say goodbye to the Question of the Week

This week’s Question — “What would it take for a superhero movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture?” — is the final Question. I won’t be posting them again. (Ditto the Question of the Weekend.)

It’s clear now that I’m not going to get the 321 new subscribers I was hoping to get this month, which means a round 1000 subscribers — the bare minimum I need to eke out a living from this site — is well beyond reach. Which means I’m going to have to cut back on the work I’m doing here. Dropping the Question of the Week seems like an obvious first choice: they haven’t been garnering must discussion lately, and generating conversation was the reason I started them in the first place.

It was almost four years ago — May 2010 — when I dedicated myself full time to working on this site (after 12 and a half years of doing it part time). I thought by giving it all my time and attention, that would draw in more readers and encourage more of you to subscribe. I was wrong.

The site will not be going away, at least not any time soon, but it’s going to have to stop being a one-woman magazine and get back to basics: reviews, and nothing else, most likely. Probably trailers and Doctor Who Things will be the next to go. I’ll be developing a new game plan over the coming weeks.

I wish this weren’t the way it has to be. But there simply doesn’t seem to be enough people willing to pay for what I’m doing here.

If you’re on the fence about subscribing, now would be a good time to come down off that fence and send a few bucks my way. Your subscription is always under your control, so you can cancel whenever you like if I cut back too much and you think you’re not getting your money’s worth.