Faster hosting would sell more books

[Seahen]

When their connection to the site keeps timing out, people will eventually give up on being able to read the comic. If they're new, that means they won't discover how great it is, which in turn means Rich can't sell them books and merchandise. I'm persuaded that upgrading to decent-speed hosting (5 second load time 99.9% of the time for broadband users, and 10 seconds for dialup users) would pay for itself at least three times in increased sales profits.

[SPoD]

I'm certainly not going to argue that faster hosting wouldn't be nice, but I think that if Rich could afford it, we would already have it. The problem, as I see it, is that the sort of increase you're talking about would take months or years to be realized, and the increased server bills would take effect immediately.

I don't know what Rich pays now for hosting, but it could well be that the next step up in server hosting would cost hundreds of dollars more per month (this is a very heavily visited site). It's possible he simply doesn't have the money to do it right now and hope that your theory is correct. He supports his family with the webcomic, and the chance that an extra (let's say) $500 a month now will result in extra sales later is probably not a risk he can afford.

[Girl Wonder]

I tend to think if you reversed the cause and effect it would be more likely to be a true statement:

Buy more books and you will get faster hosting.


-Place your orders now!- :)

[David Argall]

I'm much the outsider here, but the odds are the money is just not there. Those who like the comic enough to buy something are not discouraged by the wait problem enough to justify the extra expense.

We might note here that War and XP's is still not out, and apparently won't be before Christmas. That could have all sorts of explanations, but high up there has to be that there really isn't a large income from the comic and such, which means there is not likely to be a big increase either from faster time.

You might try contacting the writer and offering to pay for the faster time, for which you would get a share of the larger income, but I'd be this is a loser.

[Seahen]

He supports his family with the webcomic, and the chance that an extra (let's say) $500 a month now will result in extra sales later is probably not a risk he can afford.

I did a whois, and his hosting company is called theplanet.com. A rep there quoted me the following, and assured me it's an upgrade over what we've got:

Dual Xeon 5335 Quad Core 2.0GHz (Clovertown)
+ Dual Processor Quad Core
+ 2GB RAM
+ 1x 250GB SATA Drive
+ RedHat Enterprise 4 Linux
+ 5 IP Addresses
+ 2000GB Monthly Transfer
+ 100mbps Uplink
$25 Setup / $224 Per Month

And subtract from that whatever he's paying now.

Also, note that profit from book publishing is more than linear with the number of copies sold at any given price, because of the economy of scale in printing (which would allow him to either lower his prices, increasing sales, or widen his profit margin).

[silvadel]

2000GB Monthly Transfer

That is the flaw in the plan -- I would be really surprised if this site generates less transfer than 2000 gb.

[FujinAkari]

I have an idea. How about we don't invade the Giant's privacy and go poking around into his financial affairs? Thats a good idea, I think we should do that.

[Raging Gene Ray]

If this kind of discussion belongs anywhere on the forums, it belongs in Board/Site issues. They might even have a few threads or posts on this topic already, all with the same replies from the mods.

EDIT: There might even be rules about posting this sort of topic...if not, they might just get implemented soon.

[Seahen]

2000GB Monthly Transfer

That is the flaw in the plan -- I would be really surprised if this site generates less transfer than 2000 gb.

You sure? That amounts to easily 4 million page views a month on a site like this.

[The Giant]

I did a whois, and his hosting company is called theplanet.com. A rep there quoted me the following, and assured me it's an upgrade over what we've got:

Dual Xeon 5335 Quad Core 2.0GHz (Clovertown)
+ Dual Processor Quad Core
+ 2GB RAM
+ 1x 250GB SATA Drive
+ RedHat Enterprise 4 Linux
+ 5 IP Addresses
+ 2000GB Monthly Transfer
+ 100mbps Uplink
$25 Setup / $224 Per Month

And subtract from that whatever he's paying now.

Also, note that profit from book publishing is more than linear with the number of copies sold at any given price, because of the economy of scale in printing (which would allow him to either lower his prices, increasing sales, or widen his profit margin).

First, I am very concerned that my server company even claimed that they would tell a complete stranger what my hosting package was, though relieved that the person you spoke to was grossly misinformed. The current server costs more than three times what you quoted there, and is the maximum single-server solution offered by the hosting company. In order to upgrade, I will need to purchase a two-server private rack, which I have not been able to afford.

Second, the last time this site got less than 6 million hits in a month was last September, when I took a scheduled 3-week break. By my estimates, we have 250,000 regular check-every-strip readers, plus an uncountable number of casual readers. Your conception of our traffic level is simply wrong.

Third, you also have some very skewed ideas about what the printing prices for small press books are like. There is no meaningful economy of scale, not until you can print hundreds of thousands of copies.

Fourth, it is incredibly rude to check up on my hosting and then announce it to the world, even if it is inaccurate. The details of my financial situation are none of your business, and certainly not the general public's. No, not even if you're just trying to help. Did you think I haven't considered all of these issues? Did you think you somehow knew my expenses and income better than I did? Come on. Think before you post, especially if you're going to invade my privacy and contact my hosting company with questions about my business.

