My Finding a Blog Adventures

So I've only had this blog less than a week and its been a massive change for me, but a positive one.  I wanted to find an independent space off of social media where I could post my art and mental health journey without relying on an algorithm, crazy comments from people I don't know or hoping an insane billionaire doesn't hide my content. Oddly, it only took me a few days to land on something I liked. I probably should have looked longer and did more research, but being bipolar I tend to launch into something and just run with it out the gate.

I looked at wordpress, wix, even blogger and Substack. I had made a page there and played around with it but it felt too sanitized. Also my understanding is the guy who is the CEO of substack is also a billionaire or close to one with some far right wing leanings, at least he allows that kind of content on Substack. I really didn't want some white supremecist blog being promoted next to mine.

So I found Ghost. What appealed to me the most here is that it is open source and decentralized. Meaning no one person owns or controls it. I own all of my own content and don't have to worry about it being sold to some outside party who will come in with a wrecking ball.

Its taking some learning and cost a bit more than I was hoping to spend up front, not piles of money but there was some cost up front. But I have opportunities to monetize my blog. I can do paid subscriptions or ads. I opted for ads for now. With a small reader base, it feels like ads will be the best way to let people read my work without asking for any thing from them.

I spent the last few years trying to sell my art and no matter how much I tried to sell it for, or how little, no one would purchase anything. And I get it, art is a luxury and people are struggling right now. So I figured asking 5.00 or so a month for a newsletter from some new guy would be a big ask.

So hopefully once the ads start showing up, folks will be patient with it and they won't be too intrusive. Maybe eventually I'll go to paid content, but we'll see how it goes.

I'm still learning a lot and learning as I go. The nice thing with ghost is it has good SEO and you don't really need to know HTML or coding or anything like that. The big thing is having content ready to go. Its very user friendly and easy to set up. It only took me a few hours to be up and publishing. I had a few posts on blogger already, but moved them over here.

I didn't stay with Blogger because google owns it and I didn't want them to have control over my content. Yes, they would have some with ads, but not full control. Worse they could do is demonetize. Then I guess I would offer paid subscriptions. I may offer paid as an option if anyone wants to support me anyway, we'll see how what happens.

Since launching this, several people have mentioned to me how they want to get back into blogging. I highly recommend it. Its fun and therapeutic and a good way to take back the internet. I don't recomment Ghost to anyone, it is some work. Substack may very well be right for a lot of people. The best thing I can suggest is play around and try a few different platforms and choose the one that you like the best and which aligns the most with your goals and needs.

For me, decentalization and open source was a big need, so I went with it. Others may have some other needs or requirements. I don't know about any of you, but I'm sick of goofy super rich men dictating how I can communicate with my friends and family. Or what I see, or what others see or interact with. It was bad enough with Twitter, but has gotten worse with Facebook and now both sites are almost unusable. I used to use Facebook as kind of a journal or blog, but that wasn't practical or useful. And once again, Facebook controls your content there and can take it down anytime.

So here I am on Ghost and hoping all of you are enjoying it here too. This is still in its infancy, so I'll see how things develop and make necessary changes as we go. In the meantime, I'll keep posting and hopefully you all will keep reading.