Blog Posts, Podcasts, YouTube, & Writing Thoughts
Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week, I look at some of the myths that exist in the area of blogging, podcasting and being an author and/or YouTuber. There seems to be some expectations out there that are unrealistic. Why do I not find myself making money? Why do I keep doing it? If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!
Some weeks it is easier to come up with a blog post and podcast than others. Last week, something in the news tweaked me. This week…I’ve been kind of searching topics hoping something would appeal to me. There are so many things in the news and in entertainment…but nothing I really feel I could make a whole blog post and podcast of. It might just be my thing and there might be a ton of stuff for someone else. Then I saw a topic that I thought would fit nicely for me. First, I have to admit; I do what I do with the blog post, podcast and the e-books I had written because I loved being productive. I love putting my thoughts down somewhere. It used to be on paper, when I was in my teens. Now it’s via the keyboard onto my word processing program. I then take that and put the typed format onto my various forums. I think there is a difficulty with the reality of blogging podcasting YouTube creating and writing and many start and stop with good reason. It seems that many people start out thinking they will make lots of money at it. At least I knew this wasn’t likely. I’m not writing this to discourage anyone, but rather as a reality check on how important it is to love what you do and start small scale.
My first work was done because I had made some e-books and wanted to enter into the social media world in order to act as publicity for A & J PEI Treasures. It was during the early days of the pandemic. I thought I might be able to make a little money on the side with e-books and I thought to become somewhat known. I also thought it was a good way to showcase my little area of the Province. I had originally wanted to go about and do things with various areas and places and give a glimpse of island life. The pandemic made that unavailable to me. I loved the idea of what I could do. So, that takes care of the reason I do it. Of course there were issues. I ended up having my e-books taken down on Amazon, put up, taken down. Pieces of my e-books got misused. I got frustrated and after many requests for help, finally took them off Amazon and from extension, left Amazon entirely. It was a huge exercise in frustration and nothing was selling anyway. I didn’t go the traditional publishing route because I believed in the new forum…but then there were other issues, during the pandemic including many ‘fake e-books existed and some abused the forum. I still have my e-books on Smashwords, but even that, was a lot of frustration. I have to check them again to make sure they are still there. I got to the point that the frustrations and the problems and hackers made me far less enthusiastic about the forum. That explains why I have not worked too hard on other e-books, though I still have some on the back burner. Now that I have that out of the way, I will divide this blog post and podcast into sections for blog posts, podcasts, e-books and YouTube.
Blog Post
https://raelyntan.com/how-much-do-blo... suggests that over 50% of bloggers make less than $100 per month and many make nothing or next to nothing. Some other surveys show larger numbers that don’t make money on it. One has to be realistic about the fact that you may or may not earn anything doing a blog post no matter what work you put into it. Are you going to want to continue it if it is not profitable? Yes, there are people who make it in the blogsphere. It never hurts to try if it is an interest for you and I continue because I do seem to have some readers and I might find something useful to put out there yet. I would suggest that you don’t go out on a limb and take out loans to do it. Try it out. You can find free accounts to ‘wet your feet’ if this is something you really want to try. I use the WordPress free account. It allows me the freedom to write. I don’t do the ‘pay’ stuff because I have $0 budget to work with. I do all my own work, all my own writing. I don’t make any money, and I keep it a weekly blog post. Would I like to make money from any of my enterprises? Of course I would, I’m not saying it would not be exciting or that I wouldn’t be thrilled if I could, but to be realistic, I’m not a star, I’m not famous and there is no reason anyone would have to read what I put down. So, that gives a short idea of the ability to make it in the ‘blogsphere’.
Podcast
There isn’t a nice graphic to show the percentages of people making nothing or next to nothing in podcasting. https://castos.com/how-much-money-can... is brutally honest and tells you most starting out don’t make anything and buying equipment can be expensive. https://riverside.fm/blog/how-much-do... gives a guess of $300-$500 per 10,000 downloads. Currently, I show, on my Anchor page, I have 10 plays per podcast and 8 listeners. Thank you to my listeners. There is an all time play of 1,674 plays of my podcast via Anchor. I might have more via other forums. Yup, you guessed it, not a huge money maker in fact $0. They suggest that often the ones making money have a sponsor. Now, unless you get 10,000 downloads, it’s probably unlikely you’re going to make a lot of money on podcasting unless you can find a sponsor. I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of sponsors for 8 listeners. I keep it going because it isn’t costing me more…and obviously, I already have the blog post ready. It gives anyone options for viewing or listening. I also embed it into my blog post for anyone who wants both methods available on one platform.
