This Blog, Sir, Is Dead

Just keep on writing. It's the "forever mantra" of a plyer of pens. Granted, in the world of blogging, no real pens are harmed. It's all just digital data being sent out in the form of words into the ethers. Wherever that is, honestly.

I ply my wares in other places besides this one. And thank Heaven's I do, because this blog gets about as much traction as a man with no legs. Yeesh. Bad joke? Too soon considering I guess old Pistorius is getting out of prison shortly?

You know, he's that guy with the steel, springy legs who once was a star athlete before he killed his girlfriend some years back.

I said I was doing a little experiment though with this one. Of course, you probably didn't get to read it. Well, because who does? It's a ghost town here, folks. But I said I was going to try to post more often here, and not so much as do a thing to promote any of the blogs I write here, just to see if that will ramp up some algorithm in search land (or maybe wake it the hell up!) or something.

I take that back. I did promote the one just before this one. The one about R.P. Kane. 

But the key is to examine the posts that aren't promoted to see if they get anywhere on their own. Just by doing the one thing that blog writers do. Write blogs and hit the publish button and wait.

My other blogs are not a good gauge since they actually have an audience and can find their own way well enough into the hands of readers. Or eyes. Or whatever.

So far what I have learned is that it is just too early to tell if there is any impact whatsoever since I only started this experiment a very short while ago. So, onward and upward, continuing to write more nonsensical nothings I go.

This blog has always been a bit of dead space. Maybe that's part of the reason this one has not been permitted by AdSense to be monetized. Oh well. Maybe one day I can convince the powers that be at Google, or Alphabet, or whatever it is these days to consider it and bring home a little extra dough from it.

Either way, it's still a fun place to write about just about anything I want to. And I guess if it sucks it doesn't matter since no one will see it anyway.

Hey! Johnny Fever. You out there, man? I feel your pain, talking into the airwaves with not a single car radio tuned into your show. That's me. Here I am. Right there with you, buddy. Only he got paid anyway. Wait a damn minute.

In any event, I will keep on doing what I do here regardless of the outcome. I guess from time to time I will promote one or two or several here and there. For what purpose, I have no idea. Maybe I land an eye or two. Who knows?

But for the time being, this blog is dead.

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page. Trust me, it's quite a bit livelier outside of here than it is inside of here. Anyone out there? Anyone? Anyone?

Writing Again: From the Desk of R.P. Kane

No. Not blogs. Not articles. Or the usual fare I have been writing for several years now. Fiction. Horror fiction to be exact.

I used to do it all the time, writing short stories and novels since I was eight. It has always been a passion of mine, but admittedly something I largely got away from. I suppose one just eventually finds other ways to fuel their passion for writing anything at all, and politics and talking about money just sort of took over.

But fiction has remained something I still like to do from time to time. But it's mostly just for me and my own enjoyment, exploring my imagination and what creepy things I can conjure up. Some of it I actively publish. Most of it I tend to keep on the sidelines.

I have decided to change that a bit.

Back in the 1990s, I introduced an online monthly horror fiction magazine to the world, taking on the persona of Ivan S. Graves, editor in chief, and calling it FrightNet. Despite the world of the Internet being entirely different back then, the magazine was nearly an instant success.

The aim was to make it look and feel like a traditional, in print publication. And it did that. You'd click on the cover, and it would take you into a table of contents, and from there there'd be articles and editorials, and of course, the main course, short stories.

The magazine eventually wound up including many popular talents in the horror field. Jack Ketchum, Peter Straub, T.M. Wright, Douglas Clegg, Michael Laimo and countless others.  And it also led to a horror anthology being published around 2001 or so, called Dark Whispers.

The magazine eventually ceased. It was hard to monetize back then, and Ivan S. Graves bid his farewell, even cancelling plans to publish a second horror anthology called Chillers. Mort Castle once said of me, "You will be one of the greats." But I essentially left horror behind.

