The Reality of Blogging

First and foremost, don't quit your day job. I smile every single time I read an article giving you 10 Easy Ways to Make Some Cash on the Side. Besides all the usual suspects on what are essentially, ridiculous posts simply written for the clicks they will no doubt generate, like walking people's dogs or renting out a spare room in your house, one that seems to always make the list is to start a blog.

Consider that as of May of 2023 there are an estimated 600 million blogs currently on the Internet. Yes. You read that correctly. 600 million blogs.

Granted, that's worldwide. Out of those 600 million blogs on the Internet, less than 1% are even remotely successful and generate enough income to do it full time. And most of those are literally businesses. So, the thought that making any significant side cash from writing a blog is quite a stretch to say the least.

That's not to say that writing a blog bears absolutely no fruit. With time, and a ton of content, you can slowly build an audience that is sizeable enough to at least make writing a blog worth your time. But it's far from easy to do this. And it's far from full time wages.

This blog, for example, has a rather large audience and does generate income. But it's not job replacing income. Not by a long shot.

It is also not meant to discourage anyone from writing a blog. If you love to write, like I do, it's okay if it is more of a labor of love than something that puts food on the table. And if you can write well, you will capture an audience. 

But it still takes many years, and like I said, a ton of content to do this. And in order to achieve any level of success, you have to be willing to put in the time and effort to keep producing content even if no one sees it at first, or even if only a few people see it years later after starting.

The bottom line is that it is as tough to break in with blogging as it is tough to break in with most things. Just because you don't have to wait for an editor to give the go-ahead to publish something like the days of old doesn't mean it will be any easier to get your word out.

Many people who self-publish books, for example, quickly learn it's extremely tough to actually sell books. That is, until you can land your work before just the right set of eyes that helps things along. In the case of blogging, that's a set of eyes that likes what you do enough that maybe they share it with a few other people who also like it and share it with a few more people.

Even then, if it only happens a few times, it's not going to have that great of an impact on your overall success blogging.

Again, it is not to tell anyone, "Hey, don't waste your time." I have been doing this for decades and it can have its rewards. I am simply saying to not have great expectations when you hit that publish button for the first time that it will be a life-changing event.

It won't be. I assure you.

By all means, if you like to write and have something to share that people will enjoy reading, you will build an audience and you will enjoy some success. You may even join the precious ranks of the very few who break through the barriers enough to go at it full time and actually make a living doing it.

But if you are coming into blogging thinking it's an easy way to make money? Think again. It's not that at all. There are 599,999,999 other blogs out there competing for the same sets of eyes that yours is. And that's the reality of blogging.

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter (X) @jimbauer601 to keep up with all the latest posts from wherever I may post my every word.

myLot Is Run By Weird People

I want to be clear here, a site called myLot, which is a social media site where people talk about their everyday lives, what they ate for dinner, or just pretty much anything at all, is a pretty fun site. I am not going to dismiss that aspect of it. And it is certainly worth a look if you want to talk about anything and nothing and also make a few bucks while you do it.

But what makes the site fun and interesting are the people who are part of the community. Not the owners of the site. And not the admin.

Honestly, they are quite weird. And I have talked about this aspect of the site many times. And like this time, from time to time I feel the need to remind people of the abnormality that exists as part of myLot's existence.

You know, anywhere on the Internet, anywhere in social media, on the very platforms I am using, I can say whatever I want about those platforms. I can air my opinions freely. Those platforms may not like what I have to say. But they at least acknowledge it is not my job to say good things about them.

It is their job to encourage me to say nice things about them through what they do to make me happy about using their site.

I could, for example, write a blog, right here on Blogspot, saying things about Blogspot that won't put Blogspot into a good light. So be it. And that would be perfectly acceptable.

But myLot? They're different. You can't say a single negative thing about the site. It's against their rules. And well, it's a public site just like any other site on the Internet and anyone can find the posts that are written there. 

It's all front and center, searchable, and the posts will and do come up in searches. 

As such, they are scared of any bad publicity, even if it isn't direct, but simply implied. It is them saying, under no uncertain terms, "You will not say bad things about us that others might see outside of the site."

I mean, it's a thing with them. They are scared of it, and I just find it to be rather peculiar. I said it's weird. And that's exactly what I meant. It's weird. They are weird for it.

Take a post I wrote there earlier today. It really was a benign post. It was not making fun of myLot. It was not being disparaging of myLot. It was not scolding myLot, or even complaining about myLot. It was simply a tongue in cheek post about activity being a bit slow in myLot for the day.

That's a no-no, you see. Because God forbid someone out there, the five or so people who might see it, see that post and think there might be something wrong with myLot.

That's why they took it down. Because in their eyes it potentially communicates something about their site they may have reason to be embarrassed about. Why? Who the hell knows? But it's why they took down my post.

The problem there is this; some of us are writers outside of myLot with bigger platforms and louder voices than others. People like me who happen to have a very large audience and the potential for many more eyes to see what I will say here than they might ever have found on their actual site.

