June 24, 2005
UNEMPLOYMENT UPDATE
After 3 weeks of reading, research, consulting with Beloved Wife TNT of Smiling Dynamite, and generally mulling things over, I've reached two tentative conclusions.
First, whatever my next job title is, it'll most likely have the word "Analyst" in it. Poking around Monster.com, it seems like most jobs that fit that description would suit me fairly well. Tapping at a keyboard all day, generating mountains of paperwork that'll get filed or thrown away within 24 hours, keeping busy all day with an unemptiable "IN" basket, and working with people who are trying to get stuff done. Sure beats pretending to be the happy, pampering, servant of whoever walks through the front door like I did for the last 7 years.
Seriously, it's time for me to admit that I don't have the "super-helpful uber alles" mentality to be successful in a front-line retail-customer-service position.
Professional & courteous, I can deal with.
Friendly & cheerful? Stuff a sock in it.
Second, before I become just another gopher in a cubicle farm, I'm going to live the dream.
Or deny the psychosis, depending on how you look at it.
For the next 5 months or so, I'm going to see how close I can come to making a living with my blog.
After some research, it seems that there are four viable revenue possibilities:
1) Google Adsense - relatively unobtrusive text ads that I can stick in the sidebar without annoying the crap out of everybody
2) Private ads - selling sidebar real estate to people who think it would do them good.
3) Tipjar - all the people who say that they'd like to buy me a drink would be able to actually buy me a drink... in the virtual sense
4) Merchandise - thinking about the possibilities available with Cafe Press... and not just for Bad Example-themed stuff. I'm a witty, creative, kinda guy who can crank out all KINDS of one-liner humor that would look good on a T-shirt, hat, or bumper sticker. Several themes spring to mind - right-wing, Second-amendment, Pro-War, and, of course, racy innuendo.
The basic idea is to put up more and better quality writing, get serious about drawing in more traffic in accordance with the sacred text, and letting the sidebar clutter - as listed above - do the rest of the work for me.
It may or may not work. I may end up having to go legit come December, cut back on my posting, and let my traffic go to hell. But at least I'll have tried doing something I love; learned a lot about myself, writing, and marketing in the process; and it won't really have COST me anything.
And that's the WORST case scenario.
Slightly better case is that all this writing leads to some freelancing gigs. Maybe something I can put on a resume. Who knows? Maybe even a paid gig as a corporate blogger? That job description is coming, you know. A sincere blog is a great way for a business to get honest feedback from its customers without having to pay for a focus group. Stephen & Heather of BusinessWeek's Blogspotting would probably agree.
Naturally, the best case would be that income from this experiment would be adequate & trending upwards at the end of the year. Probably just a fantasy on my part... but... DAMMIT, I just GOTTA try.
Anyway, now that you know where I'm headed, any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas would be appreciated. I'm sailing off into uncharted waters here, and I could use all the navigational help I can get.
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Tracked: June 25, 2005 08:56 AM
Excerpt: Harvey over at Bad Example is currently unemployed and convinced that he will wind up with a job that has the word "analyst" in the title. I'd be willing to bet he'd end up in a cube farm. If anybody...
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I have good feelings about this for you.
w00t! Best of luck, Harv... I'm pulling for you!
Maybe you could align yourself with instahack's new advertising deal and make a gajillion dollars?
I'd be willing to drop you a couple bones for adspace. Ogre and I have been sort of slow on the design gig and could use a pickup in business.
...are you any good a site design? There's always someone willing to slip you a few bucks for that.
Good luck!
I think John Hawkings of RightWingNews is in the same boat as you right now, so you might want to check out some of the stuff he's been doing to make an income on his blogs.
Check out the Pajamas Media stuff over at Roger Simon.
And Good Luck
Congratulation Harv!
I would put a nifty quote about Confucious and first steps and juorney's here but it's 9 in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet so your out of luck
Any rate let me know if you want to set up a seperate website for this etc. My partner and I sometimes build pro webpages for folks and host them. Our Demo site is http://www.techography.net
I think its safe to say 90% of the bloggers we know have your 6 on this one ;)
no seminaring huh?
Well I am leaving leaving here, with the following song stuck in my head....
California, Uber alles-California- uber alles
Yep, I will be singing Dead Kennedys for the rest of the day.
Yeah! A plan!! All great things start with a plan.
You KNOW I'm behind you, no matter what you decide to do. And I'm also glad you can take the time to do what you love.
What ever we can do, Daddy-O. What ever we can do!
I'm guessing you getting one of those pay-per-view webcam thingies...er...nevermind. That would be just wrong.
Excellent! Sounds like a good plan to me. As you say... right now the worst that could happen is that it doesn't work and then you go to work for someone else. Why NOT give this a shot. It's always good to have a plan *grin*
Dang! You're going to be a "professional blogger"! I'm going to have to re-write my Hobby Horse post now.... ;)
I wish you good luck and smooth sailing! :) I even promise to click on yur ads!
I wish you good luck and smooth sailing! :) I even promise to click on yur ads!
Not to rain on your parade, but something that you should take into consideration.
When people actually hire. Usually around October people stop hiring, this is due to them trying to figure out what positions are going to be open because of the retirements. Businesses usually start hiring again around February, but then come April/May you have to compete with the graduates for jobs, although that may not affect you because of your experience.
Just something you may want to take into consideration, because looking for a job around Christmas time is hard because the job opportunities are short on demand.
I think it would be cool to have merchandise with your love letters on them. Not sure about licensing for that, but I am sure some of those are from dead people who don't care anymore.
Look about 4 sections down on this link - Under "Freelance Blog Writer":
http://www.freelancewriting.com/forumdir/fjb/index.html
I'm betting that you can make it on your writing, given time. Also the Cafe Press idea would be a good adjunct in the interim (and don't look askance at ads!). From the selling perspective - just a few of the Bad Example logos on Mugs would be big sellers, to start with. I don't know what it takes to get something going on Cafe Press - whether it's best to start with a few designs and bootstrap your way up, or go for a bunch at the start?
If you end up returning to the 8-5 workforce, the analyst thing should suit you well ;-)
E-Mail Me (Harvey)
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