Panel of the Week – Farewell
I’m closing down Panel of the Week. I have a handful of reasons but they are the same as every other schlub who can’t keep at it. Well, maybe my story is a bit different. I have been hired, for very little money, to write Panel of the Week for Techland.com.
Actually, the amount of money is a yet-to-be-determined small sum. It’s TBD because I’m still negotiating the bowels of Techland’s parent company Time Inc’s HR department. Regardless of the final number scribbled down and slid across the table I can promise you it will top the $7.20 in Google Adsense revenue I’ve earned so far.
For anyone who is interested here are some figures on what it was like running POTW for six months. POTW got 5,900 visits over the last six months. That comes out to about 34 visits a day on average. The most I ever got in a day was 158 (the day I started an ad campaign on comicartcommunity.com) and of course the lowest was 0. POTW received a total of about 16,000 page views over these past six months. I’ll include a little graph of the breakdown of the pageviews here:
After the homepage you can see most traffic went to the wallpapers page. A page, it should be noted, that no one downloaded any wallpapers from. I’m serious. I think not one single person clicked on any one of the wallpapers I made.
After that the two Top 5 listicles I wrote got all the traffic. I didn’t like writing them but I felt that they would be good intro articles. Maybe I would get lucky and they would get digg or reddit attention. They didn’t. But I wasn’t really interested in doing another Top 5 blog. There’s enough of that inane crap out there.
Oh, I had three RSS subscribers on Feedburner. Two of those three, I’m quite sure, are me.
I’d like to thank the handful of you out there that supported me (Alecia, Joeybear, and there was probably someone else…). If you like the product I’m selling here please follow me over at Techland. I’ll be there till they fold or fire me.
However, if I do have some super secret fanbase out there there that’s quietly adoring my scans and insights now’s the time to change my mind. Leave a comment, email me, twitter me, etc. etc. etc. I’ll listen, I promise.
Otherwise, it was a fun ride and I’ll see you guys in line on Wednesdays.
- Mikey Donuts
How often will you be posting at Techland?
Jake,
I’ll be posting the POTW every Thursday. I’ll also be doing the occasional industry interview so keep an eye out for those. Although we recently picked up the wicked talented Douglas Wolk (http://www.lacunae.com/archives/2009/11/kants_critique_of_aesthetic_ju.html) so maybe you won’t be seeing much of me.
Mikey Donuts
good luck
Wait what? Just a few days ago, I discovered this Site, and went through all of the articles. Seriously, all of them. Every Panel, every follow-up and every description, even those of the comics I don’t even know!
It’s because of you, I started reading the Fall of the Hulks Stories. Dammit, don’t stop, I love this website!
and just so you know: I would have downloaded one of the Spidey wallpapers, but your wallpapers are missing some alternative resolutions. At least I didn’t find the option to choose
Really, don’t stop, give the site another chance. Half a year is pretty much nothing, and you need to give people time to find your stuff. If I like it, it can’t be too bad.
Oh, and see the german webcomic ad banner on the top right! That’s mine! There, I support you!
Well, it’s not really “farewell” if the POTW is just doing a Cylon-consciousness-like transfer to TechLand, is it? (I have RSS feeds running for both sites.) I don’t know how much it costs to keep the rights to the name, but I would hold onto POTW. If your tenure runs out at TechLand, you should go back to doing your own thing. Even if you never build up a huge following—I do think that’s possible—cataloging your thoughts on your favorite comics is worth doing for its own sake.
Good Luck. I’ll be sure to check it out.
The third RSS-subscriber was me. I think that you stop to early. Even before you give this site the chance to create momentum. However, I liked this site and I wish you success with everything you are up to. I also wish that you give your future efforts more chance to grow.
As Buf said, half a year is pretty much nothing.