Tell Me What You’d Like To Read At Solar Flare
I find myself seriously considering the direction to take Solar Flare in again. After all these years I don’t see me dropping the site, but I seem to have hit a plateau recently and I’m wondering how to kick start things again. Search engine traffic has dived lately and the remaining traffic, while steady is not growing. Equally important is the lack of comments or feedback on most of my posts.
In the past I have relied on (now falling) search engine traffic to provide revenue for the site and hoped to generate regular readers to provide feedback and discussion. The vagaries of search engine ranking are largely outside my control so I’m turning my focus on the regular readers.
So I’m asking you as a reader of this blog. What sort of things would you like to read on Solar Flare?
Right now I’m posting a mixture of articles, primarily:
1) Reviews - Either of Books, tv or movies. These are usually pretty short reviews just giving my general feelings on the work
2) News Posts - Short and easy to write, but in all honesty 99% of the news is easily available elsewhere.
3) Episode Guides - This is something new I’ve just started with the Doctor Who episode guide that I’m posting.
4) Opinion/Informational Posts - Something of a catchall group, usually longer posts, sometimes author bios or interviews or my thoughts on a particular sci-fi related issue.
The time pressure to keep up the current posting rate is becoming increasingly impractical and I’m thinking about dropping the news posts and focusing my efforts on less posts, but ones that are a little more unique.
So my questions are really simple. What do you like to read here? What makes you come back? What would make you comment more often?
Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his personal website eoghann.com..
11 Comments, Comment or Ping
Lora Elvira
I would like to read some articles of srtring theory explained and if mathmaticians have been working
the interrelationships between gravity, magnetism and atomic electron levels. Why you may ask because the unifying theory of the universe has to do with the way light partcles and time interelate.
Sep 25th, 2005
Brenda
I really enjoy the daily headlines. I don’t post because the articles don’t necessarily require feedback. I read the headlines, click on any articles I want more info on and then move on with my day knowing I’ve gotten up to date on the worlds of sci-fi and fantasy. I hope you’ll continue the site.
Sep 25th, 2005
TC
I enjoy the direction you’re taking the site now. I’ve set your site to be my FireFox homepage so I can get a quick update on sci-fi/fantasy news, and so far, you’re doing a great job. If you want to change the site, that’s certainly your call, but I like it as is.
Sep 25th, 2005
Eoghann
Thanks for the feedback. I guess the news posts do have their fans. It’s a fair point that a lot of the posts don’t really require comment and maybe thats my fault for not writing them in a way which encourages feedback more. It’s just a little depressing sometimes to see a whole string of “0 Comments” on the front page.
Sep 25th, 2005
Patrick
I’d like to see more reviews of individual episodes. I’m always interested in if other people think the same way I do or not.
Sorry about never posting comments, I guess a lot of us are just lurkers at heart.
Sep 26th, 2005
James
I’d say keep posting anything that you feel like. The beauty of blogs is that you get the author’s personality coming through. So add your opinions, or don’t. Post or don’t. If you’re not really digging what you are posting then it will show through.
Also, who cares about having no comments? We’re not all Slashdot (thank goodness).
On Search Engine traffic, the random Google hits for me are always stuff like Star Wars. But to be honest I’d rather have 10 regular readers than 100 random visitors. And I think that’s where the genre we’re in helps, the bretherin of SF sites all read each other!
Sep 26th, 2005
Andrew Oakley
I like the way that you cover both US and non-US sci-fi; particularly,
you’re one of the few SF news pages that covers Doctor Who AND all
the American stuff. I’d like to see more of that. Everyone appreciates
that the US leads the way on big-budget SF and we want that to remain
the bedrock of your coverage. But continuing and expanding the international
SF *in* *addition* would also be appreciated.
You’re also obviously someone who knows his stuff. Maybe an occasional
essay giving more detail on how a specific topic is covered in SF; for
instance, FTL travel, politics, warfare. Essays which put over your
expert point of view are more likely to generate replies.
