Not So Much Dethroning

First, the good news: I am happy and well and life is going just fine. Better than fine, actually. I’m in the spot that I have been aiming at for the last couple of years, even though it didn’t come about quite how I expected. I can’t quite get into the details yet, but within a couple of months I should be able to talk about the projects I’m working on now. For now, suffice it to say that I’m excited about them, which is rare, but good.

Yet, Dethroner. Here are the options:

• Shutter it completely.
• Leave it up, but update it infrequently.
• Sell it to someone else interested in maintaining it.

The middle option is the least appealing to me. Even having given myself room to ignore Dethroner completely when I’ve needed to, it still gnaws quietly in the back of my mind. I need to be able to focus completely on my new projects, because Dethroner as it stands is a wash. I’ve gotten myself out of the debt I fell into trying to get it started, but I’m not interested in putting more money into myself until I am back into a comfortable financial state. That means no new writers paid out of pocket, which means no new writers.

There are a couple of deals on the table to purchase Dethroner, believe it or not. I’ve been very clear in my discussions with any suitors that I wanted to stay involved in an editorial capacity, because if my name is going to remain affiliated with the brand I want to make sure it’s something I can remain proud of. Those deals may or may not happen—I’d bet on “not happening”—but there is apparently more value to the brand, domain, past content, and modest daily traffic than I had at first suspected. Which, hey, awesome.

If one of those deals don’t happen, though, I think I’d rather just close up shop for a while, if only for my mental peace of mind. I’d leave up the old content, just because there’s no reason not to, but would put up a floating post that says we aren’t doing daily updates.

Why Dethroner Failed

There were two mistakes made, both mine. First, I hired an employee too early, which put too much of a strain on my savings when the site (and thus advertising revenue) didn’t grow at the rate I’d hoped. That was simply a lack of foresight on my part. I tried to work around that as long as I could, but eventually I just ran out of money, even when trying to do more freelance work on the side.

The second mistake was a product of the first. Once I realized what dire straights I was in, I pretty much gave up. I’m not proud to say it nor is there any excuse for it, but once I could see things were going to be a hard slog for the foreseeable future, my will to work was crushed. I’m really ashamed of that, but there it is. I’m not sure buckling down and writing a ton of content over the last few months would have been enough to save Dethroner’s bacon, but it probably would have been more productive than sitting around the house playing WoW, doing the occasional freelance piece, or anything else I could manage to do instead of opening up my text editor and start working. Ugh.

Anyway, I’m back in a good mental space again, thank fuck, and this is far from a plaintive cry for sympathy. I screwed up—end of story. But I’ve tried to be open with you guys about where things are at, and as much as it makes me cringe to say that I’ve bungled something, the mild success Dethroner has had is because of the great group of people who have stuck around and participated, so my apologies to you guys for my mistakes.

It’s not like I’m disappearing off the internet or anything, though, so if you’ve enjoyed my writing in the past, you’ll certainly be able to enjoy it in the near future. This was a fun attempt at running my own business and I definitely learned a lot about what not to do and where my own weak spots are.

Anyway, how about bacon? Isn’t that shit delicious?