A few of you have been asking about international links (especially Jonah X and Simon, who are in germany and the uk respectively, though I know there’s a lot more of you.)

I’ve just gotten them implemented on the database entries.

They’re not visible from the reading orders (yet?), but any book that has an isbn number now should have four little flags on the page, like this:

International SC:

I feel like these are pretty self explanatory. Nonetheless, let’s go over em. These are the four main non-Us countries with amazon affiliate programs I can use. There does seem to be possibilities for china, japan, and italy, but I can’t figure them out and I think they won’t actually pay TRO without a bank account in those countries. In any case, these were pretty easy to sign up for (the three EU ones all worked at once.)

There’s the UK, Canada, France, and Germany. Which conveniently covers a good chunk of our international traffic. I hope those links help people in nearby countries as well.

I did have some questions that perhaps you guys could help with. Right now, the “search” structure is the same for each link. They’re generated using the ISBN number, since titles are not reliable internationally.

But while the “books” category links seem to work fine for UK and CA, while it finds the right book, the FR and DE links seem to show error messages. Anyone know how I can fix that? Maybe my links are formatted incorrectly?

Let me know!

While doing this, I figured out a way to get cover images from amazon for any book I that has an isbn number. It’s possible we could use this to have 90% of the marvel books upload with covers.

What I want to figure out, though, is a way to have the default amazon cover replaced if I upload my own cover scan (because a lot of them are low quality or the wrong book.) I’ll get working on that.

I think I’m going to increase the thumbnail size to 75×75 pixels though, since that would match up with amazon’s default thumbs, making it easier to have a mix of both.

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In two weeks, I’ll no longer be at my day job.

Kind of crazy, huh? Definitely crazy.

I’ll be working with an ex-day job co-worker now freelance/our-own-thing coworker to hit up some local market creative endeavors.

But I’m also hoping to get some serious stuff done on TRO.

This site doesn’t really bring in anything, but it could, and I think it could without requiring any sort of paid access (ridiculous) or intrusive advertising. I’m interested in partnerships with targeted retailers, but that’s not my primary focus.

The main thing is affiliate links. Without directly selling anything, TRO performs the service of directing people to the books they want/need next.

Ideally with the minimum amount of pain and ideally easy to find low prices. Right now, only about 600 books on the site have affiliate links.

Those 600-ish books bring in about 80-100 bucks a month.

Up until this point, that money has gone right back out in hosting fees and the little excess contributing to the weekly giveaway costs.

But if I get affiliate links up on everything, finish making the lists look nice and increasing the site’s usefulness, it could theoretically bring in enough to make TRO actually worth my time.

Time to be investing in editing/writing reviews, archiving scan examples, and continuing sorting lists. The stuff that I’m really passionate about, for some odd reason.

Worth my time at minimum wage, or half that, perhaps, but enough to finance the project, at least. It’s an exciting prospect.

Pretty crazy, but within the realm of possibility.

It wasn’t my original goal – which was just to sort my collection and share the results – but the ideas have gotten a lot bigger a lot quicker.

Even if the material we are interested in archiving and discussing is only a small niche of our massive modern culture, I believe it’s truly important.

We’re focusing on the life’s work of thousands of amazingly talented individuals in an archival, enjoyably readable format. The collected edition is a big deal.

TRO has the potential to be a really amazing resource. I like to think it already is.

And I want to be open about how the site operates every step of the way. So that’s why I’m sharing all this with you guys.

TRO has started to be come a real community, with forum discussions and a steady stream of review submissions. Not to mention much needed advice. Some of you have also asked me about a donation button (and I guess I should probably figure out how that works very soon.)

I appreciate your friendship and help. It’s amazing to see this little dream take shape. The participation keeps me going.

The next few months might be a little bumpy as I do whatever I have to to survive – taking odd jobs, selling stuff I don’t really need, getting serious about selling my own art, trying to launch a separate local business – but TRO is a priority for me.

I’ll put whatever I can into it and maybe it will support me a little back. It’s worth a shot.

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You may have noticed a lack of new reviews last night (though hopefully you’re planning on getting in on the new giveaway!)

Here’s the reason:

I’ve gone through and made sure every DC book has the correct era tags! While there were a couple other fixes, the bulk of this update was Modern Age tags – 476 more books are added to that category!

These lists may not get that much traffic on their own, but are insanely useful in filtering. For example, many people want to read just Modern Age Batman. That list has gone from 175 to 315 books!

Remember, there’s a lot of cool stuff you can do with those filtered lists. Want to read just Green Arrow and Green Lantern in the Modern Age? No problem – just put “Green” in the character field!

If you’re having any trouble with the filter, or have questions, let me know.

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Update: This giveaway is now over. Stay tuned! Also, feel free to enter one of our currently running giveaways.

Update 2: The winner has been announced.

Here’s the weekly giveaway!

One of the first groups of trades I started collecting was DC’s Elseworlds.

They were mostly self contained and often could be found for cheap, so it was easy to get into without feeling I had to buy too much.

This particular Elseworlds, published in 1991, is one of my favorites.

Called Batman: Holy Terror, it’s a little book that introduces a DC Universe amazingly messed up and hard to top – even in longer arcs.

While a Batman book, there are moments in here with several DC characters, though I don’t want to reveal which in this post. Look forward to reading it yourself!

The Rundown:

(1) Prize: One copy of Batman: Holy Terror

(1) Random Comment Winner: One logged in commenter will be randomly selected from the replies to this post.

Eligibility: You must be registered and logged in when you comment to be eligible. You must also be in the continental USA for shipping purposes. If you are overseas and want to pay for the shipping yourself, feel free to enter, but keep in mind that it will probably be more expensive than just buying the book.

Deadline: You have until 11:59 on Friday, February 4th, 2011.

Hey, that’s one day before my birthday!

Good luck everyone!

You can see the previous giveaways and results here.

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A bunch of books have covers now, but I haven’t been keeping track – so no list. Just know that more covers are in.

I also moved Flash: Born to Run. The stories are about Wally West as Kid Flash, but they’re all told from a perspective of the character later in life looking back. There’s no perfect spot for it, since the back stories in the volume are from a few years later (and contain cameos from characters important later on) but the main story is best read WAY after events in Barry Allen and Wally West‘s lives. I’ll go into more detail soon.

Main reason for this post is that I changed some style code and the reading lists now display book titles in a bold, black, san-serif font. I’m not sure this is the way to go, but I felt the titles of the list entries deserved some sort of differentiation from all the other info that’s now coming in.

It looks a lot better on the lists where every book has a title (though those are still rare.)

Let me know what you think!

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