J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Metablog Page 3 of 4

New Theme, and a Quick Story About How I Searched for a Nonexistent Phrase for More Than a Decade

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On August 25

In Metablog

As regular readers will have noticed, I switched WordPress themes. The new theme is called Lovecraft. It’s big! I like it. Lately, I’ve felt like going big. I threw a big birthday party. I’m writing lots of words. Big big big.

The reason I switched: the font size of Coraline (my previous theme) was too small. I found a way to make it bigger in the theme customization options, but the latest WordPress update got rid of that option, and my font size shrunk again. I know I could have fussed around with css, but screw it — it was time for a change anyway. I got rid of that picture of myself wearing that hat and holding the empty wine glass, and now the banner has some great pictures of our planet, courtesy of NASA. Thanks NASA! (And once again, big!)

Lovecraft. That reminds me of a story. A story about a story.

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2016 Blog Preview

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On January 5

In Metablog

On track for 2016.

On track for 2016.

About once a year I blog about this blog. It’s an opportunity for me to reevaluate why I blog, and an opportunity for you to evaluate why you read it, and what you might expect in the coming year.

Currently, the main reason I blog is to better understand the topics that interest me. Writing about these topics publicly forces me to think more clearly, do the research (even if my findings disrupt my preconceptions), and ultimately commit to a course of action or lifestyle change based on how the writing process changes my beliefs.

What I’m personally interested in doesn’t always correspond with what you, the readers, are most interested in. A disproportionate amount of interest in this blog is dedicated to the health and nutrition posts. That’s fine with me, but I’m not writing as many in-depth posts on these topics as I have in years past. That said, I do plan to write a detailed post on lifestyle and diet changes that may help prevent cancer, and the research behind such recommendations. I’ll look at fasting, ketosis, exercise, and various culinary seasonings (like turmeric and garlic).

There has also been a bit of interest in my scalp massage hair regrowth experiment. I’m still doing the head massage technique, but only for about 5-10 minutes a day. I’m not sure if my hair regrowth has plateaued or if my hairline is continuing to advance. Remember this is a slow technique — I didn’t see any regrowth at all for the first four months. I will do an update post, probably this summer, even if my hairline hasn’t changed much.

So what about this coming year? I plan to keep writing about work habits for creative types, making and reaching goals, sector investing, lifestyle experiments, family life, and the like. I’ll probably weigh in on a few political and environmental topics as well. In terms of post frequency, I’m shooting for once a week, slightly more than my historical average. Currently I have no shortage of ideas. Here’s a short selection of possible posts I’m taking notes on or have drafted to some extent:

  • Calling Your Shots (Why We Like Conor McGregor)
  • How To Invest a Lump Sum
  • The Effectuation Method
  • Quantity = Quality (More On Creative Work Quotas)
  • Visualizing Your Ideal Life While Feeling Gratitude for What You Have
  • Stresstitlement
  • One Month No Car Experiment

I hope that gives you some idea of what to expect from this blog in 2016. Feel free to holler back!

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Helping People — A Realization

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On September 10

In Life Purpose & Goals, Metablog, Metaprogramming, Personal Updates

Rescue: specific, well-defined, limited help

Rescue: specific, well-defined, limited help

Yesterday I received an angry email from a reader that gave me pause for thought. The reader asked me to do something I wasn’t comfortable doing and I declined. The reader became frustrated and let me know in no uncertain terms. Their argument went something like this: Why was I presenting myself as someone helpful if I wasn’t willing to help them?

It wasn’t a terrible interaction — just a frustrated person venting — but it did get me thinking about what I’m trying to do here. This blog is subtitled “Systems for Living Well” and that’s mostly what it’s about. I share my own experiences, insights, and knowledge, and hope this blog benefits others. In the past I’ve framed that as “helping people.”

But I’m wondering if “helping” people often leads to dysfunction and codependence. How much responsibility should the “helper” take for the circumstances of the “helped”? Is there a danger of the person being helped surrendering their own power and agency to the helper?