Don’t be put off by the lack of comments! You’re primarily a news site,
and that’s a one-way information flow. Enjoy the fact that we respect
you as a newscaster!
As for generating funding, well, if there’s one criticism I have it’s
that your website design is graphically pretty poor. If you gave it
a good makeover, you could sell merchandise based on that design. I’d
buy a T-shirt promoting Solar Flare if it had a cool logo, but at the
moment the current design just isn’t cool. Perhaps a website makeover
competition? Winning design needs nothing more than a hearty thank-you
and to see their design put into place. At the end of the day, though,
making money from a website is pretty difficult. For the most part
you’ll just have to keep the day job whilst appreciating the kudos.
–
Andrew Oakley, Gloucestershire, UK
Sep 26th, 2005
Andrew Oakley
= 2) News Posts - Short and easy to write, but
= in all honesty 99% of the news is easily
= available elsewhere.
Just to clarify; this isn’t true. Your site is giving something
unique, distinct and valuable; a collation service that spans
genres, media and national borders.
I spent AGES looking for an RSS feed that gave a balanced look
at all SF across all the subgenres. Almost all the other sites
fall into specific categories, eg:
* One subgenre/title only (eg. Star Trek)
* American only (eg. Star Trek, Star Wars and SG1 but not Doctor Who)
* One medium only (eg. TV only, or Movies only, or Comics only)
This is where you excell; your BREADTH of SF news. Who cares if each
individual story is available elsewhere? The only place I’ve found
that it is all available in one place is here on Solar Flare. And not
only do you collate all this stuff together, you add your own
expert opinion, which is actually valuable in its own right! As
a complete package, this is superb. Keep it up- more of the same please!
Sep 26th, 2005
caveroamer
I like the Book Reviews and the Dr. Who news. Then I’m often suprised to find a tidbit from comics or movies or tv that I didn’t see elsewhere. Keep it going. It’s in my firefox bookmarks along with a few other sites I always “Open in Tabs” together to get my daily SF fix.
Sep 26th, 2005
Eoghann
Wow, thanks for all the kind words. Looks like I should just soldier on keeping my current mix of posts. I must be doing something right.
One of the reasons that I feature UK series as strongly as I do is that I’m Scottish and only moved to the US less than 6 years ago so things like Doctor Who are very dear to my heart. At some point I may resurrect some of the old pages from this site where I had a Blake’s Seven episode guide.
The suggestion about a redesign is a good one. I like my color scheme, but beyond that it is extremely minimalist. I have few if any artistic skills and figured it was better to go with something fast loading and simple. I don’t want the site to get graphics heavy, but it doesn’t really have to be quite this plain.
A competition is an interesting idea. Of course I’ll need to come up with a prize…
Sep 26th, 2005
Brenda
To continue the thoughts started in the “10 Most Influential Fantasy Authors” feedback - I’d love to see lists of the books available by said authors. So for Brooks’ it would list Sword of Shannara and the sequels, then the prequel, then the second set of Shannara books, the Magic Kingdom of Landover series, and the Running with the Demon books. A simple list of title and publishing datse (so folks can read them in order) would be excellent. Then anyone interested has a concise listing of titles/dates and can at least read the books in order. As an added bonus you could then offer a link to YOUR ranking of said books or maybe you could just put a little asterick next to one of the titles that says “start here”.
Certainly this info is available elsewhere - Brooks’ has several websited dedicated to him for instance - but the beauty of your website is that you’ve always provided lots of information IN ONE PLACE. As many posters above noted it is nice to come on one site that covers all media and U.S./non-U.S. sci-fi. You have it all. So while with a bit of work one could find info on all these different authors and dig up the publishing dates it would be nice to have it in one place. A concise resource for generations to come.
Oct 13th, 2005
Reply to “Tell Me What You’d Like To Read At Solar Flare”