I’m thinking about removing my archives and starting ‘fresh’

[Paoken]

Ok, this is something that probably hasn’t come up that often. I’ve decided that I’d like to take the entirety of ‘Book One’ out of my archives. Yeah…three years of comics…taken out. I’m planning to offer each chapter for separate download if someone is interested. What I’m going to do is have the first Chapter of Book Two be a kind of ‘catch up’ chapter. Condensing all the important things from the first 300 something comics into 24 comics. I know that sounds hard…but I’m already done with the scripts and it’s actually worked really well, in fact I think that it works better in some cases (it’s told from the main character’s perspective, so you get some cool inside thoughts).

So what I want to do is delete Book One from my archives and let people just download them, if they want to read it. Now, here’s where I need advice; what do you think is the best method of doing this? Right now I put all eight chapters into Zips and loaded it into a file sharing program called ‘Media Fire’, then I have my comic’s archives for Book One linking to the individual files.

But, what I’d like to do is have them either all available in a ‘secondary’ archives, where people can still browse them directly from the site. But I don’t think this is possible without some SERIOUS work, which I don’t really feel like doing. My other thought was to offer them to download on MY site, without having them hosted on Media Fire, who, I do trust, but not 100%...but I’m not sure how to do this. I know it must be possible, but I’m thinking that ComicGen wouldn’t let this happen (which I totally understand, it’s not me complaining) because I loaded a few of the Zips into my FTP and made a webpage directing to them and they didn’t give the option to download. Now…this may also be because I’m an HTML-tard… I’m self taught with everything on my page. I think I did it right…but I’m not sure.

So, here’s my questions:

1. Is there an easy way to offer my comics in a secondary archive for people to browse?

2. Failing that, is there a way to offer Zips for download on my page? (if its allowed)

3. Is it a good idea? I know that there are some REALLY great comics in book one, but I also know that there’s 100 mediocre comics in there too. I think it would be better for new readers to start fresh, with a bang so to speak. Book One was kind of an experiment in the first place…it’s hard to explain…and I’m not going to bother, unless someone is interested.
My comic
Comics I intend to remove:
From Here to Here

Current download page, for Book One:
Here

Thanks for any opinions, this is something I’ve been debating for a while now…and I think it’s the right choice. But I’m always open for other opinions. Or options.

-Peace

[Dr Neo Lao]

You can't host a group of zipped comics on Comic Genesis because the TOS specifies that you need to have the Ads and footer message. However, there is no reason whatsoever that you couldn't do this.

Having the zip'd files hosted elsewhere is fine - there are a couple of comics that have done this. Your best bet is to have a page on your comic (in CG) with links to all the zip'd files individually, and maybe offer a single big zip of all 300 for people on higher bandwidth plans (if you wanted to). Having the "old" comics in a separate archive also works, but will be a little trickier.

A1: Not on CG. You'd need to create a new folder (via the workspace/webcomics) called older or other or early or whatever and in that folder have a html file for each comic. That's 300 html files, mostly the same but obviously each one would need to have it's links point to the following and previous comics.

If you have hosting elsewhere, then it would be easy if you have php enabled. Just use something simple like Wlarus php and all you'd need to do is modify two or three files and away you go. php won't work on CG, so it's not an option for here.

A2: No. As mentioned, you're not supposed to have zip files on CG. You need to link to them.

A3: Define "good". It's not killing you to have all the old files on there, but there are other ways to work around it.

If you want your readers to start from page 301 and have the first 300 as an optional extra, then one way to do it is to modify your template(s) so that instead of using the ***first_day*** tag, you instead hard link that to comic 301. On page 301 you add a text file saying "this is the start for new readers, if you want you could also start from *here*" and link to comic 1. Most people normally only use the previous / next button anyway.

You can see a semi-similar example on Schlock Mercenary. On the main page there is the normal links (first / previous / next / latest) which appear on all comic pages. If you go to the first one, there is a note saying "you ought to start from *here*" which links to further into the archive (approximately three years in). This way, the author gives the reader the choice of starting from when the artwork got better (actually, from the start of the first book) or to start from the very beginning.

[Paoken]

Hmmm...That's actually not a bad idea...I didnt even think about routing my archives like that. Maybe I'll do both ...

Yeah, if figured that CG wouldn't let me host the Zips myself. Which is cool...cant complain about free, right? (Not too much anyhow).

I'll think about it some more, like I said, I think that starting on Book Two is a better idea than forcing people to read through Book One, but I do want the option for people to just read through what I think they'd like best.

Thanks for your input.

[Lance]

Bold move, doc, I'm impressed. Tossing stuff can be hard to do.
Stef over at Sarah Zero just totally trashed version one and started from jump street sometime back.
All the old stuff is gone forever (sorta like Nathan deleting whole Dethklok albums)
I thought I'd miss it but the new stuff is a gazillion times better. Consider starting fresh.

[Paoken]

I decided that I would stash Book One in a kind of 'hidden' archives, where they can be kept for posterity, but not force the readers to go through them all...unless they'd like to of course.

I also kept the Zips for people to just download them all and give it a go. Thanks for the advice Neo, I appreciate it.

And yeah, it's a bit daunting to think that three years disappears...but in all honesty I'm very happy with how Book One came out...considering I started this damn thing on a whim. Haha. That, why I'm leaving them be...just making it harder to stumble across...I guess I'll get to see if this promotes readership, eh?

Thanks again...

PS: I never knew Deathklok did that...did he say why, or just that he wasn't happy with it?