Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Not enough time for EnidBlyton.net?
I'd love to sit around all day and read Enid Blyton books, write reviews, scan illustrations, and post updates on EnidBlyton.net, just like I did when I first created the site around Christmas 2004. In those days I had more time on my hands; my little girl was only 6 months old and my better half was a stay-at-home Mom. Plus, a lot of the income from my home-based website design business came from affiliate marketing, which (long story short) meant "earning money without doing much." Yes, in those days my life was pretty easy; I had plenty of time to read, write, scan and post as much as I liked.
But all that's changed. After a year or so of writing and posting reviews pretty much every week (including reviews from fellow contributors) my wife went back to school and my daughter became a toddler. And the internet affiliate marketing business shriveled up like a prune. Suddenly I found myself having to really work for a living. Yikes!
It therefore became difficult to justify spending any time on the website when I had a pile of work to do and bills to pay. Luckily my hobby site found its feet around the end of 2005 and I watched with excitement as it crept slowly but surely up to the first page of Google for the search term "enid blyton" (competing with over a million other results). This had a snowball effect and I suddenly realized that an awful lot of people were following my recommendations to buy Enid Blyton books from Navrang.com, an online bookstore specializing in popular children's books. What little business sense I had told me that I couldn't just send customers to Navrang without earning something in the process! So I pestered Navrang into developing an affiliate program for themselves, and finally they did so — meaning I could earn a small commission for each sale. Hey, I might as well make something for my hard work, right? The great thing is that the modest profit I make on book sales through Navrang "allows" me to include EnidBlyton.net in my work schedule as bone fide business.
Still, there's work and there's work. A paying customer must come before a hobby site (even if that hobby site happens to make a little money), so in that sense it seems very little has changed — I still don't have as much time to spend on the site as I would like.
I do have plans though. One regular to the site suggested I scan every illustration of every Enid Blyton book and post them all on the site. That's, er, wishful thinking. But I have since toyed with the idea of scanning every illustration of a select handful of books, perhaps one or two from each series to act as "examples." That idea appeals to me, and it's something I'd like to start on in the next few weeks or so. In the meantime, fellow Blytonite and children's book collector Ian Regan has started something along the same lines, and is worth a look.
This blog is intended as a fairly regular update of all things Blyton in my life, including progress on the website (or lack of!). Think of it as "behind-the-scenes" of EnidBlyton.net; sometimes there are things I want to mention but don't feel it's of much interest except as a passing comment. Well, that's what blogs are for! So please stop by from time to time — who knows, you might find out a few utterly pointless things such as how long it takes me to put a review or article together, how many I've written for the website and how many collective words they constitute, and other equally smashing stuff.
This post has 6 comments
You are sooo right. I wish I could surf the internet for EB's websites for hours. I was unsatisfied about my one-hour-surfing-the-internet. That's the limit my mother has given to me. One hour!
Well, Keith, don't worry. I'm sure you will have a lot of time managing this website.
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