A private blogger not blogging for money

Not for the money

As recently as Tuesday, I was asked once again if I was generating any income from my blog, to which I answered no. I could say that I have been asked this question consistently from around the third year of my blog being in existence.

There was a time I thought I could generate passive income by allowing advertisements on my blog, but more than just upsetting the general look-and-feel of the blog with adverts interspersed in places I would rather they did not, it was nigh on impossible to control and manage the content being shared from my blog space, I had no alternative but to remove the feature.

On another note, I do not consider myself that much of a self-promoter or influencer that depends on the oxygen of traffic, footfall, likes, and comments to survive. I write because I like writing about things, that I have an audience that is just one of good fortune and interest rather than some deliberate effort to please or attract custom.

Always worth my while

However, I have found myself in certain forums where I have talked about my blog and from that garnered interest from others to read and view my musings. A blog in its 20^th year is probably more than a novelty, to me, it is also a thing of pride that it started during a time when everyone seemed to have something to say until they got disinterested or distracted by some other trend. I continued regardless.

I can even remember there was a time that a website titled, ‘How Much Is My Blog Worth?’ existed, you keyed in your blog URL and it produced some arbitrary figure, at least for my amusement more than anything else. In some cases, I have been asked to write for others, a task that has proved quite onerous compared to what I would generally publish on my blog.

It is my space

It is the autonomy and control that I enjoy, no one can review, edit, or alter what I have written on my blog, and as I am not beholden to anyone in terms of monetary or market demands, the freedom to express myself in the frame of reference of how I see and understand things is untrammelled. That does not mean I am licentious and reckless, as I can appreciate how publishing over 20 years might just have some historical viewpoint that might offend someone.

I have also been advised that from all that I have already written, I probably have enough to publish books on different themes, subjects, life and so on. Though my seeming ability to knock out blogs does not seem to have transferred to the needed skill to write long-form stories you would find in a novel. My autobiography languishes in bits and pieces strung together on a premise I cannot begin to assess well enough for any coherence.

To take the words of Tina Turner and adapt them to my situation, I am just a Private Blogger not blogging for money but doing just what I want to do. Then again, I am open to ideas, including those towards commemorating 20 years of blogging in December 2023.

Thought Picnic: Letting blogs flourish in mystery and meaning

Like organic farming

In most cases, my blogs are raw and unpolished, apart from basic spellchecking and some attention to the basic rules of grammar to aid comprehension, I do little else. In fact, I am probably too lazy to even read the blog back to myself to ensure it reads and sounds right, I would think that is to be expected of personal blogs, unadulterated and without synthetic fertilisers.

Then, for those who read my blogs, there is a style and expression that is uniquely mine, you will find obscure and archaic usages and much as you will find unfamiliar words. I could be tempted into sesquipedalianism, but I more frequently resist the urge, though, it could be said the blogs do not cater to the lowest common denominator for readership.

Some air of mystery

I am of the view that the English language is very rich in expression and modality, and I have not mastered the simplicity of writing so fluently to address the broadest crowd that might happen upon my blog. It might be a failing on my part and it is one I am ready to accept as a weakness.

Generally, I hope my blog can retain a kind of mystery to the reader, by that I mean, you read what you see with all the possible interpretations that might arise in your thinking without enquiry as to first my mental state and then my presumed intentions. My blog is more of a journal with a public face, to review my blogs again for a target audience would defeat the journaling and diary aspects of blogging. Should there be a need for unravelling what is written, it might well be written into the blog itself.

Let the wild tree grow

Much as I would hate to be misunderstood, I am not striving to be totally predictable either, the questions anyone might have in their minds and many do not have any other means of contacting me apart from adding comments, certain clarifications can be requested but a full expository would be sating curiosity beyond the mystique of mystery and pondering. Let the blog flourish without the tendency to second-guess the writer.

Even when I do go over old blogs, the only corrections and modifications made are to spelling, grammar and context, rarely and I do not think I have had to rewrite a blog. I have taken down two blogs because they would have created difficulties for the subjects of my writing, beyond that, I follow the advice rather than the threat of the Duke of Wellington, "Publish and be damned."

I guess the question on anyone’s mind would be whether the blog was written for them or written for the writer by the writer themselves. One would think the latter is more plausible, then again, the roots of trees do grow in unpredictable ways and so an audience might think something applies to them, which one would suggest, is quite purely coincidental.

Because I'm Happy

Pharrell Williams - Happy (Official Music Video)

It’s your thang!