And worse, the words I post here are far less tongue in cheek, far less careful, far less friendly, far more scathing, much more critical, and perhaps in some ways, more dangerous to their reputation than anything I might post within the confines of their iron fists.

Like I said, myLot is still a site that can be fun and earn some money. But just know that when you step within their doors, you're locked inside, and they will command you to behave their way or else. Make sure you praise them to the High Heavens. They like praise. They can't handle scorn. They can't handle ridicule. And frankly they fear the truth. 

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page. If you want to check out myLot as a place to write about anything and get paid without having to be a writer? You can find them at mylot.com. You can find me there as well. My name is Porwest. If you sign up and write an introductory post, let them know Porwest sent you there from The Springboard. 

Welcome to the "Quick Shout" Segment

THE SPRINGBOARD WAS ALWAYS INTENDED TO BE AN OPINION DRIVEN RESPONSE. Thus, as the title suggests, a good many of the posts found here spring from something happening or something said, and The Springboard essentially is responding to that. It's never been intended to be journalistic, and never was intended to serve as a news source even if to some extent a good bit of the content is news driven.

There are already enough sites and blogs out there that intend to deliver news. Here, this blog responds to it. Over the years of my doing this blog that really has not changed.

One of my aims entering 2018, however, was to begin the process of increasing the content here, and make posts quite a bit more frequent. There are several ways I have begun to do this. And one of those ways is the introduction of a new "segment" of the blog I am calling Quick Shout.

As I have increased my participation on Twitter one frustration has always been that sometimes I'd like to have the opportunity to expand more in response to something that has been tweeted. While Twitter has obviously relaxed its character allowances among other things, it still can be rather limited.

Quick Shout allows me to respond directly to a Tweet, or some other thing, do it in a more expanded manner, but still keep it short and sweet.

It is not intended to become the blog. Regular posts will still be written as they were before. It is simply an addition to the blog content presented here. Most of the Quick Shout content will be geared to, and tied to Twitter. Why? Because its a great source for engaging discussions, and even retorts. And it offers a great source of material from which to springboard from and further those discussions in a more detailed, and lengthier fashion.

Why have I decided to incorporate Quick Shouts into the regular blog? To me, it seems one can become bogged down trying to manage too many blogs, and because the nature and general format of this new segment are quite in line with the purpose and intent of The Springboard, it just seems fitting to me to keep it here.

What I'd love to see with it is more engagement from my readers in the form of comments. One area that has been lacking here for whatever reason. The Springboard gets an enormous amount of activity. But for whatever reason has never driven comments.

I think it should be an interesting new area of the blog, and hopefully you'll agree. We'll see where it leads us—and perhaps over time, as most things do, it may even evolve a little bit.

Share Your Wares And Make Money

YOU HAVE A TALENT OR TWO, AND YOU WANT TO SHARE THEM. I think that's mostly just a part of human nature. If you write a song and can play an instrument, and can even sing a little bit, you want someone out there to be able to listen.

AND THESE DAYS IT IS EVEN EASIER THAN EVER TO DO THAT.

Back in my early days on the Internet, having a strong interest back then in the horror fiction industry I set out to start a monthly online horror fiction magazine, and to my surprise it actually became quite successful.

WELL, WHEN I SAY IT WAS SUCCESSFUL, I MEAN IT WAS POPULAR.

This was the early 90's and AOL was primarily the "go-to" when it came to anything online. Anyone could create a website and put it out there for all too see. The problem back then was monetizing the whole thing.

FrightNet Online Magazine was what it was called, and featured fiction from some great horror names like T.M. Wright, Douglas Clegg, Michael Laimo, and others. I eventually went on to publish a short story anthology called Dark Whispers. I went by the name Ivan S. Graves doing the magazine and the anthology.

Several times I have considered restarting the magazine since nowadays monetizing is quite a bit easier, and even creating subscription based content is much easier now than it was when FrightNet Online Magazine had its day. But running the site was actually quite time consuming, and while I thoroughly enjoyed what I did, I am not sure I have the time these days to do it, nor do I particularly feel up to it.

BUT I STILL WANT TO MAKE MONEY ON SIDE GIGS, AND PROBABLY SO DO YOU. It is a large part, besides enjoying writing, that I started this blog several years ago, writing about things I like to talk about like politics and money. And it is still hard to actually make money even with all of the affiliate programs and Google AdSense and all of that sort of thing.

THAT IS STILL THE CASE EVEN IF YOU GET GENERALLY GOOD TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG.

So I decided to pursue another avenue. I also like to write music and do play the guitar, and depending on who you talk to, I am not terrible at singing either. Like many things, including my style of writing, my music is my own brand—it's different. And if you were to listen to my last album, Pink Flamingoes, or my iTunes single All You Are, you will certainly see that.

Does the music effort earn enough to pay the bills? Not hardly. The truth is that the hardest part of any of these ventures is getting your wares out for people to take a look at.

