Bill Myers Creations is undergoing yet another transformation. What will make this one different from the others is I will not set myself up for failure by making unrealistic claims about what will happen, and when.

Basically, I’ve decided to put my Web/graphic design ambitions on hold for the time being. There’s a very good and very logical reason for that, but I can’t discuss it at the moment. Let’s just say it’s not a bad thing. In fact, it could turn out to be a very, very good thing. I’ll let y’all know as soon as I am able.

Anyway, the timing is serendipitous. After my last re-design of www.billmyerscreations.com, I realized something was missing. Oh, there are some purty graphics and such, but I still don’t have a grasp of the fundamentals. There is too much I do not know. So I have embarked upon a period of self-study. I want to understand the principles of Web design, to learn about what are considered best practices and why they are considered to be so, in order to build a solid foundation upon which to structure my creativity. I want to stop stumbling around.   

This has given me the excuse I needed to finally de-couple The Victory Streak from my would-be Web/graphic design venture. The two don’t exactly produce any natural synergies. People looking for a professional Web designer might get annoyed at the prospect of having to wade through stuff about The Victory Streak, and vice versa.

Given that I am putting thoughts of a Web/graphic design business on hold for the moment, it makes sense to re-position Bill Myers Creations so that it focuses solely on the creation, marketing, and distribution of The Victory Streak. I’ll be revamping the company logo and Web site to reflect that. If and when I decide to resume my attempt to dive into the Web design industry, I’ll set up a separate business name for that purpose.

As far as my self-publishing schedule goes… well, I’m not making any more announcements or anything until the first issue is penciled, inked, lettered and ready for the printer. I hope that will be soon. In the meantime, I’ll probably post some preview art and pages from my sketchbook here in the blog for those few die-hards who have been patiently sticking with me through this painfully slow process. When the book is done, I’ll not forget you folks. Your support has meant a lot and it will be repaid. How? Oh, that would ruin the surprise.

Thanks, all!

It’s hard for me to tell how many people are actually reading my blog. The stats are difficult to interpret for a host of reasons. Just because the stat counter shows a number of hits for a particular article on a particular day doesn’t mean those hits came from actual readers. Some of the hits are undoubtedly coming from “bots” — programs that scour the Web to catalog sites for search engines like Google. Some of the hits are undoubtedly coming from more nefarious sources. About a week ago someone attempted to flood my site with about 150 bogus trackbacks, most of which led to pornographic sites. That same day, my stat counter showed my highest ever hit count for all of my blog entries combined. I don’t think that was coincidence.

So… I’m going to try a little experiment. I’d like to find out how many — or how few — people are actually reading my blog. I’d like to ask (please don’t make me beg!) that if you have been reading my blog with any degree of frequency, please post a comment in this thread. Let me know you’re out there! Tell me what you like and what you don’t like, and what sorts of things might encourage you to post more comments (if you are a reader who comments infrequently — right now I think Bill Mulligan is my only regular poster!).

You don’t have to use your real name. And I will not post your e-mail address, I will not use it to spam you, nor will I share, “rent,” or otherwise let anyone have access to your e-mail address for any reason. I’d just like to find out how many actual readers I have. The only reason I ask for an e-mail address is to help control spam comments. If someone is spamming me from a certain e-mail address, I can block further comments from that address.

If the answer to the question ”how many readers do I have?” is “very few,” that will let me know I need to work a bit harder at driving traffic here.

Thanks, all!