Sometime ago, I decided to add the Our Daily Bread devotional feed to both my blog reading list and my Feedly news feed.

The devotionals are easy, life, perspective, and thoughts captured in a few short and easy to read paragraphs packing the potential of seed to full-blown and blooming tree in almost an instant.

Today the devotional was entitled The Night No One Came, as the story goes Johann Sebastian Bach was to debut a new piece of music as the orchestra gathered to play, there was no one in the audience to listen. Unfazed, Bach wielded the baton and the music began to play, it was not long before the church was filled.

Do your thang!

I write a lot as my blog of 10 years indicates and we are coming to the end of a 5-week residency of the #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging where eventually 35 blogs would have been published as a celebration of telling our own stories in our own individual voices.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Then on Twitter, I find I have a following from a broad spectrum of diversity, too many to mention and those who dare to engage and I mean engage would almost always end up in some friendship. Yet, there are others of the hit-and-run variety, they come spoiling for a fight, railing with abuse and insult and tease out of me the typical slow poison of an English putdown.

Write your thang!

Integrity as some define it is what you do when no one is watching. I hope my writing passes that test, I write rarely for an audience or to pander to some interest, I do not get paid to do what I really enjoy, I just do it and sometimes many can find resonance and in other cases the piece is hardly read.

I do not because the statistics for a blog do not get a lift in the number of readers take down the blog in a huff because I am writing for myself, to myself, about myself and the views I have for myself.

This informs why sometimes I write something I do not think makes any sense, one of those crazy blog moments and someone leaves a comment or tweets at me saying they can identify and I am left wondering and leave it at that, glad that the gift keeps giving something back.

Clap your thang!

Then at church yesterday as we left the building, there was some music playing that I never really took notice of but recognised that it had to do with happiness.

“Because I’m happy,
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof.”

Lyric snippet from Happy, Despicable Me 2 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Pharrell Williams. [Wikipedia]

The uplifting feel to the music resonates and I sought out the video on YouTube only to find that it was written and performed by the musical genius of Pharrell Williams, probably the Johann Sebastian Bach of our times.

With this amazing song comes the world’s first 24-hour music video at http://24hoursofhappy.com/ - Go there and have it on continuous playback, then read the lyrics and get into the flow.

What I have to say is this, find a way to put yourself in a happy mood, whether or not you have an audience, go out and do what you have to do and enjoy doing it, living life as if you have not one care in the world.

That for me is enjoying the pursuit of happiness, you might find someone to share it with when you start doing something happily, for me, it is writing and in the process, and I might find me a lover too.

Thought Picnic: Your Local Website is a Global Shop Window

You are out there

I fear that many businesses that have a web presence are missing out on an essential bit of public relations that is well beyond their control.

Beyond the presentation facade, there is the experience and the opinion dimension that has now become integral to the product.

If you are an airline, a hotel or an outfit that offers services, develops products or even compares things, activities and circumstances, you are now at the mercy of the real life views which can be anything from seriously positive to downright negative, the matter of honesty is a variable that is indeterminate, it is taken on trust.

You cannot choose your audience

In the first instance, except where the establishment decides to restrict viewing by filtering or challenge/response engagement, any website, no matter where uploaded and regardless of the expertise of the designer has global scrutiny.

The traffic from outside your locality might not be great, but be assured that it is viewable by all. When I look at my blog, it has a Netherlands registered URL, I am resident in the UK, I write about personal and activist issues in my locality and in relation to my heritage which is partly Nigerian but I get the largest audience from China, then the United States, followed by Norway, the United Kingdom comes 4^th, the Netherlands 7^th and Nigeria 10^th.

I cannot explain why the greatest interest in my blog comes from those locations and I cannot control the access that this audience has to my opinions.

You local website is a global shop window

I make this point because I feel that many Nigerian websites of the government, educational institutions, businesses and much else fail to recognise that their audience is well beyond the myopic confines of who they traditionally think will visit their websites.

This morning, I found myself commenting about the website of a premier Nigerian University, the first observation was though it provided a unique service, the design was poor and the copy was full of spelling errors.

In my view, that was just unforgivable, one expects a tertiary academic institution to apply itself to rigour, correctness and exactness. For a university of that standard not to exploit the services of its languages departments and proofread copy before publication is just beyond belief.

It behoves one to ask, if out of interest in Nigeria for all the good that is known of the country some prospective student were seeking admission or some organisation wanted to bestow a chair the first view of the university being the website shoddily presented will lose the university custom long before the prospects are given the opportunity to explore further – we do not have the attention spans to maintain interest after the disappointment of avoidable sloppiness.

