Hi there , faithful readers!

I am in need of reader opinions today. For a while I have been posting previews of the weekly releases from Archie, BOOM!, Dark Horse, Dynamite, DC, IDW, Image, Marvel, and more. I started doing this because I noticed that people really like to read previews of weekly releases. However, recently I have found that posting these previews is taking up an inordinate amount of my time. I would say that I spend about 12 or more hours a week doing this, and that’s not really why I started this site!

Why does it take so much time, you ask? Well, I usually get the previews either by FTP, email, or as is mostly the case, I have to go to the publishers site, and download each individual image to my hard-drive! I the have to sort the images, rename a few, then I zip them up, and upload them to my server, and as we are talking several hundred megabytes of data, that takes a loooooooooong time! I then have to create a page, and enter the description for every single comic. It’s mostly just copying and pasting the info from the publishers site, but it still takes a long time. Then, after the images have uploaded, I have to go through and insert them all into the post, and make sure that they are sorted in the correct order, which again, takes a long time. To put this in perspective, I am currently posting about 100 previews a week.

I know that bigger sites like CBR & Newsarama have no problem with this, but they have tons of people working for them. Here, there is just me, with a couple of weekly contributions from columnists. There are also sites out there that post nothing but previews and press releases, but… I don’t want to be another one of those sites.

Last night I uploaded previews for about 5 hours, and I realised that in that time I could have written an article, or done a review. Instead I was sat, staring at the screen, copying and pasting, and uploading zip files. So, in many ways, I have sacrificed proper site content for posting previews, and grabbing traffic. Tonight I planned to post all this coming week’s Marvel and Image previews, but I need to go to the comic store, and then my wife and I are going to a friend’s house. Do I come back and post them afterward, staying up till 5 a.m. just to get them live? Do I do it all day Sunday, and not do the weekly Small Press Spotlight? Also, tomorrow, I REALLY need to spend some time editing an article that I am doing for some paid freelance work!

What I am thinking I will do, is stop doing the weekly bulk preview uploads completely. This will give me more free time to do  interviews, articles, and reviews, oh… and spend time with my wife too! However, I shall continue to post things like the sneak peek previews that Marvel sends me for titles that aren’t out for months, and I shall post select previews of certain titles, for example, Oni Have sent me a preview of Wasteland volume 6, and as this is a title that I LOVE, and think more people should be reading, I will post a preview of that! But really, do the weekly Marvel/DC titles need a bump-up?

So please, tell me your thoughts on the matter. Do people want to keep the previews, or would you prefer more articles, reviews, and interviews? Let me know, either on here, Twitter, or email me at edwardkaye@hypergeek.ca

Thanks,

Ed

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