“Let it rock – Keep it country – Whatever” – Ray Wylie Hubbard
I was working on a horoscope, the other morning, without consulting my bank balance, but definitely looking at charts, when I came up with a really good analogy involving 19th Century poetry and duck tape. When I got around to reading some news, I came across this: it’s a site I don’t read very often, but this appeal struck a chord as it addressed the question of funds.
When I went back to look at that article again, really, I was just checking the link, I realized that there was a piece to this puzzle that’s missing. The act of creation, the time spent crafting up a set of 12 horoscopes for a week, that’s time when I’m completely divorced from the harsh, economic reality of whatever is going on. In other words, I don’t write scopes to sell products. In fact, I’ve gotten to where I can’t even advertise products I don’t buy, try out, and then embrace.
I’m particularly bad about asking for money. If I had a one dollar for each of the {{popup janstats.gif janstats 492×320}}2.7 million visitors in January, I’d be rich now. I’d be able to set back and just do what I like to do, manage a web site or two [4 right now>, fish, hike, travel, maybe go to see a movie every once in a while, and \\keep writing horoscopes that I find entertaining\\. Apparently a half-million readers find them entertaining. Even at a single dollar apiece – that alone would float this place and allow for some improvements – in fact, that alone would exceed my wildest expectations. It would buy me enough time to sort out the e-mail delivery problems each week, too. Shoot, I could buy a truck that didn’t require open-heart surgery just to drive. Or health insurance, yeah, that too.
To be honest, I suspect that the numbers I get are little skewed, but still, at a more realistic estimate of 250,000 readers in a week, at $1 apiece, that adds up.
I’ve had more than one person get up from my table, walk away, and not pay. Some folks dash back to drop money on me. Maybe I should always ask for money up front. Maybe this should be a pay website. Maybe if the folks who spend more than 10 minutes on the website each day, maybe if they actually did drop a dollar in the jar, this wouldn’t be a problem. From the tracking software, a fair number of folks spend around 40 minutes on the site. \\”We know who you are, and our server is tracking your web usage – logging your IP number.”\\ As if anybody around here could be bothered with that. I scan stats long enough to see if anything major is broken.
I was digging through some of the archives, looking for something, and I noticed all the advertising and linked advertising I had in place back then. But along the lines of community, that idea of sticking random ads in the weekly column doesn’t work as it violates some kind of trust – not to mention it violates my own sense of ethics and aesthetics.
Besides, the point’s been done to death – the advertising on web sites doesn’t really work. That’s the curse of a computer-driven model, exact impressions are available, as well as tracking the click through by the customer, and whether or not they actually buy something. That’s a lot different from a glossy magazine that claims circulation in hundreds of thousands. Even if that’s an audited circulation, how much of an ad is taken in? No click through count for a magazine ad.
Look at the design around here. The URL itself points to the weekly scopes, and at midnight, Austin time, it rolls over to the new week. No click through to get to the meat of the content. No complex messages with teasers and more advertising. No excess. No splash page. Sort of works well even in a non-standards compliant Netscape 4.7x [although images sometimes crak or overlap.>
I trimmed the buttons down to five, and the site index has everything that’s available. One purpose of this journal is to write and give my thoughts a chance to crystallize. So what popped into my mind, I’ll have to think about it, but maybe I should trim down some of what’s offered via the index. “Less is more.”
Reminds me, I cut back on my workload, too. No monthly overview, no yearly overview, just the stuff that is – or has been – financially successful and, more important for me, the most amusing. Weekly. The way I like it.
I’m off for weekend in the Bay Area for Sister’s Celebration. But the server, that’s paid for – until the credit card bills arrive, it’ll be up and available, all weekend long.