We assess and discriminate better

Then to hotels or other services, forums on the web all seem to come with easy access to review and critique based on experience. Between mood, fairness and honest opinion, by the time a few reviews are read you get a good idea of the product, the service, the people, the ambience and immediately come to some conclusion as to whether you want to use that service or not.

Whilst price can be a differentiator, it is hardly the main variable in the decision making process, there is no point going to an affordable place if you will be treated with contempt and levity, you want to be able to shop with a sense of security.

One discriminating factor I used in choosing a hotel recently was that for the same price point in 5 places only one offered the option to cancel with charge, some were charging up-front with the option to cancel and one even had a non-refundable no-cancellation policy – all for the same price – I chose the most flexible option for my security, safety and convenience – I will never trade those variables off if I could help it.

The reviews make all the difference

When it comes to mobile applications, we are met with choices that are never fully explained but in the experiences of others – more 5-stars than 1-stars and you think it is probably a good product, equal stars for the top and bottom rating, you try to find out why it excites such divergence passions and wonder if your experience will be for the better or the worse. Too many low ratings and you just don’t waste your time trying to be a charitable user of what everyone hates.

At the same time, you can control all the levers before you are exposed to ridicule; this requires planning, consideration, service, responsiveness and proactive remediation, this will always eventually boost rankings or ratings, leave any of these to lie fallow and your business will be pulled down by the negative – you cannot afford to have a stubborn resolve even if you are the only show in town – people will find something else to do than suffer your service for a second.

Think well about what your product is, what your service is, work on customer satisfaction and make sure your web page is an honest portrayal of what you do because nothing irks a customer more than to be lied to.

Anonymously queuing for a flight in Nigeria

Invisible inkspots

Sometimes, I wonder about the anonymous unidentified commenting audience (UCA) that leave comments on my blog.

If anyone would take time to leave a comment, it surprises me that they cannot be bothered to leave a name, probably a link to their blog and maybe an email address.

Obviously, it is an easy thing to trace the IP address, but that is just a lot of hassle, in the end, you have so many “anonymice”, gnawing at your cheese and leaving foul droppings, but worse still, you cannot address a faceless voice or a bodiless spirit the appropriate way.

However, sometimes a UCA comes along and writes something useful, and I have sung many a church hymn attributed to Anon – it would be a whole lot more meaningful if one were also to know who received inspiration to pen such a song of praise and worship.

It is, no doubt, the prerogative of the UCA to have no identity but really, if you must write, underwrite your opinion with an identity.

A comment to publish

A comment was left by a UCA and I could not leave it hidden in the comment areas because after reading the comments I really could not imagine going through such an ordeal – it is probably as true as any experience, I dread the thought entirely.

My commentary would appear in braces {}

Here goes …

Ah, life in the civilised world … Bless!. {I suppose this means service is a product of civilisation.}

I hope you have not been away from Nigeria too long to have lost the irony of today's ranting post! {I’ll be telling, won’t I?}

"On any given day, I’ll rather have the service I paid for than the compensation and if you must compensate it should be for the inconvenience I have suffered with my qualified input into the negotiations and an act of genuine contrition, feel some pain and make me happy" {I feel no different about this anywhere I may be, whether I would get redress is a different matter.}

1. Duh!

2. Get the service you pay for? (My generator just went on, NEPA just took light {Nigerian euphemism for a power cut}, we paid our bill on Tuesday)

3. Compensation, adequate or not? HA! HA! HA!

In our part of the world, honey … shit happens. We ask why, but we don't get answers, let alone informative ones ("Your train is delayed because …"), and while you're here complaining, have a coffee on us. {That is one way to look at it – have a coffee on us, I think I have lived a too sheltered life.}

Trying to board a plane in Nigeria

In Nigeria, the scenario would have played like this: First, it'd be the airport. No railway system. {The Chinese are working in rebuilding our railway infrastructure; I once travelled from Jos to Ibadan on the trains in 1973.} Second, your flight would have been delayed indefinitely. {When I last left Nigeria, my flight was delayed for 5 hours.}

Tickets for the said flight would still continue to be sold by the airline. Hours would roll by. You’d eventually get hungry and buy a meat-pie or a similarly yuckety yuck coffee.

