Science Fiction web site celebrates 1 million hits without spending millions on promotion

In these days of dot com failures, a true success story is rare. Rarer still is a success story without big budgets or the backing of a big company. One "little" site has achieved the milestone of over 1 million hits a month without spending a fortune on research, development or marketing.

In these days of dot com failures, a true success story is rare. Rarer still is a success story without big budgets or the backing of a big company. One "little" site has achieved the milestone of over 1 million hits a month without spending a fortune on research, development or marketing.

Scifispace.com has become one of the biggest sites on the web for fans of science fiction and fantasy - without a big company or big bucks behind it. Sci-fi fan Lori Anne Brown created the site 5 years ago on what used to be her personal web page, which came free with her dialup connection. Teaching herself html and web design (her background was print graphic design and marketing), it grew to so many pages that when she started working for a telecommunications and web company, Intrepid Communications, Inc., she and Intrepid's owner and fellow sci-fi fan Chuck Joslin renamed it Scifispace.com, registered the domain, and the site went live March 1998 steadily building a following. During the past year it's been one of Yahoo's Top Sci-Fi/Fantasy sites, launched a very popular section on the upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, and attracted a remarkable amount of advertising interest...all before hitting the 1 million hit milestone in July. Plus Scifispace.com has spun off two other growing sites...Scifisource.com and Scificonventions.com.

"Most people are shocked to learn Scifispace.com is really a fan-produced site - not a big company website," says Brown. "I do just about everything on the site - from design to writing to marketing. Intrepid takes care of all the technical details and hosts the site. It's a big job, but one I truly enjoy. The fact we are now attracting advertisers and starting to make money from the site is just a nice bonus for me."

Brown, who has a background in advertising, marketing and graphic design, has been a Star Trek and science fiction fan since the age of 12. Starting a science fiction web site was a natural for her and is part of what she considers the key to her success. "Being in a niche market that I thoroughly understand definitely helps," says Brown. "I know what I want to see on a sci-fi site and keep the site focused on being first and foremost a place where fans can find information and have some fun. I am very selective about links and advertising having turned down several I felt were not truly of interest to or service of sci-fi fandom. I've tried a lot of things over the years and the site is somewhere around version 10 as far as design goes, but overall it is a place for my fellow fans to come and enjoy." That focus has definitely helped create word of mouth among fans as well as helped positioning on search engines...another key to success.

Now being offered exclusive items and press releases, books for review and more, Brown no longer has to spend the many hours each day she once did searching for items for the site. "Three major book publishers regularly send me review copies and we've done promotions with MGM, Wizards of the Coast, Disney/MGM Studios and more. We recently worked with the PR firm for the TV series "The Lone Gunmen" and was one of a handful of sites that hosted a chat with the cast and received advance review episodes. We also receive a ton of press releases by email, fax, and mail. I'm averaging 5-10 advertising inquiries a week now...not bad considering I'm not advertising at all."

A long-time sci-fi buff, Brown also ran science fiction conventions for 13 years using one to help the other. She used flyers, posters, giveaway items and free promotional tables at various conventions to advertise the site. She also used a lot of word of mouth and guerilla marketing tactics such as including the URL in every email, posts on the message boards she frequents, press releases, link and banner exchanges with other sites, joining (and creating) webrings, and tons of little things. "When you don't have a lot of money to work with, you have to get creative. We gave out little surprise packages once at a big convention - bundles of sci-fi bubblegum cards and small toys that I had accumulated over the years from my personal collection tied with ribbons with Scifispace.com and my convention's web site printed on them. Traffic the following weeks was up by 15% and it cost me all of about $50 and some time."

Though Brown turned her convention business over to her former partner last year, she started a convention web site, www.Scificonventions.com, to serve as a hub for those looking for conventions to go to and to give information and advice to those wanting to run them. "I am currently working with 3 conventions in different parts of the country and with several celebrities to help book appearances for them at conventions," she revealed. Through her work with conventions, Brown has made a lot of contacts in the print, film and television industries with people on both sides of the camera. She's hosted several chats with celebrities and is planning more to come. She and Intrepid also launched www.Scifisource.com last year as a science fiction portal site...both are doing well, but they have a long way to go to catch up with Scifispace.com's success.

What's in the future for Scifispace.com? "A lot more growth, I expect" says Brown. "I'm hoping to build more relationships with those producing sci-fi in terms of exclusive content and promotions. I wouldn't even mind an investor or two so I could hire some staff! It is starting to take on a life of it's own and so much of my personal time is spent updating the site, I could use some help - especially in handling all these advertising inquiries! But then, that's a nice position to be in."

Visit www.Scifispace.com and contact them at Intrepid Communications, Inc., 1271 Semoran Blvd., Suite 157, Casselberry, FL 32707, info@scifispace.com, or call 407-678-7652, Fax 407-678-6962.