The Reddit trial is not going well

A few days after a euphoric moment of First post asking for help on reddit makes me happy, things didn't turn out as well as I hoped. ~30 people showed interest in participation but very few followed through and I still haven't yet learned what I need to.

Here are my theories of why the drop-rate is high

1. The incentive to hand out the workbook for free significantly contributed to the hype but the tasks I asked the people to do are too much of a heavy lifting. The enthusiasm didn't pair up with it.
2. "taboo" and "sexy" are the practice words I chose for the trial worksheet for efficiency. However, they are not inclusive and could drive some people away.
3. Maybe there was too much delay between when someone showed interest and when I reached out. They might have lost interests by that point.

I hate to repeat the work but I should get this important part done right. Here's what I'm gonna do

1. Improve the trial tasks and materials
   • Cherish their time and attention. Make the trial as simple, inclusive, and streamlined as it can be. Make it feel as great as the final work
     • No jumping around between medias. Explain in text and photos instead of videos.
       • Slant angle finding guide on the page → get degree
       • Slant compass
       • Text guide for different character
       • Image reference for hand placement
     • Use neutral words instead
       • "necessary" with ["nece", "cess", "ssar", "sary"] breakdown
       • "sixty-six" with ["six", "ixt", "xty", "ty-"] breakdown
       • "old table" with ["old", "tab", "able"] breakdown
     • Combine the first questionnaire with the trial sheet so it's all single piece of digestible homework.
     • Spam the variations rather than giving complicated instructions
2. Unlimited participants. I need more participants than I thought and more will fall off midway. If reward budget is the concern, I could hand out free PDFs of the early version which would cost nothing when my budget ran out, a gift-card reward approach would also be a great marketing investment.
3. Reach recently active/replied users first. While I feel bad for not fairly pay attention to first comers first, I need to increase the likelihood of good turnaround.