This is just a brief post to get everybody (our readers) caught up to speed on some recent BSC happenings and those that are just around the corner in the 2010. First, only something like .06 percent of our readers follow us on twitter, so if you do disregard this first bit because you already heard it. The rest answers some questions our contributors have had, and others are just the sweetness you come to expect from BSC. Damon is on vacation so this is where I tell you the how and what without them around, so they come back to mad pressure! It’s also where I sneak in stuff they haven’t agreed to!
BSC needs a Suncrusher, Binford, Flux Capacitor, Energon Powered Hosting…again
Last week we moved to a new dedicated server so if you experienced outage and hiccups with the site, that was the cause. Site was just too big/popular for the package we had and we had to put it by itself (we host quite a few sites/blogs) on its own dedicated server on what we feel is a superior hosting provider. You may experience the same hiccup very soon as we’ve recently found out that while this new home is better than the last, we’d be much better off bumping up to the next level, as apparently BSC is too sexy for even this current dedicated server. I don’t want to give specific dates, but it will be next month (we will keep you better updated this time, sorry the holidays can be a mess). This package should be more than enough to handle the BSC Deathstar, and hopefully gone are the days of me manually rebooting us several times a day due to traffic spikes. We are looking for speed and reliability to match our growth, which in 2009 has been rather ridiculous–some 700% or so. This should make the other sites we host speedier as well, with BSCreview not being on the same space hogging up the resources.
I will update here at BSC when it occurs again. This next change will not effect any of our other sites excluding BSCkids and Heliotrope. Everyone’s personal blog that we host will be fine this time around.
Divisions of the Empire
I try not to turn away voices, so if somebody wants to talk about any subject, this is your venue. What that does however is create issues with what I call fan-specialists. They only want to read only film news, or only books reviews, or only television casting etc etc. Our new design will give us the ability to separate each of our main categories and give them essentially their own home. For example, you will be able to come to bscreview.books (or something like that), lose no visual or functional appeal of our main page, but just see book related news, interviews, reviews and features. The same for the rest of our categories–some of which we will expand on. I’m looking for sports people–if I have any volunteers! I’m also looking for heads of each division to really take us to corporate takeover levels. It’s a rather unique situation because of the way our site is optimized, any new subject we tackle will have an incredible advantage.
Note that this is really an aesthetic change–even while we added several more points of interest, we got more book related interest this year by several times over the last (like we do every year). Our front page will still be comprehensive and serve as a gateway to for those that have several areas of interest. We are very excited about this upcoming change!
Contest Stuff
Since it’s New Years Eve I doubt anybody is reading (I’m just saying that, an odd amount are–but we love you most!), but I did want to point out a preview of a new contest (which isn’t really a preview, I bought one for myself as well). I will be announcing this contest at BSCreview early next month. It’s a sweet, limited, signed, print off Jeffrey Jones’ cover art to the Meisha Merlin edition of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. This will be the first of some really sweet contests coming from BSCreview and BSCkids. There are two things about contests that people should know about going forward. From now on contests are open to anyone who follow BSC of BSCkids on Twitter or Facebook (whichever is applicable). We haven’t stressed social networking too much yet, but in 2010 it is a semi-focus (.07 percent is ridiculous!). If this is a turn off, it is what it is. People who already follow our twitter know that some of you will get a slight advantage in the print contest! If we get one follower, then I guess that’s who winning all of our contests!
You will probably definitely see less contests at BSC next year, but they will be much better (in our opinion). We want them to be special and not the standard bullshit you can get anywhere. We have one planned for BSCkids next month which is just awesome!
BSCkids and Charity
We’ve decided that 20% (you like that? I just upped it 10%, Damon!) of ad revenue at BSCkids will be donated to Toys for Tots at the end of the year (or, rather, right before the holidays). I was a military brat and this is a great cause, so I’m extra stoked about this (especially for the future). This applies to any ads we ourselves sell, not those from our ad-representative/provider. We will also honor this with any packages with BSCreview and BSCkids, but please note that not every ad we’d put up at BSCreview would be acceptable at BSCkids (for obvious reasons). Please contact us with any questions. Also, if you’re talking about a package please note that BSCreview rates reflect our traffic, but we will try to work with you if its a BSCkids package. We had an odd experience recently where we kept telling somebody we had no such spot for their desired price point (without checking, I think it was $100-$125) but it somehow still turned out to be a 6-8 email exchange. Please don’t waste our time. We simply can’t give you a spot that makes us more AS IS. We don’t BS, we send you a price list and our terms, and again, it is what it is. Not trying to be difficult, it’s just an issue of time for us. Don’t come at me with the rates for a site 1% of our size just because we both happen to talk about The Malazan Book of the Fallen or Dune every now and then.
Kind of want to thank Patrick Rothfuss, as his own fund raising efforts got me thinking we need to all be doing something for somebody.
In Ending
I want to thank all of our contributors! You can ask Damon this, but for years my goal was to have like 10-20 people who were better than me at BSC, and now I find myself jealous being the most worthless person at this joint! Very much appreciate those keeping the flame alive and helping us spread it. Every new voice we get just gives us new ideas and makes us want to work more to improve the venue! We are always looking for more people to talk about anything they have a passion for, so if there is anybody out there posting gems in obscurity and wants or needs a step-up in venue, tell them about BSC. We are trying to put people on. Don’t think we aren’t interested–give us a chance to decide for ourselves!
Special thanks to the old school crew and people like Brian who has a handle on the Murder Inc (not the wack rap label) portion of the site. I’m kind of thinking that BSC is inching up there toward being a real nice online option for the Crime/Mystery enthusiast–big ups to all of our new friends from that community! Also, we brought in Elena this year and gave her the rank of Moff. She has taken a ton of responsibilities from both Damon and myself, and has freed us to have time to make decisions that have helped achieve this year’s growth. With her we finally had the time to change most of our rolodex from publicists/editors to VPs and Managers (still got love for those beautiful publicists out there!). She started quoting Can’t Hardly Wait and I knew she was perfect for the job! Aman-DUH! Fellas (and ladies), if a girl busts that out in regular conversation, she goes up 4 points in stature. Just a big thanks to every one of our contributors who give me something interesting to read everyday. Also need to give props to Mark, who basically does all the work Damon takes credit for. Plus, he told me that Damon didn’t know who Charlize Theron was, which is as classic as him not having seen Top Gun, Ghostbusters or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Mark got to take pictures of all the stars for BSC’s Underground/Off-the books operation, but still, he deserves thanks! For us, BSC is this grand hobby and we are continually surprised and overjoyed that others choose to share in that with us–thank you so much! Where else can you go to get a grown man admitting in casting a vote for Selena Gomez, witness a bard of Sodom in Hal Duncan, read movie reviews where gems like “Tits McGee” are uttered, and experience the destructive truths of the NerdofNoir?
Most important, everybody please have a happy and safe expertly planned destructive New Years!
*points to Matt* Cue Imperial Theme…