You don't have the marketing backing that some bloggers can afford, or that the music industry will provide its stars, and when it comes to music in particular, it is nearly impossible to get radio airplay. Still, the point here is that there are multiple ways to get it all out there. Sharing on places like Facebook or Twitter is of course one place to do it. But for music there are also places like Bandcamp and SoundCloud. Although the latter does not pay anything, it is just a place to share and perhaps in some way introduce what you do to people who may be interested in checking a bit further and who may be interested in buying a bit of what you do.

One of the keys, I think, is to keep plugging along despite it all. You never know, one day something may click and then the sky is the limit. It's tough, but you have to keep doing it. Keep playing around with what you are writing about, and keep on changing how you format it all.

Like this blog, for example. Recently I decided to try something a bit different in the manner in which I was writing it. Using more "breaks" and boldface type and italics to set things apart and hopefully keep the reader reading. And, increasing the frequency of posts. The more you add to your blog, the more content obviously is generated, and the better the ranking your blog overall will get when it comes time to being catalogued and indexed.

I recently read an article about a 28 year-old retiree who made a little over $62,000 in the first year of blogging, and if nothing else it served to make me think that if nothing else, at least it is POSSIBLE to actually make something significant doing all of these things. Especially if you are able to do multiple things such as blogging, making music, and maybe even starting up a magazine like I did.

Going back to the thought of restarting FrightNet still intrigues me if for no other reason than based on what I know right now, it could actually be the one thing, the one online endeavor, that might actually stand a chance of making the kind of revenue that that 28-year old retiree makes. Or more even. And certainly it could serve as another platform for some of my other stuff—which would of course have to be relevant to what I was doing there. I could, for example, market a song like 102 Idle Stones, Voices, or No. 130 Melancholy in D from Pink Flamingoes which do have a bit of a horror slant, or a song like What I Want on my Bandcamp which is certainly dark and sinister in nature.

The main point of this post really comes down to one thing for me. Do what you love, share what you love, and hopefully someone will love what you do. If that happens, if people actually find that they love what you do, someone may actually one day pay you for it.

As I said before, you just have to keep on doing it. Not everything is going to be gold and one can't expect overnight success. Just like when you play the lottery, sometimes you even have to accept that no matter how often you play, you may never actually win...

BUT YOU CANNOT WIN IF YOU DO NOT PLAY!

There is a ton of content out there, and there a ton of people out there all vying for attention. It's a tough field, and its tough to get the attention. It takes time like all things ultimately do. You have to have a lot of patience, and no matter the immediate or even long term outcome, you have to believe that what you are doing is still worth doing. No matter what happens. No matter who pays attention and who does not. No matter if you make money or you do not.

Restoring The Springboard 2015

My blog here has become a bit muddled, befuddled, and I will readily admit, off topic. Not sure where that trend started. But this blog was supposed to be about money, politics, and the random thought. The random thought seems to have overrun my recent posts.

So, there are a couple changes I intend to make going into 2015.

1) I am going to post here more often. The old saying goes that the more updated a site is the more traffic it generates. Since WebAnswers stopped being a big money maker, my Google AdSense earnings have fallen off dramatically.

2) I am going to restore my blog to its original intention for content. I will write about money, politics, and still include the random thought. But I will have much less random thoughts  thrown into the mix.

3) I will promote The Springboard more, along with my Bubblews posts and now Elitevisitors posts.

All in all I want to see 2015 be a good year for The Springboard. I thought about starting a new blog, something that would mimic what I did on Bubblews and call it something like Chatterbox or something like that. And I may still try something like that out. But for the most part I just want to restore at least this blog to some of it's "roots."

The rest of my 2014 posts will just be to get back into the habit of posting regularly. But after January 1st, it's back to business. Time to get The Springboard back on track. Onward and upward and I shall see you all on the other side.

Risqué Photos

Image is from Pixabay





One thing is true if you write online at all, you know that the image you choose for your work is probably just as important as the title and the text that follows. Which brings me to a picture I found while perusing Pixabay's offerings at the Bubblews website.

Obviously the picture depicts a naked girl lying on her side. But what I found interesting and shocking all at the same time was that in the lower regions, there was not a lot left to the imagination. The picture revealed a lot more than I thought it would.

Or that would certainly not be allowed on Bubblews, even though the site clearly allows Pixabay images, and this one came up within the Bubblews Pixabay photo search.

Of course, using the image here is perfectly fine. The site is mine. I essentially make the rules, with some exceptions being that the overall platform is still owned by Google, and I have AdSense to think about.

So at the end of the day when it comes to images, and whatever site you happen to be using them for, consideration of the rules of the site, and the nature of the audience should always be considered first and foremost. As SimeyC at Bubblews put it in his article Picture Choice: Use Common Sense it just makes sense.

SPRINGBOARD ELSEWHERE

The Ice Bucket Challenge

Russia Targeting McDonald's

Crisis In Black America