River City Writer is Launched
Posted on July 23, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized |
For a little while now, I’ve been making mention of a new blog that I’m working on. That blog is now ready to be seen by public eyes.
Before I give you the link, a little bit about the new blog. As regular readers will know, I have always tried to make Edmonton the focus of Ink Slinger. While I like to think that I’ve done an okay job of it, I inevitably find myself talking about–well–myself. Given that the domain for this blog is adamsnider.com, I suppose that’s acceptable.
However, recently, I’d been thinking about doing something with a stronger focus on the City of Champions. I’ve always felt that the cultural scene in Edmonton is doesn’t get the respect it deserves. While we’re certainly not a huge city (though, by Canadian standards, we’re now pretty big–we’re in the top six in terms of population), we do have a number of world class events–like the Fringe Festival. I genuinely believe that Edmonton has the potential to be a world class, cosmopolitan city. I wanted to work on a project that highlighted that.
From this desire, River City Writer was born. River City Writer will focus almost exclusively on Edmonton (and the greater metro area) life and culture. There may be the odd bit of personal blogging that slips through, and I might on occasion write about events happening elsewhere in the province (like a concert or art show that is worth attending, but won’t be stopping in Edmonton, for example), but the overall focus will be on River City.
I’ll be writing about people, places, and events in and around the city of Edmonton. I will do my best to cover the festivals, the theatre productions, the concerts, and the art shows. I’d also like to include guest posts, from time to time, to give voice to other Edmonton-based bloggers.
For now, I’ve got a temporary theme up and running. It’s got a few bugs (the image on the About page, for example, is supposed to be left-aligned, but the current template hasn’t aligned it correctly. And, yes, it’s the theme, not my code–I checked), but it will work until the official theme is done being designed. Besides, it’s the content that counts, and I didn’t want to wait longer than necessary to make it public.
I have mentioned previously that my new blog is going to be a business venture, of sorts. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be selling anything. River City Writer will be free to read, and I will not attempt to sell anything to my readers. I will, however, be including some advertisements in the future (for the first little while, it will be ad-free). I’ll probably be starting with Google AdSense ads to start but, if I manage to gain the sort of readership I’m hoping for, I will contact local businesses about advertising on the blog. Ideally, this will help to promote local businesses, and provide readers will more relevant advertising (and, you know, bring in a few extra bucks for me).
I know that a lot of people have issues with advertising on blogs. Let me say straight up that my opinion cannot be bought. Regardless of what sort of advertising I feature, I will always write to please my readers, not my sponsors. I would rather lose a sponsor than lose a reader. Furthermore, I will never write something that I do not believe.
If, for example, Block 1912 purchased ad space on River City Writer, I wouldn’t suddenly write only good things about them (although, I genuinely like Block 1912, and think that they serve a great Americano, so I probably would have good things to say). If I thought they did something that deserved criticism, they’d get it. If they pulled their ad as a result, so be it. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even run ads for businesses that I didn’t support in the first place.
Now, since River City Writer will be getting most of my Edmonton-related posts, Ink Slinger will likely become a bit more personal than it has been in the past. It will likely also become less focused. I will definitely not be abandoning Ink Slinger, though. The frequency of posts here may decline for a little while, until I get into the groove of publishing two blogs at once, but hopefully, I’ll be able to maintain a minimum of 5 posts per week.
Please check out River City Writer. I hope that you’ll like what you read.
Comments
6 Responses to “River City Writer is Launched”
Leave a Reply
looks cool, I’m always up for good local writing and reportage.
Cool. I’ll endeavor to keep the quality high, and the publishing frequency constant.
rock on snider! very cool. will be a regular visitor for sure.
(you can link my blog now - i just wanted to have a post or two first)
rock on snider! very cool. will be a regular visitor for sure.
(you can link my blog now - i just wanted to have a post or two first)
Excellent! I can’t wait to see how the new site shapes up! Well done, and I commend you for taking this on. I’ll be a regular reader for sure. Up the irons!
You’re one of the most busy bloggers I know….how many are you going to have by the end is my question? Glad your reading in Calgary went well. So did Poetry in the Park.