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Blogging Burn Out
The last time I posted to this blog was nearly a year ago. How time flies!
When I was last here I was blogging often and taking advantage of all Vox had to offer in the way of groups, neighbourhoods, etc. It seemed like a great place and, although I had made many blogs before at various places, I thought I would be staying here long term.
The problem was that while I was blogging away I had some serious financial issues on my mind and blogging here was my way of avoiding them. So one day I decided that I had procrastinated long enough and had to do something to fix things... and what better way to do this than by blogging!
So I looked into ways I could make money from blogging. Most of it seemed to suck big time; building blogs for adsense etc. But then I found something I could make money from. Adult.
And I set to work with a vengeance. Today I have hundreds of blogs and sites selling adult material and making a reasonable living for me. Most of the sites are on auto, so once they are set up they only need checking now and again. But I wanted to go one step further. I wanted to be a 'respectable blogger'.
So lately I have been creating blogs in mainstream and working as a freelance writer too.
But the catch here is that mainstream blogs can't be 'put on auto' so easily and freelance writing is damn hard work. The pay isn't that great either (compared to adult), until you are well established and of course to attain that you need to build an online presence via social bookmarking, blog commenting, article submisions, etc, etc. I'm getting there, but it's tough and 'being social' just to establish a 'brand' kind of sucks I think. I want to be sociable because I feel like it, not because I need to network. So basically, I am not very good at the 'social marketing' stuff.
And I think I've reached blogging burn out too. There is only so much unique content anyone can produce without having a brain fade. It's taken me nearly a year to reach it, which can't be bad, but it's still a problem.
So what am I doing to 'chill out'? I'm blogging of course, here at Vox! Probably not the most sensible thing to do, but, hey, I never have taken the sensible option.
And at least I can be sociable here without networking.
I just hope Vox hasn't changed that much, though from a few posts I have read I think it may have.
We'll see...
Comments
Are the adult blogs a product marketing tool or taking written content or a mixture of both?
I tried to think of a way to market counted cross stitch designs many years ago but the Net hadn't been around long and eventually I had to go back to 9 to 5ing. With adult product you don't have to test anything but with CCS I would have had to test stitch each one.
Definitely a food for thought post.
Thanks for asking. I wondered how people would react to that post :)
I belong to a number of sponsors who provide me with pictures, some text and free hosted galleries to link to. Many also provide RSS feeds so that I can make blogs 'on auto'. All the posts contain my affiliate links, so if anyone reads the post, clicks through to the sponsor and signs up, the sponsor pays me for the sign up (it's usually a reasonable amount).
However, the blogs which make me the most money are those where I write my own written posts to go with the pictures. This differentiates me from all the other bloggers trying to make money this way. It's hard work though (and not for the faint hearted or the easily offended!).
With counted cross stich designs I wouldn't have a clue. I would guess you would google the term and see what websites are selling these already and looking at how they go about it (keywords, advertising methods etc). I would also look at the adsense adverts on the right hand of the page. If there are none, or not many, then the product probably doesn't have many sponsors which could make it difficult to make money from.
In that case, you could always try setting up a blog or website, getting it a high ranking in google and promoting product suppliers for free for a while. Then, if your stats tell you that you are giving the product suppliers good hits, you could contact them and offer to continue to advertise their site for a price. I've done this with a couple of mainstream sites (local) and it is working quite well, but early days....
But with sponsors already out there, if I find a product (in adult or mainstream) I want to promote, I usually click through to the sponsor's site, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and see if there is a 'webmaster' link. If there is, I look at what the sponsor has to offer.
Hope that helps :)
I'll have to put my thinking cap on and have another look around at the existing market.
Last time the Net was in its infancy and most folk couldn't see where I was coming from. I didn't want to be a web designer but had hoped to find someone approaching the matter as marketing my product for me, alongside theirs. Folk just wanted to sell their own stuff instead of expanding the range they had on offer with other folks product.
I thought this was pretty narrow minded and limited what they had to offer visitors to their site. You never know. Maybe someone has clued on by now.
I'll be watching for how you get on.
You never know, I have quite a few mainstream (ie. non-adult) sites, some quite general, so maybe I could give you a link or two (for free of course) when you get your marketing strategy going.
Every little link helps...
Thanks Zack :)
I'm very reluctant to start my own site because I don't want to go through the process of setting up transaction processing. It sounds expensive.
Do you have any transaction processing yourself? It sounds like you just collect on the "click through".
The original idea was to sell the cross stitch plans and deliver them electronically, to be printed on peoples own printers. If this had gotten off the ground the process would have been automatic. Deal with the queries but the rest would have been hands free. The idea beyond that was to offer freelancers the use of the system while keeping a small percentage for the privilege.
I thought this would have given arts students a chance to earn some cash while still at college and would have enhanced the site by displaying their original work. Kids today can really come up with brilliant stuff.
It could also have been marketed as a last minute birthday present for geeks who had forgotten Mum's special Day.
I still think it could grow legs but the clock is ticking as far as me getting it up and running. The missus is less than enthused.