5 ms·

Couple of suggestions: 1. You mention "sites" plural. You may want to focus on just ONE site and pour your energy into that. 2. Start self-project management

by briholt 14y ago

Couple of suggestions: 1. You mention "sites" plural. You may want to focus on just ONE site and pour your energy into that. 2. Start self-project management small and simple, stick to it, then get more complicated as you need it. I like to start with just a Google Doc/Excel spread sheet. After doing that well for a few months, try something more sophisticated. The worst thing to do is get too deep into project management and not your project.

Mz 14y ago
Thank you. At the moment, I am trying to primarily focus on my health site for development: http://www.healthgazelle.com/ http://www.healthgazelle.com/ But I also have a blog which is mostly intended as a personal outlet. I don't feel my health site really has an audience. It is far easier to write for the blog. Any suggestions on how to do audience development or otherwise get more focused on what to do for the health site?
- briholt 14y ago
  Focusing on the blog is a good idea. In my limited blog experience, I've only seen one real approach: write like Hell, tell everyone you can about it, swallow sadness for the first year while no one reads it, then randomly after a year of hard work it'll start getting a bunch of traffic and take off.
  - Mz 14y ago
    Trying to wrap my brain around this feedback. Here are some additional details: The blog isn't intended to be commercial. It is intended to be a personal outlet to help keep my big fat mouth from keeping me mired in controversy and drowning in hot water in online forums. I have debated taking it down, in part because some of it is extremely personal. But I get a great deal out of doing the writing and I think some posts are really good, so I have left it up for now. Long term, I still hope to do a comic. Short term, I am trying to get more traffic and monetize my health site, which is the site people keep expressing interest in and willingness to support. I am homeless at the moment. I have time to write but no money. I need an income stream and the health site seems like the best place to start. Thoughts? I keep wrestling with these questions and don't have good answers.
- petervandijck 14y ago
  If the health site has no traffic/audience, why keep focusing on it? It doesn't seem to have any specific angle that sets it apart from 1000s of other health sites.
  - Mz 14y ago
    Honestly, it has never gotten the focus it deserved. I was too overwhelmed fighting for my life to give it adequate attention. I would like to give it the shot it deserves since I am now healthier and currently unemployed. I feel some sense of obligation to try since for the previous three years all my sites were kept online by donations inspired by the health site and given to me to keep it alive. None of my other sites have inspired a similar response. I have done something doctors said could not be done. I think it is replicable. I am not the first person to defy medical expectation and I won't be the last. I remain torn between feeling like I have done something amazing which could benefit the world and feeling like the accomplishment is more ordinary than it sounds to some people. But ultimately I am still on the hook emotionally because of the response the site gets from people in spite of the fact that I have failed to properly develop it. It seems to have a spark which has do far refused to die, in spite of long periods of starvation. Perhaps is tended to, it is the sort of spark which could grow into something. I hope to also develop other projects alongside it. Perhaps that is foolish but I don't see why I can't. I have often been the poster child for excessive longwindedness on various forums I have belonged to. This was while ill, going to college part time, homeschooling my sons and doing volunteer work. My sons are grown. I don't do volunteer work anymore. Most people seem to find me more tolerable when my attention is split. Otherwise, I seem to be too much to take. Getting out of my own way in that regard has been a longstanding goal and I think I am finally on the right track in that respect. Thank you for asking and giving me the opportunity to address that question. I wrestle with it myself but, for better or worse, I currently still feel on the hook for trying to find an effective means to share my story.

by briholt 14y ago

Mz 14y ago

Thank you. At the moment, I am trying to primarily focus on my health site for development: http://www.healthgazelle.com/ http://www.healthgazelle.com/ But I also have a blog which is mostly intended as a personal outlet. I don't feel my health site really has an audience. It is far easier to write for the blog. Any suggestions on how to do audience development or otherwise get more focused on what to do for the health site?

briholt 14y ago
Focusing on the blog is a good idea. In my limited blog experience, I've only seen one real approach: write like Hell, tell everyone you can about it, swallow sadness for the first year while no one reads it, then randomly after a year of hard work it'll start getting a bunch of traffic and take off.
- Mz 14y ago
  Trying to wrap my brain around this feedback. Here are some additional details: The blog isn't intended to be commercial. It is intended to be a personal outlet to help keep my big fat mouth from keeping me mired in controversy and drowning in hot water in online forums. I have debated taking it down, in part because some of it is extremely personal. But I get a great deal out of doing the writing and I think some posts are really good, so I have left it up for now. Long term, I still hope to do a comic. Short term, I am trying to get more traffic and monetize my health site, which is the site people keep expressing interest in and willingness to support. I am homeless at the moment. I have time to write but no money. I need an income stream and the health site seems like the best place to start. Thoughts? I keep wrestling with these questions and don't have good answers.
petervandijck 14y ago
If the health site has no traffic/audience, why keep focusing on it? It doesn't seem to have any specific angle that sets it apart from 1000s of other health sites.
- Mz 14y ago
  Honestly, it has never gotten the focus it deserved. I was too overwhelmed fighting for my life to give it adequate attention. I would like to give it the shot it deserves since I am now healthier and currently unemployed. I feel some sense of obligation to try since for the previous three years all my sites were kept online by donations inspired by the health site and given to me to keep it alive. None of my other sites have inspired a similar response. I have done something doctors said could not be done. I think it is replicable. I am not the first person to defy medical expectation and I won't be the last. I remain torn between feeling like I have done something amazing which could benefit the world and feeling like the accomplishment is more ordinary than it sounds to some people. But ultimately I am still on the hook emotionally because of the response the site gets from people in spite of the fact that I have failed to properly develop it. It seems to have a spark which has do far refused to die, in spite of long periods of starvation. Perhaps is tended to, it is the sort of spark which could grow into something. I hope to also develop other projects alongside it. Perhaps that is foolish but I don't see why I can't. I have often been the poster child for excessive longwindedness on various forums I have belonged to. This was while ill, going to college part time, homeschooling my sons and doing volunteer work. My sons are grown. I don't do volunteer work anymore. Most people seem to find me more tolerable when my attention is split. Otherwise, I seem to be too much to take. Getting out of my own way in that regard has been a longstanding goal and I think I am finally on the right track in that respect. Thank you for asking and giving me the opportunity to address that question. I wrestle with it myself but, for better or worse, I currently still feel on the hook for trying to find an effective means to share my story.