Yesterday one of my best friends came over to talk to me about the best way to get the most of my blog in terms of making it self-sufficient, and maybe even profitable eventually (i.e. I might have to get over myself and start adding ads and such, but we’ll see). The biggest issue I have with my beloved blog here, however, is managing my time and energy. I tell ya, if I could work full-time on this blog, I’d pound out the content, but I’ve been dealing with a lack of time and energy that’s coming from a bunch of factors. I won’t go into those, but I do wanna talk about the results of our chat, which was very productive.
The big thing is I’ve been trying to do too much. Play multiple games at the same time to cover them plus multiple news pieces plus whatever else. While this is doable in some sense, I just have trouble mustering the energy, especially lately. This then feeds into a cycle of guilt and inaction that leads to me doing nothing at all for the site except the bare minimum. It’s too big in my head, and I’m too close to it. My friend helped me pull back a bit and try to refocus on keeping things simpler. Maybe work on one game a week instead of several. Maybe focus on what she called the “most important” news and don’t worry about covering everything. Stuff like that, you know? It basically comes down to doing what I can with what I have and making the best of it. Eventually the situation will change (we’ll hopefully move to a bigger place closer to work wherein my commute and lack of space hopefully go away), but until then, I might need to simplify things.
What does that mean? It means news pieces might need to be more focused and to the point, and cover more important stuff rather than everything. It means content might be a slow burn for a while in terms of getting stuff out, because I don’t wanna half-ass anything. It means I’m still learning to make this blog the best I can make it without putting so much pressure or guilt on my own damned self. You guys are the best readers a blogger could hope to have, which is why I’m being open and transparent about this. Y’all have told me that you’ll be happy whenever I put out content, and I have to actually, you know, accept that and not guilt myself about it.
This blog is a journey, not only in space gaming, but in time, energy and motivation management, gaining writing experience and in connecting with awesome people like all of you. If I can succeed at some of that, I’ll be happy, but I eventually want to succeed at all of it. Thanks so much for reading my rant, bearing with me on this journey, and for visiting the site. Y’all mean the world to me. :)
Time and energy, hard stuff to muster. I’ve read quite a bit on the topic myself. One easy thing to do is breaks. Small ones, like a walk outside for a few minutes. different head space, different atmosphere, can be quite recharging. a bit of googling will show you some more easy strategies.
Good luck, hope you get yourself back on track :)
-John
Hey John, how are ya? Yeah it’s a struggle, but I wouldn’t say I’m off track…just that the roller coaster-style track is in a downward-angle right now. ;)
I have no problems with ads. All your readers would love to see you make a living on this.
I’ve seen other sites (Matt Barton via YouTube) that get tiny kickbacks from GOG for people who purchase via clickthrough.
Thanks again for a great site! My favorite articles are the flood updates of game patches, releases, kickstarters and sales.
Thank YOU for visiting! And yeah, I’ll still likely do those massive news posts, just not as frequently because damn to they take a lot of time.
Hi Brian. Why don’t you seek some people from your viewership to become contributors? Let them become officially part of your staff. So that press copies of new games etc, can go to them and share the work load. You can become an editor of sorts and do some when you can.
I think the whole issue is that you do it mostly by yourself. Having some help would be good, it would also make you feel part of a team and have people to chat with going forward. You can turn this into a whole community. :)
I’d be willing to help on the contribution front when done with VOD, but the official part ties in because you can’t give press copies to anyone who just is going to do an article. They have to be ‘staff’ of the site. And you have to vet these people carefully. Good luck!
While I appreciate the offer, I create this site to be my own journey through the history and future of space gaming, so it’ll likely stay a one-person op. I hope that makes sense. :)
Hey, I think what I would really like to see is some in depth coverage of the really of the beaten path stuff. Like awesome mods for great SF games that nobody covers any more (say, homeworld 2). Anything I can’t read on mainstream websites really. Get yourself a niche and own it :) Also, the posts with lots of little news bits on not too well known games are nice, but I can imagine this is exactly the kind of stuff that costs lots of energy.
Basically, I get my SF gaming fix from you, rockpapershotgun and spacesector, so anything you duplicate from those guys would be a less efficient use of your time from my perspective :) Oh and I really don’t mind you putting some adds on the site.
Cheers,
I second what the other commentators have said. I don’t mind the ads if they benefit you, and would like you to continue writing articles and doing podcasts. The one about X-Rebirth was a lot of fun! ;-)