Page 1208…
Well. You guys really opened my eyes regarding ads yesterday.
I had no idea so many of you have BLOCKED ads.
Those of you who turned off your ads blocking for Dreamland…
You literally DOUBLED our revenue for the day.
DOUBLED!
Now…I don’t know if you all realize this, but we are LIVING off of the ad revenue (and book sales) from the site.
It’s been a tough year for us. And knowing that we could double our ad revenue simply by those of you who have ad blockers on…turning them off for our site.
You don’t even have to click on anything. Just the impressions are enough.
I know not everyone will do this. But if you read the Dreamland Chronicles. Please help us out.
It doesn’t cost you a thing.
1) Turn off any ad blockers. You should see an ad at the top, right, and bottom of the page.
3) Come back every once and a while (we get paid for how many hits a day)
4) Tell your friends.
We lost a good 10,000 regular readers from last year to this year.
I’m sure in part due to my extended layoffs between both chapters 14 and 15…and 15 and 16.
Help us grow our fanbase again.
All I’m asking is that if you like Dreamland. Help us keep it going.
Ads are a FREE way of supporting us. And I’m more than happy to keep it all free for as long as you guys are willing to support us.
Okay?
🙂
Thank you all.
Scott
Finally some action! 😀
Nice to know we doubled your revenue. Apparently everyone on the interwebs these days has an ad blocker?
Just a suggestion… I personally only click on the comic ads you’ve got here. Maybe introduce more content-relevant ads?
derp. *turns his off* oooh astro headsets :D, ew no what is this ad trying to get me to dl. go away and give me back my sexy headphones ad <<!
Is there a vote button somewhere on the site I couldn’t find one on the page? You’re at 30th on Top Web Comics and if you make a more prominent button you might be able to make it into the top ten and I think that’s likely to increase readers.
I agree. I would love to vote for your comic Scott, but I usually just forget it because the vote button isn’t as prominent as it could be. And don’t start feeling modest about it again. We love your comic and I’m sure most of us would love to vote for it. That’s just the way we fans are. 🙂
I still do not see any adverts.
I didn’t even think about it…
Dreamland Chronicles was added to the White list.
Sorry for all those years!
Ad a compromise, I whitelisted the project wonderful ads – I actually kind of like them.
The other ones are often in dutch for me (and I hate dutch ads!) so I still block those.
Sigh … I am firmly against ads, I can’t bear them … but since you’re so desperate about them, I whitelisted your site and even clicked on some of them.
Just to let you know, I care for you and your work 😉
I really hate ads…so I blocked them by default and even forgot to switch it on for special sites that mean a lot to me.
So I put this site on the white-list. Keep doing the excellent work!
Interesting, so many comments about ads. Not one comment about the last panel. I fear this may be the last time Alex has such an innocent, excited and naive look to him.
I haven’t had an ad blocker on since the beginning of this year for more or less the same reasons you’re asking people to turn them off for Dreamland; annoying or not, this is how some people get paid. I feel a lot better knowing it takes little to no effort to allow ads on a page or watch a 10-30 second video ad every 15 minutes on sites like Livestream, and that a small gesture like that is what’s helping to keep some people afloat.
All that aside, the comic’s coming along wonderfully, per usual. Really been admiring the lighting and those storm clouds overhead for the past couple/few pages; it sets the mood and looks great!
Very slight nitpick however; panel 3 looks jumbled to me. Even though the characters in the background are blurred, the foreground characters still get a little lost in them; because of Felicity’s bright palette, my eye is almost immediately attracted to her, a character with no real importance in that particular panel, and I really have to force myself to keep any focus on Orion, the one who’s actually speaking. My suggestion, if possible, would be to figure out a way to slightly desaturate characters in the background instead of relying only on blurring them out to provide field of depth.
…though maybe it’s just me that’s having this problem. XD
uh…Where is the vote button??
