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 Staff members of TheColumnists.com throw a wild party to celebrate 10 years online, but the managing editor can't come because he's too busy putting out the anniversary edition. |
We keep proving you CAN
teach old dogs new tricks
of TheColumnists.com
If you had told me in early 1999 that I'd spend the next 10 years as the unpaid managing editor of a cooperative website for retired newspaper columnists and various itinerant writers, I'd probably have said, "Running a what?"
That's right. I don't actually believe I knew what a website was in early 1999 when I was winding up by 36 years in the newspaper business, the last 20 of them spent writing a column about television. I certainly didn't know how to run one, that's for sure. In fact, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to find some people who'd tell you I still don't how to run one, even after sort of doing it for a decade.
My friend and fellow San Jose Mercury News columnist Murry Frymer set me up for this decade-long gig. I retired in February and he hung on until April. I was busily writing my first novel when he called me up and suggested we revive our columns online. He thought we might make some money out of it since we both had large followings of readers in the Bay Area.
Murry had been reading about all the money being made by columnists who wrote for the big online web operations. Though I had already published a non-fiction book that was making me some money and had a follow-up book in the works, I was even more interested in becoming a novelist. Still, I liked the idea of making money out of something I already knew I could do well--writing my TV column.
So I finished the novel and forgot all about it as Murry and I began looking into companies that created and operated websites. I told him I thought it might be worthwhile to contact my friend Jerry Nachman, a columnist who had recently retired from The San Francisco Chronicle and might be interested in joining us in our plan to get rich on the internet. While we were at it, I added, why not see if John Stanley, another well-known Chronicle writer, would like to sign on. We all had been on radio and TV shows, but John was a real pro at it because he was, for years, the host of "Creature Features," one of the most popular Bay Area TV shows in its day.
Turned out Jerry and John were interested, so our search for professional help kicked into gear. Then it hit some rough roadwork. All these outfits wanted us to put up big money for them to design our web package and to keep it going once we started writing our columns and articles. I had a hunch these entrepreneurs really made their money out of doing websites for small businesses that probably let their web operations go dormant after a month or two. I wasn't encouraged. Since not one of us was rolling in money, the scheme seemed about to fizzle.
But I had another friend, Steve Gruber, who had been a newspaper reporter with me at The San Jose Mercury News, but had quit the game, earned a law degree and was now practicing law in his own office nearby. I knew Steve had learned how to do websites and was currently running one for a service club. I asked him if he had any ideas on how we could start-up what eventually became TheColumnists.com.
Steve agreed to build a site for us for a reasonable fee, but said he'd be happy to teach me how to keep it going, if I was willing to learn. I was willing, since I hate to see dreams die, and so Steve taught me all I know about running a website. Fortunately, he's a swell guy and also agreed to take my calls whenever I got myself into deep trouble. I kept him busy for a year or two.
So, on Dec. 1, 1999, we launched www.thecolumnists.com and went looking for advertisers. Nobody, of course, wanted to advertise on a website nobody had visited yet. We pitched our product on radio, on TV and in person. We started to get hundreds of readers. Bear in mind we were columnists who had thousands of local readers and tens of thousands, if you count our syndicated publication all over the U.S. and Canada.
In other words, we built it, but hardly anyone came.
For another year or two, I pursued some alternative schemes. Why couldn't we get "underwriters" like PBS does? Well, it seems people loved to read us, but not if they had to sponsor us. I fooled around with a few other notions, but none of them worked. We four faced reality: We had to grow a giant readership before we could even think of making money.
At first, we shared expenses. When it appeared that was coming to an end, I agreed to run the thing at my expense if the others would continue to provide their columns without charge. That's the way we've operated ever since. Fortunately, it is not a very expensive enterprise. When I've had equipment failures and need to replace some basic stuff, the guys and our subsequent partners in crime have helped by ponying up some cash.
If I can set aside the financial aspects of this for a moment, I'd like to say that I soon began to realize that we definitely were growing in readership, particularly after we started to invite others in to write with us. And I began to understand that having a "store window" where we could display our talents actually started paying off for us. I was hired by WGBH, the Boston PBS station, to write mystery columns for their official Mystery! website. They knew me from my years as a fan of the "Mystery!" TV show whose syndicated columns helped draw viewers. They also knew me from the book I'd written about the series--"Mystery! A Celebration."
But it was my "Dark Corridors" columns on the website that made them realize I was still writing about the show and other mystery topics and no longer was prohibited from working for them--something I couldn't have done while working for a newspaper.