Eventually, although there would have been no prior announcement, you'd notice a desperate line forming. You'd remain seated, confident that you had your boarding pass and seat # in your pocket, although this being Nigeria, you'd double check. {Announcements I have heard in Lagos airports are too RP to be English, I find them comical.}

You'd look at your watch, stretch out your legs, decide there was no point taking your newspaper with you as you'd read it 3 times over already, pick up your jacket and laptop, and walk unhurriedly to the line, really, just to get a feel of what was going on. {I feel pain already.}

Your irritation to find your plane was indeed being boarded (even though there'd been no announcement) would pass in a flash … you'd be relieved that at least the plane was leaving for its destination.

By the way, you'd have missed the meeting by now, but you had other things to do in the town, catch up with an old colleague, visit a bookstore for a particular book …

Anyway, being 6 ft tall, easily 3 inches above everybody else, you would see that there were - Oh! about 30 people ahead of you, but no problem, right? {This is beginning to scare me.}

You'd pat your shirt pocket to feel your ticket and boarding pass, just to reassure yourself -- a bit like when you were little and carried the dog eared pocket sized stuffed monkey Curious George everywhere you went.

You'd notice a curious thing, the airline attendant, seeming to count heads. 'Ey, 'ey, what's this?' could she be counting heads to fill the seats, regardless of whether one has a boarding pass or not? She couldn't, could she?

Suddenly, you are no longer so confident. You wish, grown-up man that you are, Curious George was there to make you feel better. But he's not, and you are grown-up, so instead, you loosen your tie a bit and keep moving in the line.

Ah, the attendant is walking towards you. Phew, you are one of the lucky ones; you will get on the flight. But, 'ey 'ey, what’s this? She’s stopped counting 2 people ahead of you …"The plane is full", she announces. {Surely, not if you were travelling Business Class.}

"The rest of you will take the next flight". Incredulous, and in an adrenaline rush, you rudely push past her, rush through the metal detector, run out on to the tarmac - this is Nigeria, after all, although it could be Gatwick), ignoring shouts of "Sah, Sah!". {This is beyond me, I hope not.}

You rush to the plane steps and find yourself pleading with the airline official to let you get on the flight. He looks at your face. You are tired and hungry and goddamit, desperate.

'Alright sir, welcome aboard'. You say thanks, and are annoyed with yourself for seeming so grateful. You do, after all, have a boarding pass in your pocket. {This must be fictional, it really must be, I do not think I can countenance this kind of situation, probably best to stay away from Nigeria for a while longer.}

Thanks to Anonymous. - With a capital A, I stand corrected Anonywho.

The hills are alive with the sound of croaking

More reality than realisable

There are so many reality shows that on television nowadays, the genre has been flogged into every kind of performance short of a full-blooded pornographic performance of who has the best sex.

Sometimes, programmes like the Apprentice, a US creation - have a bit of civility to it, though it is really a dog-eat-dog situation, it takes a special kind of mind-set to attend a job interview like that.

The Dragon’s Den, a Japanese creation - is another which consists of a few self-made self-conceited money-bags posing as venture-capitalists to people who present all sorts of ideas needing capital investment – you can learn about what to do and what not to do when seeking capital for an entrepreneurship.

These are usually adjudicated by a panel of judges only.

Watch me and rile me

At the common end, where no value accrues but the feeding of base instincts of voyeurism you have Big Brother, a Dutch creation which probably stems from the fact that ground-floor apartments usually do not have curtains drawn, on the premise that only people who have things to hide draw their curtains. The less said about this, the better – however, it draws the largest audiences all around the world.

On the entertainment side we have had every kind of musical variation of talent search with Pop Idol, a UK creation - being the most prominent global franchise.

That’s entertainment

However, Strictly Come Dancing, another UK creation, takes my accolades for the best reality show entertainment. Here, a professional ballroom dancer is paired with a flat-footed celebrity of the opposite sex and we through the weeks see that team develop into magnificent dancers.

In all these, audience participation matters, this is combined with points awarded by a panel of judges. Since the audience needs to phone in to keep their favourite team in the contest, no one talks of the wads of money made for each premium phone call made.

What is your poison?

As the Queen’s birthday approached, a number of celebrity television chefs from the inebriated to the utterly intemperate had a number of contests to determine who would cook for the Queen using ingredients from their native regions.

We then had to contend to food snobs whose delusions of grandeur was to give the impression they had palates that could determine what as good enough for the Queen. Insufferable, they were, however, as long as one concentrated on the cooking experience, that part could be ignored.

Do re mi - So pray she

The new reality show about to land on our screens would make you squirm, a leading lady is required for a London West End musical revival produced by the impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber.

The name of this show would be, How do you Solve a Problem Like Maria? - The Sound of Music – Need I say more?