On June 30, Examiner sent out an e-mail informing writers that they were closing up shop. Since then, I've been working pretty much around the clock, trying to move as much content here as possible. Alas, between the amount of content published, the fact that Examiner's site was a perpetually lagging and unresponsive nightmare (a likely reason it went out of business), and the short time frame (though to be fair, I got more time than I thought I was going to get) I wasn't able to get everything transferred.
Now, this shake up changes some things, but not so much. The Stephen King and anime write-ups will continue, only the content will be posted here directly. Sadly, the 'Rurouni Kenshin' write ups are pretty much dead in the water (for now anyway, I'll get to that later.) I wasn't able to get everything moved and I'd rather not have that huge gap. I'll likely watch it on my own time so that I can make room on the Netflix queue, but that's it. The 'Dragon Ball Super' write ups will continue and I will also start up on other series. I'd also like to use this as a chance to branch out into other things. Reviewstream does allow me to do that to some capacity, but having everything here actually makes it a bit easier to accomplish, in all honesty.
How does the site shut down affect the business model, you ask? Not going to lie, losing a revenue stream sucks. However, Reviewstream is still viable and this site offers streams that have yet to be tapped (Patreon and Amazon affiliate links for example, both of which will be pressed harder.) I've monetized my Youtube channel, though that's not going to mean anything until I actually start posting content there. It's probably just going to be vlog stuff, but it'll (hopefully) help a bit and should add some variety to the page. For those who are looking to redistribute their wealth, either for the sake of income equality or because being rich is too much of a burden for you; or those who have qualms about using Patreon, I've also added a Paypal button to the page. It's way down at the bottom for the sake of quasi-subtlety, but it's there if you go looking for it.
Another question that may arise is whether or not I'm going to go back and "re-do" the content that was lost in the shut down. At this point, the answer is no. I know, it sucks having an archive full of dead links. As of now, though, I'd rather look forward to new things. I have, however, added a new Patreon milestone where I would go back to re-watch, re-read, and re-review everything that wasn't able to get transferred. It's a bit steep ($7,000/month) but I think it's justified. For one thing, that's A LOT of time and work on it's own. I would also want to keep putting out new content consistently for the site and there is also the monthly short story and novella that comes with some of the lower milestones. In short, I'd be earning it. If that isn't enough, there's also the charity milestone which precedes this one to take into consideration.
I suppose one could also use the $30 request reward level to help fill in the gaps. I don't know why you'd want to waste your request on something that was already discussed and would be buried in the archive, never to be seen on the front page, but it is an option.
This was a bit of a curveball, but I think it's endurable. In some ways, this could work out better. This site runs a lot smoother than Examiner did, so readers will likely be more willing to come here rather than see their computer freeze up for 20 minutes at a time. I also have more flexibility here in terms of content fodder than I did there. Admittedly, the business cards I ordered a few years back are now useless, but I never really ended up using them anyway. Beyond that, I'm going to keep making content and I've come up with contingencies to make up for the financial loss of the site's shut down. If all goes well, this could end up leading to some growth in the future.
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