Health Check
It's been an odd couple of months for Anime News Network, various issues from increased school workload, to new jobs and health problems have resulted in a number of our regular staff either leaving, or significantly cutting back on the amount of work they can do for ANN.
Unfortunately similar issues have plagued the editors of ANN as well, significantly hurting our ability to bring in new funding and new writers.
Fortunately we have persevered, ANN is still here and always will be. Not only that, but our goal remains the same, to continue to grow ANN into a fully professional source of Anime news, views and reviews.
Over the next few months a number of new staff will be joining ANN, but first we'd like to welcome two returning staff members. Isaac Alexander, ANN's former editor in chief has rejoined ANN in a number of different capacities, ranging from marketing to content writing. Garry Berryhill has also returned to ANN to help with the drudgework what is in fact the core reason for ANN's being, the daily Anime news. So we'd like to welcome these two great gentlemen back to ANN.
One of the biggest challenges that Anime News Network has faced in the past two years is financial. When we took over the website in June 2000, it cost roughly $25 a month to maintain, and earning $5-$20 CPM was easy. Today ANN costs over $1000 a month to maintain, and earning $2 CPM is a challenge.
To that effect, we'd like to thank our sponsors, both new and old. Anime Castle was the first to sponsor ANN in March 2001, and J-List joined shortly thereafter. Without the support of the two great on-line stores ANN would be a very different website, so we would definitely like to thank them for their continued support.
So please, help us show our appreciation by visiting their stores and making their investments into ANN worthwhile. If I may be so bold, Anime Castle has a number of great PS2 games on sale, Quake 3, Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs Zeon, and Onimusha (one of the best samurai games you can ever play) are all 5% off to ANN readers who enter coupon code #acann02. Meanwhile our friends at J-List have given us a coupon, CAL9020, for 20% off any calendars (this link is to their non-adult calendar section, but the coupon is good for the other stuff too).
As of November 2002 two more great online retailers have started to sponsor Anime News Network, Robert's Anime Corner Store and Anime Nation. Go visit them too! (I'm feeling pretty shameless today).
Back to the topic of writers, ANN is now looking for some new reviewers, capable of writing 4 to 10 reviews every month. If you are interested in reviewing for ANN, send a sample review to reviews (at animenewsnetwork.com). Please take a look at the format of our other reviews and write in a similar fashion. We'll read through all the reviews sent to us and respond fairly and honestly; but please allow us some time to respond.
Last but not least, I'd like to talk about contests, it's been a while since we ran a contest, and we haven't updated the contest page with the results of the previous contests in a while. This is of course a result of the time issues mentioned above, given the choice, what would you rather we put our limited time into, news or contests? We've got a number of new contests that will start very soon, and we'll also be finishing up the Forum Trivia Contest in December as well as updating all the past contest pages with the results.
If you've read this far, you can probably see a trend. ANN is a lot of work, and we only have so much time and energy. Unfortunately no one works on Anime News Network full time. Many of us would love to devote our full time to Anime News Network, but the budget unfortunately isn't there. Perhaps if the website can keep growing and we can secure more sponsors things might change. Right now that is our goal, to continue to grow and improve Anime News Network to the point where there are people working on the website full time. So towards that goal, the last thing I'd like to ask, is that you please fill out our survey, it's to help us improve the site and raise more money (which is in turn used to improve the site). Besides, of the people who fill out the survey, we'll randomly pick 60 to receive $10 coupons to Robert's Anime Corner Store.
Thanks!
Christopher Macdonald
Unfortunately similar issues have plagued the editors of ANN as well, significantly hurting our ability to bring in new funding and new writers.
Fortunately we have persevered, ANN is still here and always will be. Not only that, but our goal remains the same, to continue to grow ANN into a fully professional source of Anime news, views and reviews.
Over the next few months a number of new staff will be joining ANN, but first we'd like to welcome two returning staff members. Isaac Alexander, ANN's former editor in chief has rejoined ANN in a number of different capacities, ranging from marketing to content writing. Garry Berryhill has also returned to ANN to help with the drudgework what is in fact the core reason for ANN's being, the daily Anime news. So we'd like to welcome these two great gentlemen back to ANN.
One of the biggest challenges that Anime News Network has faced in the past two years is financial. When we took over the website in June 2000, it cost roughly $25 a month to maintain, and earning $5-$20 CPM was easy. Today ANN costs over $1000 a month to maintain, and earning $2 CPM is a challenge.
To that effect, we'd like to thank our sponsors, both new and old. Anime Castle was the first to sponsor ANN in March 2001, and J-List joined shortly thereafter. Without the support of the two great on-line stores ANN would be a very different website, so we would definitely like to thank them for their continued support.
So please, help us show our appreciation by visiting their stores and making their investments into ANN worthwhile. If I may be so bold, Anime Castle has a number of great PS2 games on sale, Quake 3, Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs Zeon, and Onimusha (one of the best samurai games you can ever play) are all 5% off to ANN readers who enter coupon code #acann02. Meanwhile our friends at J-List have given us a coupon, CAL9020, for 20% off any calendars (this link is to their non-adult calendar section, but the coupon is good for the other stuff too).
As of November 2002 two more great online retailers have started to sponsor Anime News Network, Robert's Anime Corner Store and Anime Nation. Go visit them too! (I'm feeling pretty shameless today).
Back to the topic of writers, ANN is now looking for some new reviewers, capable of writing 4 to 10 reviews every month. If you are interested in reviewing for ANN, send a sample review to reviews (at animenewsnetwork.com). Please take a look at the format of our other reviews and write in a similar fashion. We'll read through all the reviews sent to us and respond fairly and honestly; but please allow us some time to respond.
Last but not least, I'd like to talk about contests, it's been a while since we ran a contest, and we haven't updated the contest page with the results of the previous contests in a while. This is of course a result of the time issues mentioned above, given the choice, what would you rather we put our limited time into, news or contests? We've got a number of new contests that will start very soon, and we'll also be finishing up the Forum Trivia Contest in December as well as updating all the past contest pages with the results.
If you've read this far, you can probably see a trend. ANN is a lot of work, and we only have so much time and energy. Unfortunately no one works on Anime News Network full time. Many of us would love to devote our full time to Anime News Network, but the budget unfortunately isn't there. Perhaps if the website can keep growing and we can secure more sponsors things might change. Right now that is our goal, to continue to grow and improve Anime News Network to the point where there are people working on the website full time. So towards that goal, the last thing I'd like to ask, is that you please fill out our survey, it's to help us improve the site and raise more money (which is in turn used to improve the site). Besides, of the people who fill out the survey, we'll randomly pick 60 to receive $10 coupons to Robert's Anime Corner Store.
Thanks!
Christopher Macdonald
bookmark/share with:
