Ideas for the launch

Hey guys,

The plan is to launch the forum publicly in mid February. I would like to hear your ideas for the best way to get the word out to the right people.

I'm not necessarily interested in reaching the largest possible audience. Rather, I think it would better serve the community to target people with our interests.

Your thoughts?

 

That's a generous offer, Kev, although I wouldn't want to put the burden entirely on you. That could get to be overwhelming.

The thought of offering critiques may be attractive to some people, though. One thought that crossed my mind is eventually adding a forum where people can request manuscript critiques from other members, and then arrange to exchange manuscripts. That could be a useful service perhaps?

 

Update and Goals

I want to keep you guys in the loop as to what I'm experimenting with.

I've been dabbling with various approaches (in a small way) over the past week, trying get a sense for what avenues hold the most potential. Here's what I've been trying:

Google Adwords - Yesterday I began running a few ads on a very limited scale. So far one of the 3 ads that I created has a decent click-through rate, so I may consider sending it out to a broader audience. I have $100 budgeted for adwords over the next month, so we can try different things.

Facebook Ads - On Thursday I created a few Facebook ads, again on a small scale. At least two of them are generating decent-clicks, which shows potential.

Social Bookmarking - Over the last week I've been gradually submitting the articles on the home page to social bookmarking sites, and have been gauging how this impacts traffic. I've been trying Digg, Delicious, Stumbleupon and Reddit. The day after the submission traffic tends to spike upwards of 200% and then dies down. There are possibilities here, I suppose.

Mentions in various forums and blogs - I've been using signature links in several forums and blogs, in a totally legit, non-spammy way. This isn't really designed to generate traffic directly. Rather, it's part of the "link building" game that you have to play to make your way to Google's front page. The more "do follow" links that exist in the wild, the more weight Google gives to your site. This doesn't show results for a many months, however. It's part of a long term Search Engine Optimization strategy.

Chris mentioned Project Wonderful as a possible network for advertising. I checked it out, and it looks like a good option. I'm going to try running an ad or two there in the next few days, and see how it plays out.

There's another factor that I want to highlight. The way that a site really gets attention is through search engines. And search engines love content. The more content that exists on a site, the faster the site makes it's way to the front page of results. For many sites this becomes a problem. It's hard for two or three people to generate a lot of content.

But if you have a forum, the members generate content at a much faster rate than a small team ever could. Each post adds to the site's content, and makes it more valuable in the eyes of Google. So as more people discover the site and post, the more visible the site becomes in search results. And the more visible the site is, the more people join and create content. It becomes a snowball effect.

In other words, once we get the ball initially rolling, promotion will take care of itself. It usually takes a year or longer for most sites to reach this point. However, I am projecting Mythic Scribes getting there far faster. Why? Because this is a forum geared towards writers. And writers tend to produce thoughtful, content rich posts at a faster rate. So the whole process is rapidly accelerated when you factor in our demographic.

It's very feasible that a year from today Mythic Scribes will be a known, respected presence in the fantasy scene. That could translate into interviews with important authors, interacting with publishers, and other unexpected joys. Most importantly, Mythic Scribes could become an important platform for new and emerging fantasy authors to connect with an audience.

That's my ultimately dream for this site: that a new crop of fantasy writers spring forth from this community.

But in the meantime, our goal is to reach that initial group of writers who will form the founding core. We have to determine the best way (or ways) to connect with that group.