Wednesday, July 17, 2019
"Create and Go": a little company says that niche blogging is still a viable way to make a living
In the past year or so, I’ve certainly heard a lot
about the explosion of independent YouTube channels and how they have made
money (starting about 2013) and how they are seriously challenged now by
changes in YouTube policy.
Video channels seemed to replace blogging, and I’ve
noted that Ramsay sold Blogtyrant in June 2018 and it doesn’t seem to have done
much since.
There is a company called Create and Go run by a
husband-wife team, and the husband (“cute”) gives a half-hour pitch in April
2019, “Make Money Blogging and Design your Days”.
Although a few controversial mommy blogs (like Dooce)
were spectacularly successful without a lot of topic focus, most blogs that
work financially center around a relatively narrow niche or commercial focus.
The blog’s being successful comports with the larger business being successful.
Many of CG’s advice is similar to Blogtyrant’s, and he
talks about sponsored content, subscription lists, and particularly affiliate
marketing (Amazon Associates is the simplest).
He also talked about the products he sells, which
happen to include some lifestyle or nutrition products, and “printables”.
I react to this aware of the churning in the
background over the future of free speech online and the of the threats to
independent media in general. The loss
of “net neutrality” was the least of these;
more serious are FOSTA, the EU Copyright Directive, a new copyright bill
in the US called CASE, and the behavior of big social media with respect to political
polarization, especially YouTube’s recent pulling income from political content
creators.
Of course, you say, this should not affect websites
that support “legitimate” commercial business activity and you may be right; in the future, websites may have to pay their
own way.
I’ve said that I don’t think I can support my current
multiple blog “free content” operation past the end of 2021. I actually have
started thinking about how I might work in a much narrower niche.
Based on his advice in this video, for example, I could
imagine a blog centered around my own classical music composition projects, including
the two big sonatas. I could talk about
(or request assistance) with techniques in using composition software, like Avid
Sibelius. Maybe I could work with Skillshare (which David Pakman promotes).
Or, possibly I could work on the idea of getting
screenplays pitched or table-read (since I have one now based on my three DADT
books as background), or something on how to check a novel manuscript for loose
ends (there are software and database tools that can be tried). But again, in some way, after 2021, this
activity would have to pay for itself.
Then there gets to be a question about selling my
three books so far, and the novel I plan to finish. What about selling books in general? That needs more focus. What about independent bookstores v. chains
and Amazon?
I’ve heard about multi-level marketing my whole life
(Amway, etc), and for socially adept people it makes some sense. Amway may have predicted the modern social network. During the years I was looking after mother
(until 2010), there was a family a few doors down that did multi-level
successfully, although I never knew much about it.
I don’t like selling things for their own sake. I’m not someone who claims to fix people’s motivational
or lifestyle or nutritional or financial issues. But I can see some more specific niches along
the lines CG is talking about.
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