Thoughts on website promotion

Posted 18 Jan 2010

It’s all well & good having a live website… but now you’ve got to promote it!..
…How true. Before this website went live I spent most of my time drawing cartoons to populate the database & a little of it thinking about marketing. Now that it has gone live I am finding much of my time is being spent in sending out e-mails to tell people about the website. I am also researching & reading about website promotion & marketing. I recognise that these matters are vital to the long term success of the Bible Cartoons Project… but it sure would be nice to do some drawing! Because I recognise the importance of promoting the website I have used much of my time recently in that pursuit. But after a while I start to think about people going onto the site & I wonder if they are thinking “Huh, he hasn’t drawn very many cartoons!” & that leads me to think that I should be drawing like mad again! In a very real sense, I don’t think I can do it all fast enough!
However, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” as the old adage goes. And “there are only 24 hours in a day” too. So if I mix those metaphors I get “Rome should have been built in 24 hours” which is kind of how I feel about my website! “Patience is a virtue” is another metaphor & I guess I am in for a marathon, rather than a quick sprint. After all, there are 1188 chapters in the Bible, & I originally calculated that it would take me something like 13.5 years to draw a single cartoon for every chapter! So I will just have to do a days work, every day, & wait to see the website s-l-o-w-l-y build up, both in terms of the content (number of cartoons in it) & marketing (number of visitors to the site.)
My natural instinct is to try to get everything done just as quickly as I possibly can. I suppose I am a bit impatient & I want “success” now! But this project is huge, & it will take me months & years to complete… in fact, it may never be finished, since there will always be new cartoons to add to the collection, which means that even trying to complete it is an idea that will only bring me dissatisfaction. The lesson here seems to be: I must be patient.
This is the sort of thing, in life, which can really bother me: the uncertainty of knowing whether this project will be successful, or not. Unfortunately, God doesn’t often give us a straightforward answer to such questions. He doesn’t appear at my side & offer advise about colour schemes, or give me marketing tips! Having said that, it is amazing how often “coincidences” do occur, which, when you put them all together, do indeed seem to point in a certain direction. I have a file of notes about the Bible Cartoons Project, going back to the very beginning of the project, & detailing all the decisions & opportunities that have come along since then. When I read it, retrospectively, it seems abundantly obvious that I am doing exactly what God wants me to do! That reminds me of another metaphor: “Hindsight is 20/20”! If only “Foresight were 20/20” as well! But then we wouldn’t need that most important ingredient for a successful life: Faith.

In conclusion: Life never seems to be absolutely clear, & much of the time we just have to do what we think is right, based on the information we have at the time. As a Christian I believe that God can & does direct my footsteps. Sometimes I wish I could travel through life a bit slower, in order to enjoy the view, & sometimes I wish I could travel a lot faster, to get over the boring bits! Sometimes I wish I could hide my eyes from what is coming along, because it’s scarey, & sometimes I wish I could see much further into the future, to see if the things I am doing now are going to be successful, later on! In the end though, we travel through this life all at the same rate, one second at a time. I will just have to trust that God has my life & this Bible Cartoons Project all in hand: he knows exactly which way it will go & he is not phased by all of my impatience. In the end, as my own life has proven many times: God knows what is best for us & all we really need to do is to trust him.

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