Reader Survey

Truth be told- and outside of Lauren's article about the TV Pilot filming- I wasn't that happy with last week's Pipeline.

I won't go into why- I know why- but moving forward, and in the next issue, I am going to include an Anonymous Reader Survey. It's been 53 weeks now, and I need to ask readers a few questions, mainly why are they reading the newsletter and what is or isn't important in terms of coverage.

As much as I'd like to take glam shots of my cat, write letters from an imaginary character to Jared the Subway Guy, and work on silly song lyrics, none of those endeavors pay any sort of bills, and while it's not like the Pipeline is paying all of the bills, it's paying enough of them to try to keep it going. I figure if I address reader's concerns and try to include more of what they like to read, then I will have a better chance of paying the bills.

Lately I've been a bit cranky. There's a lot of email and for everything I include there's always 10 more things I could include. Nothing makes me more annoyed than sitting with my butt glued to a computer for 20 hours and then within an hour of sending the newsletter out I get emails from people asking me why I haven't featured them, or why I didn't include their event.

In a way, this is 'good stress' because it means people are at least reading the newsletter, and I shouldn't be sad about it. Sometimes I wonder if I'm fighting a losing battle. I cannot express how much I love writing and reporting and how I feel as if it's a doomed industry in the age of the Internet when everything appears to be free. I desperately want to continue doing what I'm doing, but it's getting very tiresome to sell and take care of the business side as well as write and take pictures. Nevertheless each week it gets easier in some way, or a new contributor comes aboard, or stories nearly write themselves, so I will keep at it, and look forward to people hopefully responding to the survey. I need some guidance.