This is another forum that they suggest can break the bank. Let me save you a little money if you want to try it out. I use a desktop computer. It has a plug in for a mic. My husband bought me my first mic in the discount bin at an auction house. I still use it. Sure, you can go into debt and buy all this equipment and hope to make back enough money to keep it going. If you are low budget and want to try it out, then there are cell phones and other implements that you can do it with. I honestly cannot recommend going all in on any of the forums. It is important to test the waters. See if there are people who might be interested in what you have to say. Of course, I come from the old school where you don’t spend a lot of money you don’t have. In the area of Podcasting there are also free forums. The one I use is Anchor. It allows me to do my podcast and distributes to other sites. I again, am one of those podcasters that makes $0. At the same time, the outlay was the price of a second hand mic.
YouTube
With YouTube, you have to have at least 1,000 followers in order to be eligible and 4,000 hours of viewing in the past year to even qualify to make anything. One family member came and saw our videos and was asking about which ones we made money from. Much to their surprise we don’t even meet criterion to be able to and it isn’t based on views of a couple of videos. Some areas it may be easier to do this and some areas have larger potential audiences than others. Some types of videos will appeal to a wider audience. https://mint.intuit.com/blog/relation... gives a rundown of the how much YouTubers make. After running the A & J PEI Treasures website, with weekly Montage videos and the odd craft, DIY etc video, we have yet to reach the required number of followers or views to qualify to monetize. In this, I also suggest caution. I have my old Kodak camera. We have very slow internet speed, so cannot make long videos. I would suggest in this too, it is best to test the waters. Don’t buy expensive equipment to start one. A cell phone, or a camera with video capability and some editing software most of which comes with the computer can be a good start to try out the forum to see if it is for you.
E-books
I have stuck to the e-book method so I cannot really speak for actual publishers. I could not afford to go with a ‘vanity press’ method either. So, I speak from the viewpoint of e-books. It seems that the go to for a goodly proportion of people is Kindle. For this reason, I will go from what I see in other articles. https://publishingperspectives.com/20.... It is not incredibly confusing that my e-books did very little…not only are the number of people doing e-books and books in general overwhelming, but many aspiring authors don’t make a lot of money according to the article. In this, again, I caution that one not go crazy in buying stuff if you’re just getting started. First start out small and if you decide to go e-book, then try out one of the sites that appeal to you. When it came to the e-books, I did all the work for my e-books myself. I got them formatted properly (and still they did not always load perfectly in any forum I used). I have tried several of them. It did not seem to mean anything with respect to the number of e-books I sold. I also caution that they want your SIN and when starting out, if you are aspiring, it seems something excessive to ask given small sales. With the number of sales of my e-books, it was not worth the risk in putting it on the internet. My SIN is something which I am not keen to divulge online and if you aren’t selling large numbers, it does not seem the most necessary information for them to have. Kindle states that it doesn’t even pay out under a certain amount of sales…at least at the time I was with them. My sales never officially met their criterion. It is rather a turn off with regard to the E-book format that they push for sensitive documentation. One could present their work to actual publishers and see how it goes. If you’re determined to be an author, keep working at it. I can tell you from my experience, that e-books are essentially unrecognized and less respected. At this time, I still have some work on the back burner and might pick it up again at another time. I might even decide to try to send to a publisher…but ‘vanity publishing’ is not in my future.
