posted April 22, 2003 02:22 PM               

I’m looking into the possibility of paying for a host site so you would have a simple domain name to remember, as well as no ads to annoy and slow you down. Shawn from GoldComics.com highly recommended his provider, but it costs $20/month for a GB. of space. (It’s my maximum price, for the minimum space I’m seeking.) I’ll look into others (if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know), but I highly value Shawn’s opinion, and that will be a heavy factor if/when I decide to take this step.

I’d LOVE to be able to pay for this myself and not have to worry about it, but I AM a poor college student and can’t afford $20 every month just so people can read my comics without the annoyance of ads (I’d like to be that generous, but I can’t), so the site would have to pay for it’s self somehow. I thought about the CD-ROM program paying for the site, but past sales and my ability (time being the key factor) to produce enough CDs, leads me to believe that this would HELP with the cost, but wouldn’t pay it every month. The only other option is something I don’t want to do, but would have to, create a members only section.

For $10-15 annually, a member would:
1)Have access to all of my back issues. (The free area of the site would only provide 6 months or so of issues.)
2)Have access to a “Book of the Month.” (Complete scans (or at least as complete as my copy of a particular book is) of 1 Golden Age book each month (public domain book that is, no DC, Timely, MLJ, etc.), rotated with no archive of past books. Members would be guaranteed 10 new books per term of membership, plus 2 reposts (for new members and those who just missed them the first time around). Even if a delay causes me to miss a month, it will be made up and everyone will have the opportunity for 12 books, even if their term of membership has expired.)
3)Receive my site reprint CDs at cost (Normally $5-8, I haven’t set a firm price yet. I need to recalculate my costs. I’d only be selling these slightly above cost to cover changes in the prices of supplies. I don’t want to appear to profit from these since they contain other people’s scans in addition to my own who haven't given me permission to use their scans at profit. Any profit I would make from my little “buffer” would go back into the site, paying for either the hosting, domain name, or new books to reprint.)
4)Receive my regular CDs (with new material) at a 30% discount (Normally $10, so they’d pay just $7. Like I said, I need to recalculate my costs, so the price may change, but I doubt it.)

Membership terms would run for 12 months after receipt of user name and password. Sign up prior to the 15th , and membership would start that month. After the 15th, and it would start the following month. For example, if you received your user name and password on the 12th of July, your membership would expire on July 1st of the next year. If you received them on July 22nd, it would expire August 1st of the next year.

For those concerned about me having another delay like I have had of late, lapsing memberships during the delay would be extended until 1 month after I am caught up as a guarantee of reliability. So for example, if you had a membership that was to expire April 1, and I’m 1 month late on my March updates, your membership would be extended until May 1.

Obviously this is a BIG change and would require more work from me. It shouldn't cut in to the Archive site Owen and I run (and I'd likely host that on the server too) I’ve thought about it for a long time before even seeking other opinions. Please let me know what you think of the idea. Is my proposed membership package fair? Are there any details that I overlooked? Is this something you would be willing to pay for if I offered it? (I’m not trying to get anyone to commit now, just feeling things out.) At the $10 price, I’d need 24 members. At the $15, I’d need 16.

In my eyes, either price is one heck of a bargain! For my site reprint CDs (which will each reprint 6 months of material), it would cost at least $10 for a year’s worth. If you were only interested in the “Book of the Month,” it would like paying $1-1.50 per Golden Age comic, and then getting 2 free! Plus you get the CD discounts! I hate anything giving the appearance of my site being a commercial endeavor, because it's not. But to keep it at it's best, I need to upgrade. And if I upgrade, I need to cover operating costs.

I wouldn’t do this until I had the site caught up again and was offering all of my CDs. At best, it could take place by August. I’m asking now because I need to see if there is sufficient interest. If this plan can’t support the site, I can’t do it. Unless I can get 15-20 different people interested, then it likely won’t happen. At least not yet.

-Steve

posted April 22, 2003 06:21 PM               

As far as bandwidth, I don't seem to have a problem with that. My usage according to Tripod has been low. According to my tracking service, I get an average of 24 unique hits every day, though it's usually more like 30-40. Per week I average 168, and 721 per month. In the 958 days (or slightly over 2 1/2 years) I've kept track, I've had 30,525 total hits including reloads of my main page.

-Steve

posted April 22, 2003 09:26 PM            

You have a great site, but I just haven't had the time to look at it much.

There is no doubt in my mind that your price is fair.

Should you do it? I don't know.

1. People can bookmark the address, and its not really that bad anyway. Also, anyone who reads one of your posts can just click on the link.

2. The ads don't bother me too much, but keep in mind
a. I haven't used your site much
b. I have DSL, a nice monitor, and a computer that's a little less than a year old.

3. More work for you.

4. You get 721 unique hits each month? Are you saying that there are more than 500 different people who visit you each month? I didn't say 700 because unique hits are probably broadband users who have IPs that change. Do these people come back next month? If so, you have a good user base.

5. If you need 20 people, I wouldn't do it unless I had 40. I'd hate for you to get 20 this year, 19 the next, 18 after that, etc.

6. Obviously, you love what you are doing, and the provider's price isn't high if you had the money. This suggests two other scenarios to me.

Scenario 1: Bite the bullet until you get out of college.

Scenario 2: Decide how much money you need to last you until you can afford to do this yourself. Try to get as much money as possible in the first year. If you meet your goal, reward these people by giving them free memberships until you can pay for the site yourself. However, keep accepting new memberships until you are a year away from paying for it yourself.

In any case, your price is fair. Personally, my life is very stormy now, and I wouldn't want to join. DSL is killing me, but I really need it. The flood of Masterworks isn't helping either. However, I hope things will settle down in a year and I would want to join. I'm not sure that I would want to pay $10 every year, but I think this is a worthy cause and wouldn't mind supporting it. And yes, I know people are starving, but I can't fix every problem.

posted April 23, 2003 12:24 AM               

As for my readership, those are my unique hits, but I think it's more a case of reader loyalty than sheer numbers. Remember, it's a unique hit each day. With over 200 stories online, the same people are bound to come back. If I had to estimate, I'd say I get between maybe 50 and 100 regulars based on the IPs, but I hear from surprisingly few people, and it's usually the same group of about 10 or less. As a result, unless I do a mass appeal like this, theirs is the only reaction I get.

-Steve