It's not that I abandoned the persona of Ivan S. Graves entirely, though. There were several times when I made an appearance or two in certain circles, even writing a foreword to R.K. Finnell's short story collection, Grue Tales, in 2018. I have also maintained connections with several of the writers I had the pleasure of working with, and even occasionally still write a book review here and there.

The persona of Ivan S. Graves was never considered to be a writer. He was an editor. Someone to advance the genre and offer an outlet for authors to have their work published. He did write, though. And if you dig really, really deep you can find some of his work still hanging around in places.

The writer side was R.P. Kane. 

Even the persona of R.P. Kane was mostly intended to be a practice author. In other words, the real writer's name behind Jim Bauer (my real name) would be more of a secret. That writer's name remains to be that way today with almost no one knowing who he is.

And I'm still not talking.

R.P. Kane's work would sometimes be tossed into the pages of FrightNet, and when I did it, I never let on to anyone that Ivan S. Graves was actually R.P. Kane. Though there were a few curious contributors who would sometimes recognize something in Kane's style that resembled the monthly "Letter from the Editor" that appeared in every issue.

Kane also took on a bit of a more sinister nature in what he wrote. And so, the persona offered me some liberties to try different things in the way of style and delivery, and even subject matter.

Tests. Practice. A way to hone the craft and share it at the same time.

By the way, sometimes that's the real reason many writers write under different names. It's not just because their real names might be boring, or not quite fit the genre, like mine. It's that you can do things with one name that you can't do with a more known name—it gives you some separation and allows for a little bit of experimentation.

Nonetheless, I have decided to begin sharing some of R.P. Kane's work, both old and new, on a blog on this very platform. Not within The Journal. But in its own space.

It is a work in progress as we speak, and to date there is nothing to share other than that I am doing it. Stay tuned.

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page where I share posts from this blog, as well as all the other places I write, and where you will be able to find links to the future publishings of R.P. Kane.

An archived copy of FrightNet, #13, June/July 1999

A Couple of Experiments Just for Kicks and Grins

Twitter has always been a "funny" place to me in that it's like a ghost town on my profile page. I have enough "followers," but still, getting any real traction on anything I post there is difficult. For whatever reason.

However, I do think some of the stats shown aren't always completely accurate. For example, link clicks, if I am sharing a song or sharing a post, tend to always display as zero. At the same time, if I am posting something to share there, I do also often see a jump in views.

I know when and where I share something mostly. So, where else would the views be coming from but link clicks even if the stats say no one clicked?

I wrote a post yesterday on here that remained at zero. Hey, this particular blog really has no audience and gets very little traffic. I always consider it just a quiet place to write something just to keep the pen moving, have a little fun, and keep the mind fresh and active.

I rarely actively share what I write on here.

But I became curious. Would sharing the former post on Twitter bump up the view count? I am not sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will.

So, I am checking to see if that actually happens. But there is another experiment I want to try out. The fact is that I am not very active adding to this blog. Usually on my main blog I limit my posts to only one per day. I won't get into the details of why that's my rule. I will just say that it is.

So, even if I write two or more posts in a day, I won't publish them right away. Instead I will schedule them in a way to be published so only one per day is added to the blog.

In any event, the second experiment is to see if I post more on this blog, will it push the posts more?

It's helpful to also understand some changes that I could make on my primary blog that might actually be beneficial to it and drive in way more traffic. In the end I have nothing to lose. No one sees this blog hardly anyway. And for whatever reason I have not been able to monetize this one as I have with my primary blog.

Onward and upward and we will see what happens. I will be sure to post my findings even if I am also absolutely positive I might as well do magic tricks in front of a blind man.

No one will see it. 

Hey! Think this blog sucks? Maybe you're right. How about giving me some spins on some of my music that sucks too? I could use the income to keep writing things that suck. You can find my quirky Pink Flamingoes (misspelled on purpose) album on Spotify. If you are so kind, perhaps there is a song or two that makes your favorite playlist?

By the way, the picture that accompanies this post has nothing whatsoever to do with this post. It's just a picture of a 1980 Ford Fiesta, which also happened to be my first car. But mine was powder blue.