This is just a quick overview of the multiple forums that I continue to use. Often the costs make it difficult for those who wish to work in one of the forums but it is not impossible. The fact that many get an unrealistic view of the forums and their potential causes a lot of broken dreams. If you keep realistic about it you can take the vicissitudes of social media in stride. Not everyone and not everything that is online will get huge views; you may or may not become the next big. The likelihood is more in the might not end of the spectrum. My Twitter has progressed from a forum I seriously tried to put my work in front of people to something that I do for fun, put up the stuff we do at A & J PEI Treasures and my own stuff. I have moved to playing with celebrities that I admired from childhood into adult life. I do make some comments on some political things if I think there is a possibility of helping the Province move forward. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. I mostly use it to view thoughts, ideas, concepts and share them. Of course, you might or might not agree with me, but it’s not a requirement and if I feel the situation is not good for me or the other I’m interacting with, I move on wishing them well. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
Some weeks it is easier to come up with a blog post and podcast than others. Last week, something in the news tweaked me. This week…I’ve been kind of searching topics hoping something would appeal to me. There are so many things in the news and in entertainment…but nothing I really feel I could make a whole blog post and podcast of. It might just be my thing and there might be a ton of stuff for someone else. Then I saw a topic that I thought would fit nicely for me. First, I have to admit; I do what I do with the blog post, podcast and the e-books I had written because I loved being productive. I love putting my thoughts down somewhere. It used to be on paper, when I was in my teens. Now it’s via the keyboard onto my word processing program. I then take that and put the typed format onto my various forums. I think there is a difficulty with the reality of blogging podcasting YouTube creating and writing and many start and stop with good reason. It seems that many people start out thinking they will make lots of money at it. At least I knew this wasn’t likely. I’m not writing this to discourage anyone, but rather as a reality check on how important it is to love what you do and start small scale.
My first work was done because I had made some e-books and wanted to enter into the social media world in order to act as publicity for A & J PEI Treasures. It was during the early days of the pandemic. I thought I might be able to make a little money on the side with e-books and I thought to become somewhat known. I also thought it was a good way to showcase my little area of the Province. I had originally wanted to go about and do things with various areas and places and give a glimpse of island life. The pandemic made that unavailable to me. I loved the idea of what I could do. So, that takes care of the reason I do it. Of course there were issues. I ended up having my e-books taken down on Amazon, put up, taken down. Pieces of my e-books got misused. I got frustrated and after many requests for help, finally took them off Amazon and from extension, left Amazon entirely. It was a huge exercise in frustration and nothing was selling anyway. I didn’t go the traditional publishing route because I believed in the new forum…but then there were other issues, during the pandemic including many ‘fake e-books existed and some abused the forum. I still have my e-books on Smashwords, but even that, was a lot of frustration. I have to check them again to make sure they are still there. I got to the point that the frustrations and the problems and hackers made me far less enthusiastic about the forum. That explains why I have not worked too hard on other e-books, though I still have some on the back burner. Now that I have that out of the way, I will divide this blog post and podcast into sections for blog posts, podcasts, e-books and YouTube.
Blog Post
https://raelyntan.com/how-much-do-blo... suggests that over 50% of bloggers make less than $100 per month and many make nothing or next to nothing. Some other surveys show larger numbers that don’t make money on it. One has to be realistic about the fact that you may or may not earn anything doing a blog post no matter what work you put into it. Are you going to want to continue it if it is not profitable? Yes, there are people who make it in the blogsphere. It never hurts to try if it is an interest for you and I continue because I do seem to have some readers and I might find something useful to put out there yet. I would suggest that you don’t go out on a limb and take out loans to do it. Try it out. You can find free accounts to ‘wet your feet’ if this is something you really want to try. I use the WordPress free account. It allows me the freedom to write. I don’t do the ‘pay’ stuff because I have $0 budget to work with. I do all my own work, all my own writing. I don’t make any money, and I keep it a weekly blog post. Would I like to make money from any of my enterprises? Of course I would, I’m not saying it would not be exciting or that I wouldn’t be thrilled if I could, but to be realistic, I’m not a star, I’m not famous and there is no reason anyone would have to read what I put down. So, that gives a short idea of the ability to make it in the ‘blogsphere’.
Podcast
There isn’t a nice graphic to show the percentages of people making nothing or next to nothing in podcasting. https://castos.com/how-much-money-can... is brutally honest and tells you most starting out don’t make anything and buying equipment can be expensive. https://riverside.fm/blog/how-much-do... gives a guess of $300-$500 per 10,000 downloads. Currently, I show, on my Anchor page, I have 10 plays per podcast and 8 listeners. Thank you to my listeners. There is an all time play of 1,674 plays of my podcast via Anchor. I might have more via other forums. Yup, you guessed it, not a huge money maker in fact $0. They suggest that often the ones making money have a sponsor. Now, unless you get 10,000 downloads, it’s probably unlikely you’re going to make a lot of money on podcasting unless you can find a sponsor. I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of sponsors for 8 listeners. I keep it going because it isn’t costing me more…and obviously, I already have the blog post ready. It gives anyone options for viewing or listening. I also embed it into my blog post for anyone who wants both methods available on one platform.
