Happy New Year everyone! Thank you, for sticking with me through that month-long hiatus. Are you ready to embrace a new season for the lilmissbearpaw Blog? I know I am!
I'm so glad I took the time to rest, step back and reflect, and to do some much-needed blog maintenance. Often, when people think of blogging, they think of the fun part: writing and putting together beautiful images. They don't think of the background pieces that make a website functional or even visible to readers. They also don't think about the creative burnout that can happen to even the most dedicated bloggers. I know I certainly didn't comprehend all of these issues when I first started and I still have a lot to learn.
For all of the rubbish that came out of the year that shall not be named one thing, it did give me is perspective. Life is short. Time easily gets away from us, then that dream we once had becomes a should of, would have, could have, if we'd only made our dream a priority. That made this last year the year of discovering my WHY.
My WHY narrowed down to wanting to share my absolute love for my state, the culture I grew up with, and it's history. To make it really short, I'm all about nostalgia and adventure. I love the combo of old times with new adventures.
I want to keep lilmissbearpaw Blog an authentic place to share that nostalgia and my adventures. However, wishing doesn't keep the lights on and the hot water flowing.
If you look up how to make money from this sort of endeavor a blogger's main options are to allow advertisers on their site or to do affiliate marketing. As a digital marketer by trade, I really understand the value of these partnerships between brands and influencers that potential customers trust. I just hate looking at ads between the content I'm really on a website for in the first place. So those options while simpler than others are not my favorite choices.
I'm also planning to release my Wandering in WY eBook sometime this spring, most likely for the eBook average selling price of $4. If that were my only revenue stream, I would have to sell approximately 750 eBooks/month to make the kind of living I could achieve by continuing in my day job. Now I'm sure you'll all love the book and be very supportive, but 750 books sold/month indefinitely doesn't seem like a reliable plan to me either!
The last option is the newest, but I like the concept in theory. This option is paid memberships, where if you paid x amount of money to the blog each month you would receive y extra benefits. The downside of this option is the time, energy, and creativity to create enough extra content and/or products that would make your membership worthwhile. The upside is that membership has a lot of potential growth in income for the blog and for a community among like-minded nostalgic adventurers. I want you to give this some thought and let me know in the comments what you would expect to receive from this type of membership. My hope is that this type of membership would be more like patronage. Where if you like my work, then you can support it by giving $1/month. There are several websites that do different levels of membership, yet again an honest person would want to provide enough value to earn the extra dollars of added layers for membership.
In embracing a new season for the lilmissbearpaw Blog and my current phase of life, I'm going to be experimenting with these ideas and more throughout 2021. I want your honest feedback.
What do you like about the blog? What do you think needs improvement? What features would you like added (for free)? What would earn your $1/month patronage?
Thank you, fellow adventurers! You can follow the lilmissbearpaw blog page on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @lilmissbearpaw for sneak peeks into upcoming posts and my adventures. This will also be a great place to share your own adventures!