Buckets of Kryptonite

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The kneejerk compulsion among internet publishers to do it all yourself is not necessarily an admirable trait.
I’ve come to a striking revelation recently, and boy is it a real shocker.  I can’t fly.  I have no cape.  My arch-enemies aren’t bumbling baldheaded supervillians.  Friends, foes, disinterested observers, I’m not Superman.  There, I said it.  Quit acting surprised.  Deep down, you knew it was true.  Read on and understand why.  In December 2003, I re-enrolled in college to finish the A.A.
I had abandoned in 1989 to pursue an enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.  I completed that program in December 2004 and began coursework towards my B.A.
in Middle Eastern Studies, needing 30 more credit hours to finish that program, which will be followed up by an M.A. in International Relations.  In addition, I left my job of 7 years in the financial services industry and returned to the hospital management industry with a promotion to a challenging new position.  Needless to say, school and a new job are hard enough to manage on their own, combine them together and management of two internet publications, participation in multiple civil liberties coalitions and family commitments and you’ve got a recipe for self-destruction.  I’ve come to this realization as I begin the long and painful process of converting my publications The Multiracial Activist and The Abolitionist Examiner from static html based websites into a full-fledged database driven portal and find myself struggling to schedule time to work on the project.  After eight years, enough is enough with this hand-coded html business.  This conversion was long overdue in terms of user-friendliness and ease of editing.  I founded The Multiracial Activist in April 1997 and The Abolitionist Examiner in 2000.  Both publications have been popular destinations for multiracial individuals, their families, media, academic researchers, and government agencies worldwide.  The Multiracial Activist, which started out primarily as a series of links to political and media content on other websites has blossomed over time to measure in excess of 700 hand-coded html pages, most of which is original and syndicated content.  The Abolitionist Examiner, a stripped down commentary journal comes in at around 200 pages of static content to include a few electronic books.  The Multiracial Activist Newsletter (static html), several electronic books, and A Mixed Blog (already run via a WordPress database) complete the package.  This conversion process and the amount of time required to re-examine the static content of these publications has led me to ponder my commitment to internet publishing and the future of my established publications.  No, I’m not going to fold up my tent and head off into the horizon just because I’m a little busy now.  Instead, I’m going to change the way I’ve done things in the past.  I’m going to stop trying to be Superman.  I don’t look good in tights anyway.  These publications, never intended at their founding to be much more than an additional voice in a sea of screaming pundits have taken on a life of their own and risen above the fray to become real powerhouses in the multiracial movement.  As such, they deserve to be treated better than they have in recent years and their loyal readers deserve a more professional interface.  In addition, like many internet publishers, I know what I want and I’m too daggum stubborn to share the workload.  That is going to change.  It must change or my head will explode.  Beginning in 2006, I will take on a news editor, assistant editor at large and several contributing editors in an attempt to spread the pain and bring in new and exciting content ideas.  There is no reason that new content must wait until I’ve had time to write, edit or review submissions on a weekly basis.  Again, I can’t be everywhere and involved with everything and still maintain a degree of sanity.  After taking a careful look at the internet discussion forums I lurk and post in, other websites and the email I receive from readers, I can see that there is a large crop of undiscovered and underutilized talent at my disposal.  I’ve long fielded writers from the same resources, but have neglected to mine those resources for editing and website maintenance talents.  This failure on my part is my own form of Kryptonite.  The answer is right in front of me, but I’d been unable to see it.  I’ve allowed an unnecessary situation to fester to the point of paralysis.  As I said before, that is all coming to an end.  I’ve discovered what many internet publishers before me have discovered.  The simple truth is that once your enterprise reaches critical mass, you can’t continue to do it all yourself.  Life gets in the way.  Love gets in the way.  Buckets of Kryptonite appear around every corner.  Ask for help.  Mine the resources at your disposal.  Reward those who step up.
Whether you choose to do so financially or with the opportunity to make a name for themselves, ensure that your volunteer or paid staff understand their importance and place within your enterprise.  And stop putting those stupid tights on, you’re only asking for it later when those buckets start showing up, weakening your efforts and diluting your effectiveness.  I’ve learned that lesson.  You don’t have to learn it that way.  Deal with the Superman complex before it becomes a real problem.  There’s no shame in sharing the work and the glory. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com James Landrith is founder of Pious Pagan Publishing, home of The Multiracial Activist, The Abolitionist Examiner and other publications.  He is a U.S.
Marine Corps veteran, member of multiple civil liberties coalitions, blogger, college student, husband and father of two knuckleheaded boys..