TREASON AND LIES!
he he… I’ll stop now
Personally, I don’t have an adblocker, but I *do* have a Flash blocker. Why? Because Flash tends to suck up so much CPU cycles that it drains my notebook’s battery far too much. Which is why I activate Flash only on a case-by-case basis, when there really is content on a site I want to see. I’m sure there are many others out there who have the same problem with Flash. So if you can influence this at all, my advice would be to avoid Flash-based ads and favour “classic” image / HTML based ones.
…and there’s something else I just remembered about Flash ads: People who are viewing from an iPad, iPod or iPhone (basically, any device starting with an “i” ;-)) don’t even have a Flash plugin installed nor do they have the option of installing one. These users are lost to those ads anyway.
This will only get worse for Apple users: The new MacBook Air does not come with the Flash plugin anymore, and the next version of MacOS X will not have it either. If people want to have it, they must install it by hand.
Currently, I see at least 3 Flash elements on this page. You should get rid of them, if possible.
It is against google adsense Term of Service to ask users to click on the ads.
You don’t earn anything, if no one click on google ads.
I like that “Here we go.” What a rousing battle cry!
I do hope Alex has been doing more practicing and sword handling on the side.
And I’m sorry I’ve had the ad blocking for this site. It’s on all the time, so I forget about it.
No…it’s not just you. For some reason the foreground characters do get a little lost. It may be that everyone in Dreamland is so colorful…so much color in one panel is very visually distracting (said the lady with ADD).
That said, everything else about this page is lovely. 🙂 Alex’s face in the last panel is quite endearing. I half expect Orion to grab the back of his armor and say something like “Hold on there young man! You’re not a part of the initial charge, you goof!”
You know, I’d never put much thought into clicking the ads. Nine times out of ten they aren’t for something I’m interested in seeing or buying. If you have any ads for other comics, I’m much more likely to click those…especially if it’s a comic that you’ve given a nod to in a post at one time or another.
That said, I’ll try to remember to click ads for you. 🙂 Oh…and on my screen, there are two ads to the right, and one ad WAAAAAAY at the bottom of the screen. The ad at the bottom is very easy to forget. If you want it to get clicked, it may need better placement (like an actual top of the screen ad)…but then again, I’m very fond of your current page layout. It places the emphasis on your page…which is as it should be since it’s your page and that’s the reason we all visit. 🙂
There are more ads (top, right, and bottom).
But there’s really nothing I can do about their relevency.
Google will put up what it wants.
Though I can tell it not to ad sexual or violent ads.
I had the button up for the first two weeks of the month.
It was right there at the bottom of each blog post.
We never moved from 30th.
One day…I’ll find a way to attract more clicks.
🙂
Thank you.
Anyone care to help us out here?
What browser?
What OS?
Do you have java and flash turned on?
Thank you so much.
I just learned this yesterday.
Who knew everyone ran ad blockers??
Well those ads are where we make the money (dutch or not).
If it wouldn’t be too much trouble to white list those too…and just the whole site…it all ads up.
An extra dollar or two a day really makes a difference in the long run.
And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Ehol.
I know ads are a pain. But in the last day…we went from (my wife and I) talking about this being the “last chapter of Dreamland” to actually thinking “we may be able to finish all 24 chapters if we can keep revenue up like this.
It’s a small sacrifice (for both of us…I hate having ads on the site)…but I’m willing to do it if you guys are.
Thank you Thank you Thank you.
Yeah. I tried muting the characters a bit in the back. Didn’t seem to help.
I may find a more natural way of presenting that panel.
I agree.
Also. Thank you for helping us with the ads.
Went away until next month.
I have to find a better way to capture people’s attention with that button.
Of the 15,000-20,000 unique readers a day…we were getting maybe 50 clicks.
I don’t think I have control of the flash ads.
But I’ll look into it.
Great points.
No. I checked.
It’s okay.
Also. We get paid for page views. And actually paid pretty well.
We’ve been getting $1 for every 1,000 page views.
So just having them on and having the ads show up on the site for you helps.
Thanks.
I appreciate you turning it off for the site.
Thank you Julie.
Clicking is actually secondary.
I just need the views too.
A click here and there just shows the advertisers that my site has active users.
Not just bots and such.
