers such as 0x2E70...

    • Securely write down your Seed Phrase (Secret Recovery Phrase). Anyone who knows these 12 or 24 words can access your wallet and take your money and NFTs. ⚠️ These 12 or 24 words are both login and password ⚠️

    • ⚠️ Do not save your seed phrase on your computer or your phone!

    • ⚠️ Do not give or share it with anyone! We will never DM or ask you for it!

    • ⚠️ Do not respond to DMs or click on links from people or sources you don’t know

  • To mint, you will need ETH to pay for gas to deploy a contract

    • Deploying smart contract costs 0.02-0.06 ETH for the series (up to 90% less than other platforms)

    • Sloika provides you with real-time gas prices and cost estimates

    • 🌐 Note: Get an ENS (Ethereum Name Service). Instead of a wallet address (ie 0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045) you will have an easier to read vitalik.eth. Your ENS is used for the profile, ie sloika.xyz/tchebotarev.eth.

🖼️ Prepare photo series

  • Prepare a set of 10 to 25 images (could be less or more depending on your project)

    • The best series are thematic (Girl & Camera, Night Reflection One, Eye in the Sky)

    • The best series have the same photo size, color tone, orientation and style

    • The series has to be complete, you cannot add more images to the series after

    • The minimum accepted resolution is 3500px on the long side. Best series offer high-resolution photos (please note that any NFT can be right-clicked by anyone)

  • Prepare a description of your photo series

    • 1-2 paragraphs describing your series. For example, how long you have been working on this, what it means to you, etc.

    • Add a title and a short description for each photo

    • Choose edition type (all photos on Sloika are "Edition of 1/1" or numbered editions)

    • Add properties for photos. Properties are unique attributes that add scarcity. They cannot be added or changed later.

      • “Rights” sets the license that applies to your photos. The most common is “Extended Editorial”. See ”Licenses Available” for details.

      • Free-form properties: you can choose properties and their values as you see fit. Here are some ideas:

        • When? Date, Season, or Observance (e.g., Holiday or another special day)

        • Where? Location, City, Country

        • What? Subject, Dominant color, or Shape

        • How? Orientation, Perspective, Camera, Film type, Lens

        • You can get as creative as you wish: check out properties used by Jordan Banks in Saffron Men of India.

        • Note: “Dimension”, “File type”, and “Edition” are generated automatically — no need to enter them manually

  • If you have unsold photos on other NFT marketplaces, please remove some of them

💎 Set the price and royalty

  • Set the price (most common is 0.1-0.5 ETH. If you are new to NFTs, start in the low range)

    • Set your pricing for a faster sale — this will let you drop a next series sooner

    • For editions, we recommend a range 0.02-0.06 for edition size of 15-50.

  • Set duration for how long your NFTs will be on a marketplace (read why), up to 6 months

  • Set the launch date when your NFTs will go on sale

    • If you plan a private pre-sale, set the launch date 2-3 days early

  • Choose photographer royalty (10% recommended)

🎁 Perks for collectors

  • You can provide special perks to collectors in a description or on Twitter

    • Example: for buyers of your NFT, you can offer a print, photo book, etc

🛍️ Prepare for promotion

  • Start promotion several weeks ahead of your drop — talk about your work, connect with collectors

  • Show the behind the scenes from the series — videos, photos, stories

  • Prepare visuals for your social media (IG, Twitter, etc) — announcing the drop date, preview of photos, and anything to drum up the interest

    • Make visuals for Instagram (4x5 ratio) and Twitter (3x2 ratio)

  • Prepare to tell why you are doing this and why this is important to you, by writing a Twitter thread, and creating Instagram stories

  • Provide guidance to your fans on how they can participate, for example, Youtube links (ie 1, 2, 3), and on creating a Metamask wallet (video) and buying ETH

  • Be active on Twitter, and host a Twitter Space on Sloika to chat about your work

👾 Choose a type of your drop

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