Umm, that it's not quite dead yet?



Well, you had to ask, so...:

1) Sometimes, it's as slow as molasses around here (of course, being away for nearly two months and then having all sorts of other paying and non-paying reading projects has put a damper on my activities on any forum/site)

2) There really isn't all that much engagement it seems with what is transpiring on the larger SF-oriented sites. This place feels a bit insular and there really isn't much in the way of substantive book discussions. Of course, I'm writing this after seeing a post I made at Westeros about a 2010 debut novel, N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, has passed 80 comments and nearly 5000 page views

3) Too often people here seem to wait around for an Admin or someone else to take the initiative. I hated that when I co-ran OF and I still despise that lazy attitude these days.

4) Still too bare-bones nearly 9 months later. I'm not talking about huge features, but rather the lack of even that tacky yet easy-to-do Interviews post category for the mods and a corresponding link where all such posts were gathered automatically. Speaking of interviews...



Well, for starters, you lot could get off your asses and go forth and interview authors. I'm currently interviewing two right now for the Nebula site, but it's not that hard to find authors willing to do interviews with SF sites. Look at the Nebula and (later) Hugo shortlists. Contact each and every one of them (most have LJs, blogs, and sites where their emails are listed). Read a sampling of their work to get an idea of who they are and what they write (many of the authors I've interviewed had samples online). Then start conducting interviews after polite requests. A dedicated 1-5 people could, if they wanted to, could have an interview a week for months on end. Also helps that said authors usually post links, via their blogs, LJs, and/or Twitter/Facebook accounts and more traffic is generated this way.

It would also help if some here, whether they be Admins or just regular posters, would just engage more often with people at other sites or who do other blogs. It's sad when someone such as myself, who as the main blogger (still waiting for Jake to rise from the dead and participate more often, like he promised ) at the OF Blog, gets much more attention from authors and publishers with only 1200 blog entries compared to a site that perhaps has a few million page views and a dedicated SF/books section that has over 10K posts.

Sometimes, you just have to be more proactive and learn how to network if you want this place to be hopping, I guess.