This is another forum that they suggest can break the bank. Let me save you a little money if you want to try it out. I use a desktop computer. It has a plug in for a mic. My husband bought me my first mic in the discount bin at an auction house. I still use it. Sure, you can go into debt and buy all this equipment and hope to make back enough money to keep it going. If you are low budget and want to try it out, then there are cell phones and other implements that you can do it with. I honestly cannot recommend going all in on any of the forums. It is important to test the waters. See if there are people who might be interested in what you have to say. Of course, I come from the old school where you don’t spend a lot of money you don’t have. In the area of Podcasting there are also free forums. The one I use is Anchor. It allows me to do my podcast and distributes to other sites. I again, am one of those podcasters that makes $0. At the same time, the outlay was the price of a second hand mic.
YouTube
With YouTube, you have to have at least 1,000 followers in order to be eligible and 4,000 hours of viewing in the past year to even qualify to make anything. One family member came and saw our videos and was asking about which ones we made money from. Much to their surprise we don’t even meet criterion to be able to and it isn’t based on views of a couple of videos. Some areas it may be easier to do this and some areas have larger potential audiences than others. Some types of videos will appeal to a wider audience. https://mint.intuit.com/blog/relation... gives a rundown of the how much YouTubers make. After running the A & J PEI Treasures website, with weekly Montage videos and the odd craft, DIY etc video, we have yet to reach the required number of followers or views to qualify to monetize. In this, I also suggest caution. I have my old Kodak camera. We have very slow internet speed, so cannot make long videos. I would suggest in this too, it is best to test the waters. Don’t buy expensive equipment to start one. A cell phone, or a camera with video capability and some editing software most of which comes with the computer can be a good start to try out the forum to see if it is for you.
E-books
I have stuck to the e-book method so I cannot really speak for actual publishers. I could not afford to go with a ‘vanity press’ method either. So, I speak from the viewpoint of e-books. It seems that the go to for a goodly proportion of people is Kindle. For this reason, I will go from what I see in other articles. https://publishingperspectives.com/20.... It is not incredibly confusing that my e-books did very little…not only are the number of people doing e-books and books in general overwhelming, but many aspiring authors don’t make a lot of money according to the article. In this, again, I caution that one not go crazy in buying stuff if you’re just getting started. First start out small and if you decide to go e-book, then try out one of the sites that appeal to you. When it came to the e-books, I did all the work for my e-books myself. I got them formatted properly (and still they did not always load perfectly in any forum I used). I have tried several of them. It did not seem to mean anything with respect to the number of e-books I sold. I also caution that they want your SIN and when starting out, if you are aspiring, it seems something excessive to ask given small sales. With the number of sales of my e-books, it was not worth the risk in putting it on the internet. My SIN is something which I am not keen to divulge online and if you aren’t selling large numbers, it does not seem the most necessary information for them to have. Kindle states that it doesn’t even pay out under a certain amount of sales…at least at the time I was with them. My sales never officially met their criterion. It is rather a turn off with regard to the E-book format that they push for sensitive documentation. One could present their work to actual publishers and see how it goes. If you’re determined to be an author, keep working at it. I can tell you from my experience, that e-books are essentially unrecognized and less respected. At this time, I still have some work on the back burner and might pick it up again at another time. I might even decide to try to send to a publisher…but ‘vanity publishing’ is not in my future.
This is just a quick overview of the multiple forums that I continue to use. Often the costs make it difficult for those who wish to work in one of the forums but it is not impossible. The fact that many get an unrealistic view of the forums and their potential causes a lot of broken dreams. If you keep realistic about it you can take the vicissitudes of social media in stride. Not everyone and not everything that is online will get huge views; you may or may not become the next big. The likelihood is more in the might not end of the spectrum. My Twitter has progressed from a forum I seriously tried to put my work in front of people to something that I do for fun, put up the stuff we do at A & J PEI Treasures and my own stuff. I have moved to playing with celebrities that I admired from childhood into adult life. I do make some comments on some political things if I think there is a possibility of helping the Province move forward. Does it make a difference? I don’t know. I mostly use it to view thoughts, ideas, concepts and share them. Of course, you might or might not agree with me, but it’s not a requirement and if I feel the situation is not good for me or the other I’m interacting with, I move on wishing them well. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures/...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
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A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA
A & J PEI Treasures is located on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are a husband and wife team and our companion animals. There are a number of things that drew us to the Island…one of which was the n
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