SINCE 1998: THE WORLD'S OLDEST ACTIVE HORROR SITE
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Hey Everybody! For all you first timers here let me give you the basic rundown. On the other hand, my nickname has been Feo Amante for some time now so I have had a certain amount of infamy for quite a while. Even outside of Net terms. In our first year we got over 77,000 hits! "Feo Amante . . . Web legend extraordinaire! . . .The Granddaddy
of them all!" The
site was killed off in November of 2000 as it just became too big to handle. This
site was started off as a hobby. I coded and set up the "tree" for
this site in a very basic way, having had no idea at the time that it would
grow to be so huge. feoamante.com rose from the grave during the Ides Of March, specifically, March 15, 2001. ". . . AMAZING
WEBSITE . . . A GUY COULD GET LOST IN THERE AND NEVER FIND HIS WAY OUT - COME
TO THAT, NEVER WANT TO FIND HIS WAY OUT. IT'S DARK AND SWEET IN THERE" People immediately started complaining. The site was too streamlined. It lost its roughness. What happened to all the aimless wandering, surprises at every link, and so on? This was totally unexpected as every book I had ever read on web building and navigation around the website ("Site maps!" They all screamed. "Visitors will avoid you unless you have site maps!") told me to clean up the web site and make it as easy as possible for folks to get around. Apparently this was not the case for the fans I already had. I also had to decide if this would be something "sticky" (an Internet marketing term) that would attract more folks. I decided that my site, unlike, say, a news site, didn't have the purpose of giving folks the information they wanted WHEN they wanted it, which was RIGHT NOW. FeoAmante.com, it seems, is clearly an entertainment site and what's more, almost a game on the Internet where folks can aimlessly wander my harddrive the way folks like to aimlessly wander around a massive, well displayed bookstore. Oddly enough, I was the last to realize this. Never the less, in 2001 we got over 1,794,000 hits! Hmm. . . there's some kind of 7 thing going on here. Or possibly even a 1 or 0 thing. In 2002, over 4,000,000 hits. In 2003, over 7,000,000 hits. “THAT SITE IS F*CKING AMAZING! IT'S THE GUY WITH THE BALD HEAD, RIGHT?" In 2003, I'd long realized that hits were meaningless in comparison to actual visitors and how many pages those visitors were reading. So starting in May of that year, I began counting visitors as well as the pages they viewed. That meant cookies, something that, at first, I found intrusive until my counter software could make a cookie to put on MY hard drive and not on the computer of my visitor. From May to December of 2003, FeoAmante.com racked up over 450,000 page views. How many pages my visitors were actually reading. As you can see from the hit count, the difference between "hits" and page views can be enormous. In 2004, I only counted visitors and page views. That year we had over 485,000 visitors and nearly 1,000,000 page views. The hit count jumped into the tens of millions - which gives you an idea of hit counts. "I wanted you to know that your website is wonderful! It's a major stop
on the horror highway, like one of those weird buildings that looks
like a giant chicken you just have to stop and look at, and when you
go in it's full to the rafters with really neat, strange stuff." So here we are today, February, 2008. I guess I made the right decisions, all based on the feedback I get from readers. The month of January alone got over 115,000 visitors. Slowly this site is growing and being noticed. In fact, we are growing against all common "Net Wisdom". We've never had investor money and yet we get more visitors than the commercial major funded Horror sites falling by the way side every year. In 1999, when the dot.com bubble froze, our numbers kept growing. In 2000 when the dot.com bubble burst, our visitors kept growing. In the following years when nobody knew what to make of the Internet, our numbers kept growing. Today everyone is going nuts for online videos, which are just a blurry low rez version of TV, except it's TV with home movies. Websites garning thousands of people looking at themselves are burning through millions of dollars of bandwidth every month and people have no idea how to make money from it - but they sure know how to lose money on it! Meanwhile, as the other dot.coms and specifically Horror Thriller sites rise and fall, we continue to grow. I've never gone for the fast thrill burn out of a particular gimmick - I've just kept doing what we all love, talking and promoting the genres of Horror, Thriller, Mystery, and Suspense. I'm not worried about the competition from other Horror Thriller sites. In fact - if you don't like me - I'd rather you go to them than just not have a place to satisfy your interests. That's why I have a link list right on my home page of some of my favorite Horror sites. I hope you'll give them a chance and enjoy them too. ". . . you are truly a terrifying figure in the genre (which I mean,
of course, in a GOOD way!)" Why do I keep saying "I" and "we"? One of the main reasons for the success of feoamante.com, is the people around the world who send in reviews, news, interviews, and other articles. From countries like Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Ireland, Italy, as well as states all over the U.S., people find feoamante.com and contribute. It promotes their own talents, sure, but that is what we are all about here, promoting Horror, Thriller, Mystery, and Suspense in every artistic fictional form. Some of the people who started on this site when we were unknown (just a few short years ago!) are now seeing their own books in print and on store shelves. Writers like Ryan Harding (co-writer of PARTNERS IN CHYME), Mike Oliveri (DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES), Brian Keene (GHOUL), Judi Rohrig (editor of STONES), Monica J. O' Rourke (editor DECADENCE), and Brian Knight (editor of both RARE and RAW anthologies). We have also had the help of more established talents like Michael T. Huyck Jr. (editor of HASTUR PUSSYCAT, KILL, KILL), Linda D. Addison (CONSUMED, REDUCED TO BEAUTIFUL GREY ASHES), David Whitman (DEAD FELLAS), Weston Ochse (SCARECROW GODS), Harry Shannon (writer of DEAD AND GONE), and Christos N. Gage (co-screenwriter of THE BREED). On every major search engine, under the search words, "Horror Thriller" (quotes not necessary) feoamante.com comes up as first choice. I don't respond to many of you and I apologize for that, but despite appearances, I'm really only one guy answering these emails. One guy who gets an average of 150 emails every day. Though I can't take the time to write a response to every e-mail, be assured that I read every one (every one that gets through at any rate - sometimes my e-mail carrier gets stuffed). "FEO!