And finally, I am certainly well aware of the server situation. Every time a new strip goes up, I need to manually reboot the server several times over the course of a few hours because it keeps getting bogged down. I have been looking at solutions for some time, they have not been affordable. I am hoping to have a solution soon, due to a new service the hosting company has announced within the last month, but so far there are no guarantees that it would be suitable.

[Axorcist]

So, it's clear - the only way to improve performance is to do more with less... :smalleek:

I'm certainly talking about things which I have no business talking about, but I can't help but think of OOTS as an interesting study in long tail economics. If Order of the Stick had to be published in a newspaper, so few people in any one region would probably understand the comic that it would be rejected. However, since the strip is available to the entire world instead of just one region, the following is in the hundreds of thousands.

I wonder if long-tail technology could help. Technologies like bit-torrent have increased the market for fringe TV shows and movies. Bit-torrent is on it's way to being integrated with the browser for downloading content ... a comic like OOTS could fuel the need for a browser that integrates viewing content as well. Imagine, as a new comic is posted, a savvy user navigates to torrent.giantitp.com. Instead of downloading the comic from the main site, the comic is downloaded, automatically, from the oodles of people who have already downloaded the comic moments before. Data packets of delicious comic hop-skip their way across the internet like fuzzy bunnies, feeding off the bountiful supply of available user upload bandwidth.

Quickly! Someone develop the technology! Meh. What do I know?

[Seahen]

First, I am very concerned that my server company even claimed that they would tell a complete stranger what my hosting package was, though relieved that the person you spoke to was grossly misinformed.

The rep did not tell me what package you were on, only that the $244 package would be an upgrade.


Second, the last time this site got less than 6 million hits in a month was last September, when I took a scheduled 3-week break. By my estimates, we have 250,000 regular check-every-strip readers, plus an uncountable number of casual readers. Your conception of our traffic level is simply wrong.

Third, you also have some very skewed ideas about what the printing prices for small press books are like. There is no meaningful economy of scale, not until you can print hundreds of thousands of copies.

If you have 250,000 regular readers and aren't selling enough books to realize an economy of scale, that suggests to me that your prices may be a tad steep (the shipping charges to Canada certainly are, and Paladin Blues certainly looks high) or that the books (unlike the web strips) might not be getting the critical attention they need.


Did you think I haven't considered all of these issues? Did you think you somehow knew my expenses and income better than I did?

No, it's just that some small businesses need better financial advisors than they've got.


And finally, I am certainly well aware of the server situation. Every time a new strip goes up, I need to manually reboot the server several times over the course of a few hours because it keeps getting bogged down. I have been looking at solutions for some time, they have not been affordable. I am hoping to have a solution soon, due to a new service the hosting company has announced within the last month, but so far there are no guarantees that it would be suitable.

My stepdad was the second most senior technical guy at Tucows for a long time; should I ask him to see if he can swing you a discount or something?

[Red XIV]

I wonder if long-tail technology could help. Technologies like bit-torrent have increased the market for fringe TV shows and movies. Bit-torrent is on it's way to being integrated with the browser for downloading content ... a comic like OOTS could fuel the need for a browser that integrates viewing content as well. Imagine, as a new comic is posted, a savvy user navigates to torrent.giantitp.com. Instead of downloading the comic from the main site, the comic is downloaded, automatically, from the oodles of people who have already downloaded the comic moments before. Data packets of delicious comic hop-skip their way across the internet like fuzzy bunnies, feeding off the bountiful supply of available user upload bandwidth.

I don't know that something like bittorrent could help with this. Even if the Giant wouldn't have a quarter million people near-simultaneously viewing the image off of his server, he'd still have all those people accessing the website itself. And lots of us rushing to this forum to discuss the latest strip after we read it. The bandwidth use would probably still be enough to cause problems.

[The Giant]

The fact that you thought you were entitled to contact my hosting company regarding me at all is the problem, but you don't seem to understand why. Let me make it clear: I am not soliciting assistance on my business from the public. I do not require your advice or your stepfather's help, thanks.

You do not have all the facts, and frankly you do not know what you are talking about when it comes to webcomics and small press publishing. There is no webcomic in existence that sells product to more than 5% of their readers, and I do far better than most. I know this to be true, because I have talked with other big-name webcomic artists. This is the case because of the nature of webcomics; we give the product away for free online and then rely on people to support us financially, after-the-fact. Some do, the vast majority do not.

Further, webcomics are a tiny niche in the world of publishing; there is no "critical attention" in existence that will raise the sales of my books, because there are hardly any established critics who deal with such topics as D&D and stick-figure webcomics. The ones that do have already endorsed OOTS many times. It's not like the New York Times is going to review the Order of the Stick.

Now, I have answered the questions raised by this thread more thoroughly than I probably even should have. I don't need to defend my business decisions to anyone; I already told you I was exploring solutions, and if that's not good enough for you, then I advise you to read another comic somewhere else.