John D

Time for another interview
This time we are interviewing James, the main editor of www.MonstersAndCritics.com
MonstersAndCritics.com is a huge site which receives 100,000-200,000 unique visitors a day, I'm sure we can all learn something fmo this interview.

WF: Can you give us a short introduction to yourself James?

James: I am 32, married, one small baby and live in Glasgow, Scotland. Been building sites for around 3 or 4 years.


WF: What do you normally do to relax in your free time?

James: I don't have any free time...at least not much. What with the site, a wife and a new baby...I like to read before I go to sleep...maybe play a bit of guitar, badly. If I had more then I would be building a new house, that is my dream...oh and a villa in the South of France. :-)


WF: When did you create your first website and what was it?

James: I created my first site in late 2002..I think...it was WaroftheRing.net and is still going strong - really good community and run now by my friend and co-founder of that site, though I do not deal with it day-to-day. It was my obsession with Tolkien that got me interested in having a web site. I never had any small personal sites, wotr was quite big when it launched...in at the deep end with an unmanaged dedicated server, a bit of a nightmare at the time.


WF: What are you current websites and do you have plans for others anytime soon?

James: Just two really, warofthering.net and monstersandcritics.com. Though the former is run as a non-profit...so M&C is my only commercial site.

As for other sites we have half-a-dozen in the pipe, including one big African news site. I really want to get the eggs out of the one basket...the Internet is fickle.


WF: Can you tell us some details about your main site, www.MonstersAndCritics.com

James: Well it started as a movie review site, with a bit on arts, soundtracks and DVD. Then moved into my area of personal interest, current affairs. So now it is a bit like an online newspaper...but with entertainment bias. Also does a line in sports, science and tech, all of which could do with expansion and more staff. It gets around 100-150K unique users per day...mostly from the USA.


WF: How many hours do you work daily and what are your daily tasks for your sites?

James: About 8-12 hours per day, though broken up. I edit the site overall, so decide what stories are running and which ones will headline. I also deal with advertising/affiliates, the business side of things and any design work.

Do you get sent anything for free to review it for your site? If you do, what’s the best thing you have ever got?
Well I don't review anything on the site..in fact I hardly write anything anymore either. However, our reviewers get anything they cover for free...though sometimes they are not retail versions...since they often come in very early. But likes of books, DVDs, CDs etc. They also attend junkets/screenings, interviews etc.

I see you have a competition section on your site, do you run competitions on a regular basis? What do you normally give away as prizes and do you think it attracts a lot of new visitors and keeps returning visitors?
Hmmm well, we do run competitions...in fact we get at least one offer a day to run some. However, they can be a pain since you have to contact winners and then make sure the company sends out the prizes etc. They can bring traffic from those competition aggregator places and I guess nice to give something back to users as well, so good for return visits. Prizes range from DVD sets to statues and all sorts of odd stuff that companies create to promote their latest offering. I guess we will probably employ someone to manage them soon, just part-time. They are a great way to promote your site of the bat.


WF: Do you work alongside anyone else? What do they do?

James: Yes, mainly my partner and programmer who is based in Hamburg. We also have around 20 writers/editors who work on the site content every day. I also work with numerous news agencies and content suppliers.


WF: What did you do to promote the site when you launched it and what do you think paid off most?

James: Hmm well we used to try very hard to get likes of movie photo scoops and then mail all the existing sites with our scoops. This worked very well and helps you get to know other Web masters. The site also launched quite large...since had been working on it for 6 months before launch...so it got a lot of search traffic from the first week or so. We also applied to all the aggregators, that helps get your stories all over the place.

The only advertising we have ever bought is a tiny campaign currently running on Adwords for our book section. I am not sure ROI is very good for this sort of advertising, for content sites.


WF: What do you have in store for the future of MonstersAndCritics?

James: Well, user system (control alerts, change look of site, customize index page, etc), mail alerts, a gaming section, more news content, more original content, video reports....I guess it is an endless list...just like news development never stops. We are still miles behind the big online newspapers. Getting into serious news is great but also a lot of hard work...entertainment is much easier to handle. We are toying with streaming thousands of music/movie/news videos...but huge setup costs and I am not sure the pre-roll advertising market is mature enough to warrant the risk...oh and a huge celebrity image archive goes online this week...updated every day. Great deal we signed with a photo agency...hope it pays off.

On a broader scale I hope the site becomes as busy as some of the large regional newspapers. I really want to move into breaking news on the ground...


WF: What is the most important lesson you have learned about managing sites and what was one of your most common mistakes when you started out?

James: Well I am no expert and we are still a little fish, but here goes...

Drive..you have to be more obsessed than your competition. Existing sites can get lazy or at least maybe have a certain view of the market and what goes with what ( I daresay we fall into that trap sometimes). If you cannot wrap yourself up in the whole concept then you are going to find motivating yourself difficult. Choose something you are fanatical about, enthusiasm rubs off. Also think big.

Don't be afraid to spend money on content...it can really pay off if you have done your homework.

The biggest mistake is to sign annual contracts for anything without a proper trial...rue the day and still paying $XXXX per month for one I signed last June. Also don't ever sit back and watch the money rolling in...you can still dip heavily even when very busy. We had a shocker last October.

Hosting: - pay some decent money, visit webhostingtalk and do some homework. Some hosts are so bad, you end up spending ten times the amount you thought you were saving just trying to fix the mess they left. We host with Servint, not the cheapest but only maybe two big problems in 3 years.

Advertising: Design the site to take it, check out the networks (Burst, Casale, Google Adwords, Tribal Fusion, Fast Click,etc). War of the Ring made hardly any money, even when it was insanely busy during the release of the Lord of the Rings movies...mainly because I did not even know where to get adverts from.

Risk: Take a risk, when I look at the financial commitments we are signed up to I want to throw up…but so far so good. Nothing ventured nothing gained they say….


WF: What do you consider as your main accomplishments?

James: Just making a living from something that was a hobby and now starting to employ others. Though I still feel we are on a wing and a prayer...at times.

WF: Tell us something about yourself that we don’t know.

James: I used to build houses for a living.

__________________