“Helping people” has been a core value of mine since grade school. To reevaluate and possibly jettison this guiding principle is a big deal for me. It’s not that I want to become less altruistic or less giving (especially in relation to friends and family), but I think the old language doesn’t work anymore. I need to replace “helping” with more specific verbs, in both my thinking process and in terms of real life actions.

Some thoughts re: the future direction of this blog:

What I Want to Retain or Move Towards

  • writing posts that educate, inspire, and/or entertain readers
  • sharing personal experiences that might benefit others
  • providing specific, clearly defined assistance to others when I am moved to do so, when it is mutually beneficial, or when I am being compensated

What I Want to Move Away From

  • helping others out of a general sense of obligation, because I have a “helper” identity
  • writing blog posts (or anything) that prescribe or recommend a particular course of action (“you should” or even “how to”)
  • presenting myself as an expert or authority
  • taking responsibility for other people’s actions or choices

I’m thinking out loud here. I don’t want to be less generous just because a few people feel overly entitled. I have no problem setting limits. Still, I may need to be clearer about what I’m offering, and where those limits are.

I hope you found this post educational, inspiring, or at least mildly entertaining!

A Thank You to Readers, and What’s To Come in 2015

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On December 23

In Metablog, Metaprogramming, Personal Updates

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“Start of blue hour at the village” by Jeff S. PhotoArt

It was only a few months ago that this blog passed one million views, and now we’re quickly coming up on two million. I’m happy that so many people are finding value here! Thank you for stopping by — I realize your time is valuable and you don’t have time to read the entire internet everyday.

If you’re new to this blog and not sure if it’s for you, here are some topics I’ll be writing about in 2015:

  • A series of “how to invest” posts written specifically for millennials (but hopefully useful to everyone). These posts will also go into gory details re: each of my own major investing mistakes and what I learned from each one, and go on to reveal my current investing system.
  • Share a natural hair-regrowth method I am currently using that is causing my hairline to actually advance (as opposed to retreat). I’ll also introduce you to the young man who told me about this method and has some interesting ideas about what causes hair loss and how to reverse the process. Before and after pictures will be included.
  • Updates on my fiction writing progress and daily writing habit, including a new method I am using to consistently break the 1000 word/day target (I realize many authors write much more than this already, but for me it’s a breakthrough).
  • A planned experiment, at least 30 days long, where my family goes from car-owning or car-leasing to walking/biking/occasional car-sharing.
  • More posts on my evolving life system that encompasses conscious prioritization of personal values, defining life purpose, effective goal setting, motivation methods, planning and strategizing, and daily production commitments.

That’s what’s in the pipeline!

LQ-1151_200Here’s a gift for you house music lovers. It will put you on the Loöq Records mailing list, which will expose you to even more fantastic, deep, house and ambient music (just so you know what you’re getting into).

One final thought … here are my wife Kia‘s old and new lists for how to experience the holidays. I think it’s a good rearrangement of priorities, don’t you?

OLD LIST
1. Getting it all done.
2. Surviving it.
3. Work.
4. Having a nice holiday.

NEW LIST
1. Have a nice time with my family.
2. Relaxing.
3. Experiencing holiday joy.
4. Enjoy yummy food & beverages.

Happy Christmakkah!

My Experience with WordAds

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On March 31

In Metablog, Money/Personal Finance

I try not to blog about blogging too much, but there are a few topics I want to quickly cover. When WordPress featured a recent post in their Freshly Pressed feature section, they also emailed me to suggest that I reactivate WordAds. WordAds is the advertising program available to sites hosted by WordPress. Initially, I had been invited to join the pilot program, and accepted. I turned it off after awhile because of very low revenue, and some weird formatting issues (the ads didn’t seem to be totally compatible with the template I was using). But then, as the Freshly Pressed post was getting tens of thousands of hits per day, I received this email:

Hi there,

I noticed you’re part of our WordAds family, but at some point had disabled WordAds on your blog.