They also set me up with a gig writing for the website of Alibris.com, then one of the underwriters of the TV series. Yes, I was making money that in a way was linked to my visibility on TheColumnists.com.
Later, Kate Stine, the editor of Mystery Scene magazine, contacted me about using some of my Dark Corridors columns in the magazine. I agreed to that, but she asked if I'd consider becoming their TV columnist. I did and that gig also went on for several years, finally concluding this year.
Some of our other columnists also have done well by simply selling reprint rights of their online columns or doing new versions of the columns for other markets. Michael Johnson, our columnist based in France, became almost a regular columnist for The International Herald Tribune. He was a seasoned Associated Press reporter who had gone into corporate journalism, but had never written a column until he signed on with us. He has become one of our very best columnists.
And so on. Now here we are, starting our 11th year online and we finally have reached a very large readership, all over the world. For the past three years, we've averaged about a million page views per year--Dec. 1 through Nov. 30. That's enough to satisfy lots of advertisers and we continue to toy with the idea of taking ads and all the rigamarole that goes with them.
But, for me, TheColumnists.com no longer means "future investment." I'm 70 years old and many of my colleagues are even older. Making a lot of money might be fun for a change, but it doesn't have the sort of appeal to me that it once had. What appeals to me is the ongoing opportunity this website gives me to demonstrate that I can still do what I love doing without disgracing myself.
And I've come to treasure the associations I have with many old and dear friends and a great many new ones. One regular columnist, Chuck McFadden, has been a very close friend ever since our high school days. His wife, Barbara, who became a lawyer in her past life, was in high school with both of us--and, for that matter, with my own wife, Darla. Barbara is now enjoying new experiences in the creative side of life by working as a professional actress for the first time--and has now started to write columns for TheColumnists.com.
Gerald Nachman, Michael Johnson, Joyce Kiefer, Joanne Engelhardt. Elias Castillo and I all went to college together. Gordon Greb, the senior member of our writing group, was one of our professors and we still call him The Professor. Murry Frymer, Paul "The Poet" Hertelendy and artist Jim Hummel worked with me at the San Jose newspaper. Our TV columnist Donna Plesh was someone I met on the TV beat when she worked for The Orange County Register. Jim Bawden was another close friend of mine from the TV beat and comes to us from The Toronto Star. Actress Ann Jillian and I became friends when I wrote about her as a TV columnist. Now she's a columnist, too, and has written professionally since I talked her into trying a column for the first time. Her husband, Andy Murcia, was a Chicago policeman with no training as a writer, but Andy has a natural instinct for what's interesting and has become one of our most popular columnists. Stan Isaacs, David Zinman and Maury Allen all were people Murry Frymer knew in his earlier newspaper days. Though I've been their editor for years, I've never met Zinman nor Allen face to face, yet I consider them good friends and colleagues. Karen Sharpe, who returns to these pages for the first time in years, was the editor who hired me to write my first non-fiction book and has been a friend ever since.
In addition to Barbara McFadden and Andy Murcia, whose spouses worked for TheColumnists.com first, we also have a number of other "related" writers. Raphaella Cruz, who returns to our pages with this edition, is the daughter of Michael Johnson. Len Klempnauer, who was a fellow reporter at the first newspaper I worked for, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, has seen his own son, Erik, begin writing columns for us. Audrey Yeager-Moore, who was a reader who asked for a tryout here as a columnist, has seen her daughter, Renee Lizee, write for us. And Andrew Joe Murcia, the son of Ann Jillian and Andy Murcia, is the subject of his dad's column this week--but he also has made his debut as a columnist on this site. Chuck McFadden's son, Patrick, was a columnist for us before he earned his law degree and started his legal career.
We have lost several of our best columnists for a variety of reasons. Joanne Macdonnell was the first of our regulars to die. Ted Sielaff passed away. Our dear Gina Gallo's ill health has kept her from working for years. Patricia Geister is now recovering from a series of strokes, but will return to our pages when she's able. Several have taken long breaks from writing after the death of a loved one. David Zinman, Sid Frigand and Joanne Engelhardt all have lost spouses in recent years.
These skilled and artful writers are all part of my extended family. I love them all and enjoy working with them. They are the very best group of people I've ever been associated with and they're the primary reason I continue to devote my time to keeping TheColumnists.com in cyberspace.
I am proud that we have lasted 10 exciting years and very happy that we're being read more widely each and every year. We have a lot more exciting things to do in the years ahead and I hope you'll be anxious to stick around with us and see what we have up our sleeves next time. Now, excuse me, I need to catch up on my sleep.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Dec. 7, 2009.
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