I Write a Lot

From serious stuff to not so serious stuff, I write a lot. I am not sure if I would necessarily call myself exactly prolific, but there may be some rationale behind me saying it if I were to actually say it. While some have called me, in no uncertain terms, and usually after a long debate, a windbag, I guess at the end of the day I just have a lot to say.

What can I say?

A lot of the time I tell myself I just have to do it. It is something that is within me that I am simply compelled to write, and write a lot. I just gotta get it out, you know? The words. The thoughts. The ideas and opinions. I have to get them out.

I do wonder sometimes what might happen if I didn't do that. Would it be like holding in a fart or something? I mean, it's there. It doesn't just go away, just like words. It all has to come out eventually. Would I explode? I am not sure, and I am no scientist, so I have no idea.

So, I write. And I write a lot and I just keep on writing so long as the words continue to come and so long as I have an outlet to get it all down on paper.

Well, these days on a computer screen of course. 

A while back I decided to start a Facebook page dedicated only to things I write. People get tired of you sharing sometimes on your regular page. But I didn't really do anything with it. I didn't update it much, I didn't promote it much...

I just basically let it sit there.

Recently I decided to not do that anymore. Update it, will ya! I shouted at myself. You actually do have a fan base and because I write in so many places, maybe that fan base could just go to one central place and find it all there.

Or most of it.

But that's part of the problem. I write a lot. And so that means there is more material to share than I have room for necessarily at a given time on my Facebook page—and at the same time I don't really want to clutter anyone's feeds either. That tends to annoy people, and then sharing doesn't matter because they won't bother to pay any attention to you—and there's only so much time to read a bunch of stuff from a windbag like me.

Still, I make every attempt to share what I can. The "evergreen" stuff like this drool I am writing right now can be shared any time—and sometimes it's good filler. If I am writing more "timely" stuff, that has to get up as fast as possible, but of course I still want to stagger it all a little bit.

Either way, no matter what I just keep on doing what I do and eventually if anyone wants to read any of it, they will get the opportunity. By the way, if you happen to be one of those people, go ahead and have a look at my Facebook page and see what's over there. And always feel free to drop me a comment. I will read them and answer them.

Because that's a form of writing too, isn't it? But don't be surprised if I do comment and it happens to be a little long-winded.

You know, that whole windbag thing and all.

What The Hell Is The Point of this Blog?

I have been blogging for a long time. While when I started this whole thing—not here on THIS blog—it was a more "serious" approach that I took. My main blog, which gets quite neglected these days, The Springboard, centers around mostly politics, money management, the stock market, and as I like to call it, "the occasional random thought."

One of the things that began to distract me a bit from this more "serious" writing were sites like Bubblews, PersonaPaper, MyLot and others. You can even go ahead and toss in an old site I used to be quite active on that was called WebAnswers.

The thing is, these were sites where you could essentially write about nothing in particular, and yet at the same time still make a fair amount of money.

I am currently on MyLot doing that sort of writing.

What is The Springboard Journal? It's an experiment of sorts. It's a quest to identify if writing about nothing in particular can be effective to attract any sort of traffic here on Blogger. It's a quest to see if a similar amount of participation on other blogs can have the same effect on traffic to any post as it did, or does currently on a site like MyLot.

The point of this blog really is simply to carry over the idea that is the basis of any of those other sites I mentioned and see whether or not it can work in a similar way as it does on those sites, but to also determine whether doing it here instead of there can be more profitable.

At the end of the day it is true that many of us write blogs at all because we like to write. And because we like to write, writing about anything—or in this case nothing—is just an excuse to put words down and play around a bit with the whole process of it. But we also like to make a little bit of money too. Getting paid to do something you enjoy is always a worthwhile venture.

So what really is the point of this blog? Just to see what happens. To write about anything and nothing and just see where it lands.

While writing about nothing, I will do my best to at least try and keep it somewhat interesting.

