Couple who have harnessed the power of the word to aid writers

The couple launched Prolifiko, a web-based platform that helps writers plan and execute their projects, around three years ago.

Ms Evans said: “We met in a bookshop. You can say a love of writing and books has been there right from the beginning. It was words that brought us together.”

Over the past few years Mr Smith and Ms Evans have been building and testing the platform.

Prolifiko was today recognised by Creative England as one of the top 50 companies leading the charge for the creative industries in showing the best of England’s regions.

The idea for the business came while Ms Evans was running a writers’ retreat centre.

She said: “I was running a writers’ retreat centre in Hebden Bridge called Lumb Bank run by Arvon, it’s the poet Ted Hughes’s old house.

“I was the director there and we had writers come and do courses every single week. There would be all sorts of writers.

“What I found interesting is that having the ideas wasn’t the problem. People come and they are all fired up. They have lots of ideas. It was finishing their projects that was the problem.”

Ms Evans took inspiration from the FitBit and thought it would be a good idea to provide writers with a tool that allows them to set and track goals.

Both Ms Evans and Mr Smith started researching around the idea and also did some work with Leeds Beckett University on productivity and writers.

“We did research with lots of different types of writers not just creative writers,” says Ms Evans. “We were really interested in people who blog, in people who write for business, academic writers and even students. It’s such an important skill in life.”

The couple’s original business was called Write Track, which provided writing tips through a blog and newsletter. They also ran workshops and webinars. Eventually they came up with Prolifiko. It utilises a two-step system.

“First of all we get people started on a five-day writing challenge,” says Mr Smith. “What that writing challenge does is it helps them break down their writing project into a series of small steps.”

The next stage aims to help writers continue the momentum through a series of nudges and reminders.

One of the very first beta testers of the platform was Wyl Menmuir, who used Prolifiko to help him write The Many, a novel that was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016.

“It’s his creativity and his talent that has enabled him to write but he has said a number of times that what the product enabled him to do was look back at his writing patterns,” says Mr Smith.

In order to develop Prolifiko, Ms Evans and Mr Smith used a series of freelance web developers, coders and designers – many of whom were from in and around Hebden Bridge. The market town is a creative hotspot and there’s a network of specialist creative freelancers willing to collaborate, says Ms Evans.

Currently, Prolifiko is free to use, as it is still in the prototype phase. But while there are plans to charge for full access in the future, the five-day challenge will always remain free, says Mr Smith, as a way of introducing writers to the platform. Ms Evans and Mr Smith have so far been self-funding the project.

The couple are looking to incorporate a teaching element, that helps people learn different writing styles, in to Prolifiko in the future.

Ultimately, both Ms Evans and Mr Smith want to help people fulfil their dreams of writing.

Creative industry

Chris Smith and Rebecca Evans have both always had a love for writing.

In addition to working on Prolifiko, Ms Evans also works part-time at Emerald Publishing looking at innovation.

While Mr Smith describes himself as an “amateur writer” and has written comedy scripts. He also does a lot of work in content creation and marketing.