I am Selling IAF

[ZacFields]

Hello all,

I've thought long and hard about this decision, beginning about 3 years ago, and I'm finally ready to make it: I am selling Iowa Auto Forums.

First off, I want to make it clear that this is not about money. The hosting dues on this site are between $15-30 quarterly, and the domain name costs about $10/year. It costs very little to keep this site running.

The reason I want to sell the site is because I am interested in someone local being the new owner. There is still a community of people using this site, and I think you guys deserve an owner who is passionate and ambitious about promoting this website. Several years ago when I was passionate and ambitious, through the use of word-of-mouth, t-shirts, stickers, and other inexpensive types of promotion, we had a few hundred active weekly posters, over 3 million monthly hits. The depletion of this site's popularity rests solely on my shoulders due to myself becoming busy with college and now my new job. I want to get someone in here who is interested in reversing that.

As it stands now, we still have dozens of weekly active members, about 750,000 monthly hits, over 3,200 unique IP addresses accessing the site monthly, and great search engine presence. And remember, this is with zero work done to promote the site.

That said, I am looking to get something in return for the 7 years and several thousand dollars I've paid out-of-pocket for CR:U/IAF. While I don't expect to profit, of course, I am going to begin negotiations at $500. I believe this to be a bargain price because I have seen sites with similar amounts of traffic selling for twice that amount on web site brokerages.

If you or anybody you know is interested, please send me an email at ZDfields@gmail.com and we can negotiate some terms. If you are truly serious, I would be willing to meet and discuss over lunch/dinner.

Thanks Everyone,

Zac Fields

[sLoWnStEaDy]

I would really be interested but I am afraid I don't know enough about computers and such. If anyone is really computer knowledgeable and wants to maybe do a 50/50 thing with me, I could make that work.

I just don't know the first thing about servers, domains, etc... I've got plenty of contacts in the T-shirt, sticker, advertisement area though.

[ZacFields]

Keith,

Let me know if you find somebody. I have received similar inquiries from others so I will let them speak up if they're interested in a partnership deal.

I will agree to stick around as the "webmaster" if the new owner allows me to keep my other website (my blog, ZacFields.com) on this server for free. So if that's a road block for anyone, we can work that out.

Otherwise the technical knowledge needed is very light. We are on shared hosting so there's no server knowledge needed. PHPBB updates their forum software about once every month or two so those updates need to be applied, so knowledge of FTP programs as well as being able to follow the update instructions on PHPBB.com is necessary.

I just checked, and hosting has gotten a lot cheaper in the last couple years. We're talking about around $5/month for unlimited hosting. I would have to check with my hosting service to see if they would allow me to transfer ownership. If they won't, then we'll just have to migrate to new hosting, which is not a big deal at all.

Anyways, let me know. If you want to find some people who want to go in on it with you, we can set you all up to be administrators and like I said, for the price of letting me keep my blog on your hosting, I'll provide some assistance with the upgrades/maintenance.

Give it some thought. I will say there's probably no profit involved here. You can make a little money on advertising and merchandise, but really the nice thing about running this site is that what you're able to do on a community level. Picnics, gatherings, etc. And for business-owners, with the touch of a button you can send a mass e-mail out to all 1,500+ members, 95%+ of which are in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area.

[ZacFields]

Update: I have received some inquiries on the site. Any interested parties should contact me via PM or email for more info on the site (statistics, as well as any other questions you may have).