HOLY SHIT, YOUR WEBSITE IS FANTASTIC ! ! I MEAN, I'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT
IT WAS GREAT, BUT NOW ITS FANTASTIC."
Where would you like? Every one of the main sections below has its own subsections. Enjoy exploring
If you click on the Story Eye, you will go to the page that has stories and links to underground or small press publishers of some of the finest and most difficult to find Horror, Thrillers, Mysteries, and Suspense around. These are the books that generally win the Stoker, IHG, etc. awards and as such, become very valuable extremely fast. Collectors know.
When you click on the Movie eye, you will go to our Horror Movie review page. The review page, in addition
to the Movie reviews, also features a list of upcoming movies in the Horror/Thriller/Mystery
vein. We are particularly interested in independent and underground movies.
There are also comments concerning big doings in the Horror Film community.
If you think that your movie is good, by all means send us a copy and we will
watch it and post our review if it scores high enough (3 or more or Negative 3 or more). If you send us something bad we will
simply chalk it up to "At least you are trying" and not make any comment
at all. Check it
out, I'm sure you'll like it.
The Comic Eye will take you to Fanboy Of Fear. It features news and reviews of comic books and graphic novels as well as animation in the Horror, Thriller, Suspense, or Mystery vein. We welcome indie comic creators / publishers as well as animators. We also welcome reviewers and article writers. Get yourself some recognition and stop arguing in the local comic book store, the chatrooms, on the message boards, and at the conventions. If you're review is good enough, we'll post that sucker and you can then point to yourself as the FINAL authority on the subject! HA! Won't your enemies be green!
The News Eye will take you to Feo Amante's Horrible News. Real Headlines - Lampoon News. No kidding gang, some of these headlines, just by themselves are ridiculous. This also gives me a place to rant. Ah! The joy of having one's own website! But remember, the news items are not actual and not to be taken seriously. If you insist on taking them seriously then you are an idiot.
The Con Eye will take you to the Conventions page. All conventioneers are welcome to send their photos, reviews, and articles on the conventions they've attended. If you have a decent looking photo gallery (That is not blurry or difficult to look at) we'll post a link to your web pages where you keep 'em! We won't post links to anyone who charges visitors to see their stuff. If you want to charge money like that, fine. Pay ME money to advertise your product in the first place. NOW we are talking mercenary! |
Support This Site When You Buy My Books E.C. McMullen Jr. PERPETUAL BULLET ![]() - John Grant, Infinityplus E.C. McMullen Jr. WILLOW BLUE ![]() - Jeffrey Reddick, Creator of FINAL DESTINATION IN OTHER BOOKS E.C. McMullen Jr.'s short story CEDO LOOKED LIKE PEOPLE in the anthology FEAR THE REAPER ![]() - Amazon Review HORROR 201: The Silver Scream ![]() featuring RAY BRADBURY, JOHN CARPENTER, WES CRAVEN, TOM HOLLAND, E.C. McMULLEN Jr., GEORGE A. ROMERO, and many more. Extensively quoted in ![]() EXHUMED The Unauthorized Companion Robert S. Rhine's SATAN'S 3-RING CIRCUS OF HELL ![]() GAHAN WILSON & FEO AMANTE. Featuring comics by ALEX PARDEE, WILLIAM STOUT, STEVE BISSETTE, FRANK DIETZ, JIM SMITH, FRANK FORTE, ERIC PIGORS, MIKE SOSNOWSKI, OMAHA PEREZ, DAVID HARTMAN, STEVEN MANNION, and more! Also IN CINEMA E.C. McMullen Jr. Head Production Designer ![]() (Starring: JOSEPH CROSS, BRIANA EVIGAN, ALEX MERAZ) Dept. head Special Effects Make-Up (SFX MUA) ![]() GUNFIGHT (MICHAEL MADSEN & JOHN SAVAGE). Production Designer ![]() (DOUG JONES, D.B. SWEENEY, GARY GRAHAM) ART DIRECTOR ![]() (COLIN CUNNINGHAM, GARY GRAHAM) |
FEO'S BRAGGADOCIO | ||||||||
Matt Jarbo's interview with Feo Amante at The Zurvivalist. Researcher David Waldron, references my review of UNDERWORLD in the Spring 2005, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture entry, Role-Playing Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic (downloadable pdf).
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