New Year’s Resolutions 2022

I love listening and reading up on other people’s resolutions, but I’m awful with them myself.

The last time I did them here was in 2020. I think I can be forgiven for not following through with any of them in that particular year, though…

Just for kicks, though, let’s look back at them, anyway:

How 2020 Went

Here are what I resolved to do two months before COVID struck:

Write 50 Reviews. I have vowed this every year since those two years I wrote 100+ reviews each. I’ve never made it. The reviews I write since then are longer and I spend more time writing other articles for the site. Everything is a tradeoff. (By the way, I wrote 37 BD book reviews last year.)

Go Weekly with the Pipeline Comics podcast. Well, that was easy. Up until that point, I had been doing two podcasts a week. I wanted to cut back a bit to free up more time for writing. Sadly, as the year went on, that weekly goal fell away, too.

I made a resolution to do less work and managed to fail it by doing even less than planned.

More Videos: This is another resolution I make every year. Spoiler: I’ll be making it again this year, but I have a better plan.

Videos take a lot of time in both production and editing. If I can’t find time to podcast, I have no chance of making videos.

Write a Lot About French Magazines: Arguably, I did this. See my Pilote Journal write-ups, for example.

I wish I had done more, but I did write some pretty healthy articles on the topic, including a couple of videos to go along with them. I have a lot more magazines I could still write about. I’m not making any resolutions in this direction, but it’s definitely something I think about often.

Write a Book. This was a bit of a stretch goal. I was really into the idea at the time, but also knew it would be difficult. I had some ideas, but none of them panned out.

Right now, it’s just too big a goal to plan for. I can’t repurpose what I do here too much, because I use far too many images. You can kind of get away with that on a website, but the second you put a lot of panels from a comic book into a print book, you’re inviting lawyers to come after you. I can argue Fair Use all I want — and I think it would be — but I don’t want to be anyone’s test case.

One of these years, the right idea will suggest itself to me and I’ll do it. Keep an eye on Amazon for when that might happen. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Let’s put what we’ve learned from past resolutions into this year’s resolutions:

Resolutions for 2022

Write 50 Reviews: One a week. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? I’m already 1 review behind schedule.

I need to learn to let go and not write a 2000 word essay for every book, even if they deserve it. If I can manage that, I can cover more books here. I think it’s important to continue to grow the review library for this site.

I also have some programming plans to go along with that. I write websites for my day job. I’ve been learning some new stuff recently that I’d like to apply to this site in some small way. I probably should make that a resolution, but I don’t want to scare myself off by announcing it like that.

Forget I said anything. Be surprised if something shows up. And I’ll write more reviews in the meantime.

A Weekly Newsletter: I want to keep the newsletter going on a weekly basis. So, hey, sign up today. My goal is to write 50 of them this year.

More Videos/Podcasts: I can kill two birds with one stone here. I have a long term goal to convert most of the backlog of podcasts into videos. I also want all future podcasts to be published as YouTube videos within a few days. There is, after all, some podcasting momentum on YouTube…

The comics corner of YouTube also feels like it’s heating up, and I’m enjoying a lot of channels there now, too. They don’t all rely on clever editing and a lot of production work. It’s possible to repurpose the podcasts in a way to create videos there.

Will it get me to 3000 subscribers? No, that would require something more directed, I think. Let’s walk before we run, though. Let’s set the goal here of publishing 40 videos this year, even if almost all of them are repurposed podcasts.

Experiment More: Here’s what the bulk of my Resolutions will be for 2022. I’m not going to commit to doing one thing over the course of the year. I am going to commit to trying some new things. Maybe they only run for 30 days. But let’s do them and see what connects with people.

I have a few ideas right now, but I’m leaving myself open to other ideas that might come up as we go along.

The first experiment has already begun (did you notice?), and I plan on running it through the month of January. If it’s popular, it’s another tool in my belt that gives me more ideas for what to write.

This is all in service to the ultimate goal, which I’ll make my next resolution:

Increase Monthly Visitors by 25%. Honestly, I’d like to go for 50% or 100% more, but this is more realistic. The number of visitors to this site has remained steady over the last couple of years. It’s remarkably flat, even if it is at a number I never dreamed would be possible.

Being on the plateau stinks, though. I want to grow again. I have some ideas for this that I hope to implement this year, combined with some of the above resolutions. Hopefully, that’ll do the trick.

And, no, that doesn’t at all mean I’ll stop writing about European comics in favor of television shows and movies, wrestling and Pokemon. At least, not for more than a month…. (Kidding!)

Fingers Crossed

There you have it. Goals, Hopes, Dreams, Plans, and Repeated Failures all wrapped up into one.

Stay tuned to find out if any of these come true this year.

As always, thanks for reading!

Credit: Header image Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash