I feel bad starting a year off blogging with something negative, but I feel this is an opportunity to share my mind and try to explain what is going on with me of late. I will try to fill you in as best as I can in this blog post.
An Uncertain Future...
A lot of us are going through a lot in life, and not just the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic. I have had my troubles of late. I lost a lot of what made my blogging successful. I do still enjoy making posts for all of you. As much as I try to grow and evolve, I feel I haven't had much success trying to expand my content.
One such issue I face is that I am no longer an Amazon Associate. I haven't made much sales at all, hardly anything in the past 3-5 years, and I am guessing not posting any sales has lead me to being dropped from the service. I even got an E-Mail with a greeting saying, "Dear former Amazon Associate,". On top of that, my views have declined substantially over the years, and I haven't had as much input from the general public. This is almost as if to say my blogs lived their purpose and no longer serve any real purpose except to take up others' time. I feel this has been hurtful to me because I feel like I want to let people understand my views on certain things and later be able to let would-be customers purchase relevant material if interested. It worked very well early on in my blogging career. Since, I rarely profit.
All of this sounds harsh, I know; but I always wanted to move on from blogging once I felt I just wasn't having as much great results. I actually have been trying to learn to build my own static websites using GitHub. Part of my stagnation in making online content has been in trying to learn how to use and utilize GitHub. In addition, I have thought of migrating all (or almost all) of my blog content across all of my blogs to static websites through GitHub.
One of the real problems I am having is trying to use GitHub while also implementing Jekyll. Github and Jekyll together help produce quality static HTML websites. I have been considering GitHub because there is some content of mine that I want to make exclusively for GitHub, and I feel it would be best served and more fun to use a GitHub site more than WordPress or Tumblr or something. So far, my only true creative outlets are "John's Creative Space" and my JohnMarineDesigns Weebly site. I have done things like make e-Books, offer 3D models on TurboSquid, and make music to be sold on Bandcamp. I had a CafePress site, but I discontinued that because I couldn't really make anything to even support my own brand and material. Some blog posts that I have done have resulted in me making some money. Financial profits from whatever I could get my hands on has been very minimal. Not even enough to buy a cup of coffee or a bottle of water.
So What is "Uncertain" About This Future?
The uncertainty lies in wondering if I will ever prosper or thrive again. I probably got into blogging while it was still hot. Most people have moved on mostly to the likes of TikTok and such. Though while a lot of bloggers still are active, I just haven't seen as much success lately for my own work.As I usually have chatted with one avid supporter, I feel the need to try to be more transparent. Part of that transparency faded when I discontinued my Discord account. I retired from Discord because of some personal issues and from not using it much. However, I feel like I may need to return to Discord because it's the most popular way to connect with creators and with fans. So I may need to re-join Discord and be better able to serve my most loyal fans. I may also have to try not to do too many things to make myself a disliked figure.
Am I Retiring as a Blogger?
Let me answer this as simply as possible...NO!!!
I feel I still have too much invested in my blogging that I don't need to retire from my love of blogging. This is just a low spot in my blogging career I can dig myself out of. This is the height of my creative energy to blog. I am not giving this up any time soon.
Hope on the Horizon?
Besides being drowned in uncertainty and slow times, I feel rather hopeful and happy for 2022. I have been looking forward to being a better cook, making more music, and even trying my hand at digital art. My creativity will not die even if my beloved blogging seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. If I can get back to gaining some real popularity, I can go ahead and get into sharing my creative work for all to see. My only social media outlets today are mostly Facebook and Twitter.I do feel I need to concentrate more on other different money-making opportunities to financially profit outside of my blogging. Since progress is slow, though, not much has come out from this creative mind of mine.
A lot of this was tough for me to type, but I would like to thank you all for your patience. Now you know from me what I am going through and the challenges I face. I know anything is possible as long as I believe and as long as I have loving support. I don't know what the future holds, but I will do my best not to let down my biggest supporters.
In case any of you ask, I am NOT deleting any of my blogs. I am just in a lull and working to try to get out of such a lull. I know I say this a lot and it seems redundant, but please support my work any way you can if you enjoy my work. I have tons of outlets for all of you to support my work. I will still be here unless I decide to finally pull the plug on my blogging work. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.
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