With the recent spike in traffic driving to https://jdmoyer.com/2013/08/14/40-days-without-booze/ you might want to consider re-enabling it, as you could make quite a bit of revenue.

Also, if you deactivated WordAds before because you were having problems, I’d love to hear about them so we can get things fixed.

I wrote back with some questions. How much revenue is “quite a bit”? I received some polite but nonspecific answers. Not being one to like leaving money on the table, I decided to give the WordAds program another try.

Honey Nut Cheerios

After I turned on WordAds, short commercials started appearing at the bottom of my posts. The ads generally seemed like reasonably high quality mainstream TV commercials, interspersed with a few PSA type ads. Nothing offensive and nothing sleazy. Some were even funny.

None of my readers complained (though admittedly my contact form is somewhat buried), and site traffic stayed about the same. I didn’t yet know how much revenue I was earning, but WordAds didn’t seem like a disaster. I’m not philosophically opposed to advertising as long as it’s not intrusive or pernicious (see the previous post for a subtle example of the latter), and I like the idea of making back some of the money I pay WordPress to host this blog (and possibly more; the ad rep had mentioned “quite a bit” of revenue).

Then Kia told me I should turn off the ads. Like, now. She had just finished reading this post about the psychological effects of some artificial food dyes on children, and found an ad for Honey Nut Cheerios at the end of the post. There are worse foods than Honey Nut Cheerios, but at the end of the day my paleo/health/nutrition blog was showing an ad for junk-food sugar cereal.

I left WordAds up for another few days, so I could complete the month and see how much money I had earned. Then I turned them off.

Earnings

I made $162.19 over a roughly 10 week period, based on about 70,000 ad impressions. Site traffic during that time was probably about 120,000 views.

Not a lot of money, but nothing to sneeze at either. Having spoken with people who know much more about internet advertising than I do, that amount of revenue for that much traffic is on the low side. I could probably make more with Google’s AdSense program. However, WordPress hosted blogs don’t allow the option of AdSense; it’s WordAds or nothing. I could of course use the WordPress software on a 3rd-party hosted site, but I really like the WordPress hosting option. The software is great, the prices are reasonable, and traffic spikes are never an issue.

So earnings could be higher, but that’s not my main complaint. If WordPress would add one additional feature, I would turn WordAds back on.

Feature Request

When I’m logged in, I would like to see a small control next to each ad that says “Don’t show this ad on my site.”

That’s it. If WordPress added that feature, I’d be back in.

Obviously advertisers get to choose what kind of blogs they want to display their ads. So why not give bloggers a little control as well?

I think I would use the feature rarely. I didn’t even mind the rum ad. “0K” runs. Sleep yoga. That’s funny!

I have one other gripe. I think the $100 minimum payout is way too high, considering the low amounts of revenue being generated. That’s just a way for WordPress to keep money. As a music label owner I also have small royalties that I haven’t paid out at any given time, but I don’t have a minimum payout. If I owe an artist thirty cents and they ask for it, I’ll pay them. It actually pisses me off, the more I think about. WordPress should just pay their bloggers what is owed. There is no legitimate business reason to make $100 the minimum cutoff.

 Why Do I Blog?

Bringing money into the equation forces me to reevaluate why I blog. Is it to make money? No, the main reason is to help people live well, both as individuals and also collectively, as a species and planet-wide civilization. I also use jdmoyer.com to mouth-off about whatever I’m thinking, and to promote my music releases. Eventually I’ll promote my novels here as well.

But do I like passive income streams? Of course I do! Don’t you? Doing something you enjoy and getting paid for it called getting away with it. It’s one of my main life philosophies.

My alternative to WordAds will be a recommendations page of some sort, where I will link to products and services that I already use and enjoy. Then, if any of the companies behind those products and services want to get in touch with me to run a more official advertisement, they can do so.

PSA

If you use the internet, you should be aware of the plug-in AdBlock Plus. If you don’t like seeing ads, AdBlock Plus will do the trick. I use it in general, but turn it off for sites I like to support (like reddit).

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