Giving It To MyLot

I TEND TO SPEND QUITE A LOT OF TIME OVER AT A LITTLE PLACE CALLED MYLOT, and I have to say that for the most part is indeed a site that, unlike many others before it—we'll just toss out the Bubblews name here for these purposes—it seems to have its act together when it comes to policing the site and making regular cash payouts to its members there.

I have not missed a payment to date.

While MyLot does not pay anywhere near a site like BUBBLEWS did, I think that is actually a good thing. The fact is that anyone who did not fully come to the realization at the massive payouts Bubblews offered that the entire thing was one giant scam just waiting to come to its very dead end, you just simply could not have been operating with even half of a brain in your head.

It was too good to be true. We all knew it. But so long as the cash register continued to ring, however unrealistic it all was that it could keep on going, YOU kept on going until the cash register stopped ringing.

And it did. Quite abruptly actually.

But I am not here really to talk about the good side of MyLot. I am here to talk about something that bothers me a bit about MyLot.

I said that MyLot polices the site quite well. And that's true. They keep out the riff-raff, and they delete posts quite rapidly when they break a policy. You want that and need that on a site like this, as things can get ugly right quick, and before you know it, advertisers start wanting to pull their ads.

And that's bad because that's the bread and butter of a site like MyLot, and of course what allows the content providers to get paid.

But I do think the site sometimes goes a little bit far on that policing...especially as it applies to what some might call spam. In one way or another, being that we are content providers, and that we are attracted to sites like MyLot at all, we all generally have something to sell outside of just the content we provide on those sites.

Like me, for example. I have an album out there on iTunes and other places. I have a book out there on Amazon which is also sold in a few places. I have this blog and other blogs. I have articles I have written on HubPages.

There's stuff out there that I want to share. Both for the purpose of sharing. But also for the purpose of increasing my opportunities for revenue if I can as well.

Other members of the site write books. Some have little side businesses making designer art, greeting cards, and even lotions and detergents. Not a single one of us expects to get rich doing any of this stuff.

Yet the site seems to warrant anything that even mentions indirectly about our "side gigs" is a post that should quickly and rightly be deleted.

I tend to disagree with this.

Look, if I post a direct link to my album on iTunes, for example (It's Pink Flamingoes by Jim Bauer if you had any desire to look it up) in a MyLot post. Yeah. That's undeniable spam. But if I simply mention, such as I did here, that the album is available on iTunes without providing a link directly to it, and use the post to also share for free a song from the album, to my mind that is not spam at all. It is simply saying to anyone reading the post, here's a song I want to share from my album called X, if you want to take a look at it here is where you can find it...

That is simple sharing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not outwardly complaining, nor am I calling on the site to change its policies. It's their site, they can do what they want with it, and they can make whatever rules they want to make inside of it. If I want to participate there I have to simply abide by their rules and live with it if I want to get paid anything at all.

But there's part of the thing. I don't need the money that bad. It's not enough money to get my panties all in a bunch over. So, to that end, I do have the ability to cite my disdain for an action they take by taking something from them that they need more than I do.

Money from advertising.

And so that is what I did after they pulled my last post that mentioned my album and where it could be found. I stopped participating. I stopped posting. I made my presence there very nominal.

It has probably not so much as made a slight dent in their revenue, and they probably haven't even noticed my lack of participating over there. Either way.

But it also reminded me of THIS blog I started which was a way of doing exactly the same thing (or something very similar to it) HERE and being in FULL CONTROL of what I post, how it promotes things, and HOW MUCH I can earn overall.

I am at my payout level at MyLot. So, that means that when "checks" are handed out in February for the month of January, I will get one. It will not bother me to continue to boycott the site (mostly) for the rest of this month, and simply focus on this blog to see if there is any opportunity for it to grow and find a place on the Internet where there can be some great discussions about anything and nothing in general, and keep a healthy dialogue of comments and responses.

I will keep anyone interested on how it goes, although I must admit to feeling a little bit like old Jonny Fever at WKRP in Cincinnati.