Looking Ahead

Last week I had to endure a horrendous run of non-traffic to The Sleaze, with visitor numbers plumbing new depths.  What the cause of this was, I have no idea, and since Friday, there has been a recovery of sorts.  When things are going so badly, one naturally starts questioning whether there is any point to continuing to run a website which is having its traffic regularly squeezed (mainly by Google).  Amidst the doom, my thoughts turned to the question of what I'd do online if I did close down The Sleaze.  Which is a very good question.  After all, the reality is that I won't be publishing The Sleaze forever and a day.  Sooner or later I'll get bored with it, run out of story ideas or simpy get fed up with the traffic situation.  So, when that day comes, will I continue to publish online with a new site?  Obviously, this blog would continue regardless, having taken on a life of its own, with its own unique content, since starting as an off-shoot of The Sleaze.  Would I even want to run another site, separate from this blog, though?  I think the answer to that is 'yes'.  The fact is that this blog alone simply wouldn't be able to accommodate all of my creative urges.  Blogs tend to be good for shorter pieces, podcasts and films, but the longer, more ambitious stuff really needs its own home.

But what would this hypothetical future site be about?  What kind of content would it carry?  Would it be another satire site?  The answer to the latter is simple - 'no'.  I really don't feel that there would be any point to in creating a new site covering the same ground as the old one.  That said, it probably wouldn't be a million miles from The Sleaze in terms of content.  The fact is that my favourite stories over there have always been the 'weird' stories: aliens, ghosts, witchcraft, conspiracies and the paranormal.  Ideally, I'd like to set up a site devoted entirely to that sort of thing.  A kind of a parody of Fortean Times and its ilk.  The question is, would there be any audience for such a I site.  To be honest, I haven't a clue.  But then again, when I started The Sleaze, I had no idea if there was an audience for a satire site.  However, in its pre 'Evil Google' prime, it pulled in some pretty impressive visitor numbers, (and still does on occasion).  Of course, it is much more difficult to launch a site and build traffic for it these days, (thanks largely to the aforementioned 'Evil Google').  But as - like The Sleaze - it it wouldn't be a commercial site, I wouldn't be looking for the big visitor numbers, just 'quality' visitors who were interested in the site, read multiple stories and made return visits.  Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves here - this is still all speculation, (although I've had a domain name for this hypothetical future site registered for a few years).  Right now, I'm still persevering with The Sleaze.