It’s not mandatory to do every day.
Or even mandatory.
It just helps from time to time. If you remember.
🙂
Hello, I’m a recent reader. I lurk a lot. Heard about your comic from The Dreamer. fully read up and up to date. Suggestion about ads; advertise other webcomics! we may not always want to be consumers all the time, but most of us enjoy finding new things to read.
Thank you.
I do have 3 project wonderful ads on the site (two below the comic and one on the right).
But the revenue we get from the consumer ads at the top, right, and bottom are what enables us to continue to live off of the comic.
This is my dream. My passion.
So if the advertisers are willing to pay me enough for my family and I to live. I’ll take it happily.
Thank you for de-lurking. And thanks for reading.
I hope you continue to enjoy the comic.
project wonderful is ok, but choices get heavily filtered. if you read webcomics too, might do some browsing around to see if you would link your site to other webcomics. just adding my take on things, so sorry if I offend. also, those webcomic links are rather small compared to consumer themed ads. I practically miss them every time I visit.
my theory on the storyline; since this ‘Lord Abbadon’ of the Nightmare Realm is supporting Nicodemus, he’ll be assuming the role of the “Man behind The Man” once Nicodemus falls.
And, as Alex runs boldly out onto the battlefield… he trips on a rock and goes sprawling in the dirt just as it starts to pour rain. Orion walks calmly up to our mud-covered hero and says, “That is why you fail.”
I actually wasn’t aware of ad block programs that will block on-site ads, but now I’ll look into it for other sites. Dreamland I trust wholeheartedly but others have done some damage on my previous comps. Scary thought to lose Dreamland before the end of the story, and I’ll certainly be buying Book 4 and another book soon enough, just need my parents’ credit card and it’s been hard trying to pin them down so I can order it.
As a tip to others to remember to vote, I use Firefox and I keep several important sites on the Bookmark toolbar and right next to Dreamland is the Vote link, so this way whenever I click Dreamland, I’m reminded to vote. I don’t know about others, but I’m not crazy about Top 100 lists like that after getting spurned by sites in the past asking me to vote three times for three lists before I can get into the site, then learning they don’t have the content I want, then sending me back to the list because “surely I’ll find what I’m looking for there.” Yeah right.
Shouldn’t Alex be more serious about the war? He’s seems rather happy that the battle is starting…
I would rather donate you, than read anything google Ads has to say(if I get to choose). You know, people are fans of your comic, not your ads. If only it was so simple blocking ads outside the internet…. i consider it spam-like in most cases.
But as you ask nicely, I switched adblock off for now. It actually gave me a laught. Your top banner with the ad now states: “the Dreamland Chronicles (ad)Earn easy money” 😀
Well, he can’t die in dreamland. He would just wake up, wouldn’t he? So why would he be serious 🙂
Lol. They are kind of goofy sometimes.
But thank you so much for doing it.
It really truly helps.
I’m not clever enough to turn the adds off so I’ve been ‘helping’ out several times a week. In fact, DC is my favorite spot to advertise my own webcomic! And
I have the first book, (still need to order the next one.) Love the site!
MAN! Do I know that feeling… XD
Well, Ikaru did say, “Finally some action” in the first comment… but that was about it…
Thanks Laura!
I appreciate all of the support.
I really do.
And keep up the great work on Tomb of the King!
WOW!
Do you all realize what you’ve done?
By turning off your ad blockers. By checking out some of the ads.
Youv’e brought in a WEEK’S worth of ad revenue in half a day!
I don’t know if you all realize how much we’ve needed this.
But THANK YOU!
Doing what you love is the coolest thing.
Being able to feed your family doing what you love…BLISS!
Thank you all for being the best “Fellow Dreamers” anyone could ask for.
Love how the darkness is still gradually moving in just before the siege! And as a lover of rich color, the brightness of the characters is like eye candy to me! 😛
Never blocked a single ad! Glad to have helped! 😉
No worries. I’m sure even if he accidentally gets any wiser or more grownup, he’ll recover in no time at all.
(Actually, here’s my guess on the plot: Nicky does indeed have the real authentic plans, complete with those last-minute changes. But Alex screws everything up and Nick loses.)
Yep! I’m ready to see an epic battle, myself!
Ad blocker? Never heard of it! 😛
Heheheheheheheh! I like that! 😆
Welcome, fellow Dreamer!
I always love hearing from people who have just finished coming up through the archives, because your memory of past pages is much fresher than those of us who have been here for a while. (Though I’m still a newbie myself compared to some of the Old Hats around here!)
I must admit that I had forgotten that we had learned Abaddon’s name just 76 pages ago …
😉
I definitely need to try to stay on top of things and visit more often. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen behind at times due to work and personal things, and haven’t always visited as much as I should. However, my new plan is to “schedule” a few minutes each evening to visit the site and read the day’s page… it keeps me up to speed more easily and is more beneficial to you!
I hope that with all that’s going on, you’re still exploring the iPad app idea for the book. I received my book 4 in the mail yesterday (WOOHOO! Beautiful, and love the “Lil’ Felicity & Nichole” panel, as well as the awesome Felicity sketch, THANKS!!) and was looking at the pages and thinking how cool it would be to view it digitally, either “straight up” or with some of the mini-animations that were in the PDFs you had available awhile back. I would gladly buy each book (or even individual issues) again to have the convenience of portability with the Dreamland library.
Anyway, thanks as always for the great work you do, and I’ll be working on my daily support going forward!
Happy holidays to you and your family!!
I thought I had it off on your site, then after you mentioned it I realized it was on… shows how much I pay attention. Only reason I use the ad blocker is to prevent viruses and such at other sites, I’ve had to many close encounters to losing my whole computer (and one time I did lose it just because I was trying to do some research for my husband!)
Love your comic, and I will try to make sure my ad blocker stays off on your site! 🙂
oh and I visit every day I’m on my computer, so that should add 5-7 visits from me every week at least!
Thank you SO much, Elizabeth!
You rock!
Funny you should mention the ipad.
We’re working on it right now.
Should have it available by the new year.
🙂
I am SOOO happy to hear that!! More to look forward to in the New Year!!
You’re welcome! Thanks for putting something on the web that fun and refreshing for people of ALL ages! Luvs it!!!!!
Oh well that makes it easy. 🙂 I’ve never had an ad blocker. 😛
My suggestion, FWIW, would be to put the link to vote at the top of the blog, because that snippet of text is all I see in my RSS reader before I click to come here. If the link were at the top of the blog, then I could just open it in a new tab before coming to read the comic and I’d remember to vote 🙂
can’t we please please pleeeeeeeeeease just have it as a permanent button on the side panel? T_T
question! so does clicking the project wonderful ads help you? ‘cuz i like those too! although i do click on the other ones too when they interest me… and i tried the LG one yesterday and highlander one the day before after reading your blog post… the LG one was fun =3 it asked me a bunch of questions about what i use my TVs for and then suggested a TV for me =D but i think project wonderful has the most ads that would cater to this demographic~
nooooooooo don’t say that D= “let’s go!” is a perfectly good response for starting a war against a dragon that went all evil + crazy =D
so winning by messing everything up? Yep, that’s Alex all right.
For some reason, I feel that Alex should be shouting “LEEEROOOOOOOOYYY JEEEENNKIINGS!!!!”
A WEEK’S worth of revenue in half a day? Amazing! you should mention this in a blog post (if you haven’t already, since I haven’t refreshed the page) so the fans can know what great things they’re doing for you, and how they’re helping their beloved comic to continue on!
And it wouldn’t hurt to take the “PBS pledge drive route” and occasionally/regularly ask people to turn off their blockers and click more ads for you. You gotta eat, too! 🙂 I imagine a lot of people will re-enable their ad blockers after clicking ads here today and just forget to disable them again (for those who can’t whitelist the Dreamland site for whatever reason). So it won’t hurt to have some reminders from time to time. =^^= Another webcomic I read has an unobtrusive message that appears as a postscript to every blog post, requesting that people remember to turn off their blockers and support the site.
Clicking the project wonderful doesn’t help me financially. But it does help the nice sponsors who are advertising on my site.
Only the google ads actually pay us more when there’s a click through.
Good suggestion, Cela.
Thanks
Ha!
Thanks for letting me know about the ads! I didn’t actually realize you guys had ads to begin with. I use Adblock Plus and it’s on by default. But for sites I like, such as yours, I’ll set it to off. Now it’s off, hope that helps!
Not in the least! Actually, it is quite the reverse; you die in Dreamland, you “wake up dead” in real life. That’s what was so dire about him learning to fly. It was in an (admittedly) inverse way the only reason he learned to fly, him being too stupid to figure it out by any other method than threatening him with death. Only hitch was that it wasn’t the prospect of dying that got him to *ahem* [Horrible pun] Straighten up, and fly right [/horrible pun], so much as the realization that his death would destroy Nastajia.
Also, remember, that whatever physical cuts/wounds he got in Dreamland would manifest on his waking body.
Good one!
I never thought about it before. I whitelisted this domain and will also whitelist a few other websites I love.
I used to show all ads in order to support the websites I visit, but I decided to block ads recently and I’m not willing to make exceptions for anyone. There are just too many negative things about online advertising that added together make me unwilling to be a part of that game anymore – from deviously ellaborate tracking, suspicious business practices, the horrible way they treat some of their customers (be careful with Google; people who didn’t yet have any problems usually feel safe right until their turn arrives), etc. It also irritates me that american companies and advertisers effectively conspire to lock out of plenty of content the visitors from most countries in many high profile websites, like YouTube. Just because europeans can’t buy some brand of shoe or Sony music CDs in american stores it doesn’t mean we have to be marginalized. It’s the internet. It’s INTERnational. If I wanted a geographically restricted network I’d move to China. How can I in good faith help these companies make a profit? It sucks for the publishers – and I, too, am a publisher, though I no longer run online ads, so I understand your position – but as long as people cave for any reason, advertising companies have the final laugh.
I hope this helps your understand why I and others like me block ads. Now, my offer to host your website for free still stands. You never replied to it in friday’s thread, possibly because you never went back and read it, but feel free to send me an e-mail to this address if you’re interested.
dude, my perception sucks. I just noticed what was on Alex’s chest piece. oh and also so i dont forget merry christmas scott
Thank you.
It definitely is helping!
Thanks Ashley!
Thanks for the info. And no…I hadn’t seen your previous post.
Thank you. Very generous.
I’ll definitely consider it.
As for your reasons not to have ads shown on the site. I can respect that.
I’m giving the comic away for free.
No obligation to ANYONE to do anything to help us do so.
But if at any point you change your mind…I still would appreciate it.
You may not like the advertisers…but you don’t have to click on any of their ads.
Just the traffic alone supports us. They pay for EVERY ad view. Regardless of whether you click or not.
That said. I still very much appreciate the support every day you post and participate.
As I do all of you. This is NOT a mandatory thing.
So please. Anyone else who has issues with ads to this extent. Please know I would NEVER hold any ill feelings.
I appreciate you all. And love that you love this story with me.
🙂
Merry Christmas too, Tiffany.
I used to have an adblocker, however firefox kept dieing on me. So i moved to opera and have seen multitdes of adverts since. For me, google adverts are largely ok because they’re only .gifs or text, but other services that use flash based ads have to be blocked. Flash lags my old computer out enough.
Hmm. I’m having trouble finding the vote button on this site. I know you have your reasons, Scott, but I do want you to know that I spent the last 5 minutes or so looking for the vote link and couldn’t find it. I had to go directly to TWC to vote for Dreamland. You probably know that most web visitors do not have an attention span of 5 minutes — and I was *actively* looking for the link.
Anyway, here’s the link for other readers who didn’t find it:
http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx
I’m pleased that Dreamland is back in the upper 20’s on TWC. It was languishing around 40+ a month or two ago. Let’s keep it up, folks! Let’s push it up to the top 10 where it belongs!
