Last year I felt like my output was lacking. At the time I said:
I’m going to try to focus on getting back to the style of work I did a few years ago: Long-form, multi-part, deconstructionist nitpicking with the attitude that we nitpick because we love.
The recent Fallout 3 analysis was the first of these. Mixed in with that should be some programming posts.
I’d say this was a solid success. My output is way up. The
Mass Effect series is probably the most popular thing I’ve done since DM of the Rings, and
the column is better than ever. I did the Mass Effect series,
plus I kept up with the weekly column,
plus I finished Good Robot,
plus I managed to give everyone a few paragraphs of commentary on the Wed-Thu-Fri Spoiler Warning posts. Also, I uploaded more alleged music to
my Soundcloud page, which entertained less than a hundred people
but shut up I like making this stuff anyway.
The Mass Effect retrospective is being compiled into book form. Maybe that will sell.
Good Robot wasn’t a smash hit, but the income gave us a few months of breathing room.
The
Final Fantasy X series is going over well.
We have about nine more months of
old Let’s Plays to repost. Those are fun. I don’t know what I’ll do on Sundays when those run out.
I’m pretty confident that my problem is with audience discovery, not retention. I think I’ve got stuff here that people would enjoy if I could get them to read it. The problem is that it’s hard to get people to click on text articles these days. This is not because [insert popular cultural boogeymen here, usually millennials] are all senseless dullards who have lost appreciation for the written word. I think the problem is that the world is awash in unwanted words and think-pieces. Demand is as high as ever, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible and finding words that are worth your time is harder than ever. It’s really hard to convince someone, “No seriously, this one is different. Just read some of it.”
Our tools for discovering good videos are a lot better than our tools for discovering good text. Like, when someone shares a video on Twitter, you get a sexy thumbnail and a sense of what you’re in for.
But a text article is usually just a title and a link. There’s less indication of what you’ll get if you click. Youtube has likes and view counts so you can tell if you’re about to see something
popular,
obscure,
infamous.
Videos are a great way to rope new people in. And I think they’re more willing to read the words once they’ve seen a video. But like I said last year, video takes bloody ages. In the time it takes to make one video I could probably write three massive entries like
this one. I don’t have the hours to spend on that. I want to make videos to attract people to read the blog, not make videos
instead of the blog.
But!
My kids are old enough to get into audio / video editing, and a couple of them have the inclination and aptitude for it. So I’m working on doing some sort of collaboration where I can just do the writing and narration and offload the time-sucking editing onto an assistant. I have no idea if this will work, but it sounds like a fun project. Barring that, it should be educational. My hope is that I’ll be able to do a monthly video,
Errant Signal style.
So that’s where your support is going. Thanks for giving. And if you don’t give, thanks for sharing the articles. And even if you don’t share the articles, thanks for reading.
Onward!