Sometimes I question how I do things and why. Like in the past year, I must have moved this blog to a dozen different locations and platforms and I’m not fully sure why. Ghost may have been my favorite, but its really expensive. Substack was kinda fun and had good discoverability, but I question just how superficial most of those follows were.
WordPress is pretty good. I use the .com because it has less bells and whistles and just easier to manage. .Org had more independence, but you needed a plug in for every single thing. So just making a quick update would turn into a full day of coding and rearanging and I just want to write and publish.
So, I ask myself, ‘Why am I like this?’ Why do I get the urge to change stuff around and move it all over ever couple months. My SEO and subscribers would probably be through the roof if I could just stay in one place.
I’m determined to make this blog work somehow, though I don’t even know myself what that looks like other than monetized in some way. But I suck at asking people to pay to subscribe and suck at selling in general. I run AdWords but that is literal pennies so it may help a little on the back end, its not really a revenue stream.
I kind of hate it our society is so expensive that everything we love needs to be turned into a revenue stream. Writing, art, performing, or whatever, people do it, they love it and get good at it then we try to sell it. I don’t knock the creators. I knock our system.
I’m partially if not fully disabled due to my bipolar disorder and hip pain. Plus I haven’t worked a real job in over ten years, so I can only imagine how dysfunctional I would be in a work setting.
I’ve been fortunate enough to do various forms of self employment or right now working for my wife’s home law office so I don’t need a real job. Speaking of which, I just remembered I’m behind on some paperwork for the real job, but I’ll circle to that later.
I know a lot of women who are unable to work regular jobs, or just choose to do various forms of online sex work to get by. Some do really well financially and I have nothing against any of that. My only concern once again is wondering how many enjoy it vs. how many do it out of necessity. I’m not a woman or a sex worker, so I won’t weigh in on that too much. Just some thoughts I have when I see people posting their site links.
Though workis is ng regular job is a form of pimping yourself out for sure. I think my hip pain is a result of many years of working retail and other physical jobs that required me be on my feet constantly or walking at a face pace all day long. Over time that shit wears on your body.
I’ve have several men in my family work until their bodies were literally broken. My brother likely work himself literally do death. He had other health issues, but kept pushing himself to work a lot and I think it was his undoing in the end.
I’m a socialist, I don’t think. But I’m not a capitalist. Whatever I am, our current system is a meatgrinder that chews people up and spits them out. Only to constantly need to be fed. I’m glad I’ve somewhat found a way to check out of that cycle at least to some degree but we are all stuck with it.
In the end, we are all just doing the best we can. I don’t bedgrudge anyone a hustle. The only things that annoy me is gurus pitching courses on how to make money blogging, acting or in art. Those courses I think the teacher is the only one making any money.
We are all looking for that big break or viral moment that will put us over the top. It may never come, or it may come and not be what we expeccted. I personally don’t look for virality. I look for building a community one person at a time. Going viral you may get 20,000 subscribersa in a night, but now many of them are opening and engaging with your blog or newsletter.
I just have to keep reminding myself, that it is a marathon and not a sprint. Slow, sustained growth will be better in the long run, than rapid viral follows. Some of those folks my forget why they even followed my page or who I even am.
I know, because I have done that myself. Its a weird feeling. And having thousands of courtesy and viral subscribers, I think gives us a false sense of our actual readership.
Not saying going viral is bad, I’m just saying that isn’t the only way and maybe not even the preferred way, but in the end it all depends on your goals.
My goals have changed over time, and maybe they are still unrealistic. First and foremost I want to build a community here, and then monetize and grow. I don’t want a podcast or Youtube channel or anything like that. I barely like showing my face in pictures, I can’t imagine being on video or hearing myself talk for sixty minutes.
I just hope after all the changes I made the past year or so, that I settle in here and let this page take root and grow and become something beautiful and enlightening to someone out there. If not, I guess this doubles as therapy for me, so its a win/win no matter which way things go.
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