My ad-blocking philosophy tends to be that I allow ads on all sites by default, and then block the sites that get egregious with ads.
Throw a giant ad over the entire page while I’m trying to read, and force me to interact with it to make it go away? Congratulations, you’re in my ad-blocker. Throw up multiple ads that are Flash-heavy and play music/video at me, or make my browser crawl like a turtle trying to swim through molasses? Welcome to the ad-blocking list. Cover your page with more ads than content? GoodBYE, advertising.
Mind you, it’s sort of scary the amount of data advertisers will gather about a given user solely through advertising impressions. But I take the approach that, whatever I do on the Internet, I should assume it could be public knowledge. So I put the data-tracking out-of-mind for the most part.
In short, if the site makes the ads more prominent than the content I come to the site for, I will either block the ads, or stop visiting the site. Sites like this one, where the ads are unobtrusive banners? The ads stay up. And I note that I’ve never had to ad-block a webcomic.
Now, news sites? Oh, heck yes. I’m so sick of ads for cars that suddenly drive out of the sidebar and cover the article text. 😛
Beyond ensuring ad impressions, do let us know if there’s anything else that can be done. Like ‘Protected’ above, I can offer space/bandwidth when/if needed free of charge and am painfully familiar with the various system load and usage patterns that a webcomic can generate, as I’ve done web-coding and support for a fairly high-traffic one before.
here we go? kind of lame, he should say something dramatic like ” for dreamland!”
i gotten viruses from ads, that is why i have an adblocker and it blocks ads on every website i go too. but i can put this website as an expectation. i just don’t want another virus in my computer.
I think Alex is channeling the power of the plumber.
“Here we GOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
WOOHOO!!!
WAHAA!!!
YAHOOO!!!
Well I appreciate it.
THanks Lurker.
I just added it to the sidebar on the right. Permanently.
It’s below the search function.
There’s now a permanent link on the right sidebar. Under the search function.
Thank you very much, Sparks!
I really appreciate the kind offer.
The ads aren’t intrusive. You should be safe.
I’ve had them for almost 5 years now. Running IE. No virus protection. No firewall.
ANd I’ve never gotten anything.
Thanks, Ninjadragon5!
You know, re-reading this page, I think everyone’s jumping to conclusions about the intent of the last panel… I don’t think it’s meant to be THE battle cry. I think it’s more of a precursor, like Alex is being told “it’s time to get to the head of the army and lead us into battle now,” and Alex is telling is “generals” “Let’s go to the front and lead this thing”… and I’m imagining that the next page will have the glorious battle cry. But I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. 🙂
I’ve had some run-ins with animation-heavy ads making my computer almost unusable when I visit a site, so that’s one reason we now have NoScript on this computer. I have found though that it can also block content I want, as well as taking advertising revenue away from sites I frequent, so I’ve taken to unblocking stuff whenever I feel it’s safe to do so. I’ve felt pretty safe with TDC, so I long ago told NoScript to Allow the site, as well as unblocking most or all of the ads. There’s still certain types of ads and site URLs I will not trust: anything with large animated ads, anything where the URL is just random letters rather than a readable name, or worse, URLs that are merely IP addresses. These I refuse to unblock, out of fear what they might do to the computer. Thankfully I see that nothing on TDC is blocked today, and I do try to keep tabs on URLs that do turn up blocked in case they’re something I feel I can trust. If I do run across any ad URLs I feel unsafe unblocking I’ll try to remember to mention them to you, but for the most part I’m totally cool with letting the ads do their thing. After all, letting the artists make money is how I get to enjoy free comics, and it’s only right to show my appreciation for fine folks like you by letting you earn a living at what you do. ^_^
Also! Thanks for finally putting a permanent TWC voting link on the page! I always vote when I can find the link. Now I can vote you up every day! =D
Your wish is my command.
It’s on the right bar. below the search.
🙂
Thank you.
And my pleasure.
🙂
the last panel makes me think of Peter Pan.
YAY! Finally! Fame will come to Dreamland!
It’s a pleasure to find such rationality in an answer. Welmoce to the debate.
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Me neither