Editor’s note: This is yet another entry in the saga of my Kimchi Baron of the Interwebs aspirations, aka The Prissy Pet Project. Perhaps you need to read the most recent journal entry, Work-From-Throne Job Opportunity Available, to get slightly more up to speed.
The short version of where we’re at in the process is that I’m in the middle of building up a following for my Tumblr blog, kimchi-and-keto. In the meantime, I need to set up an internet storefront that acts as a portal in which customers can buy all sorts of kimchi, etc. via Amazon.
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Currently I have been following a random online guide to making money via Tumblr.1Tumblr, a rather popular micro-blogging site
As a reminder here is the basic checklist of such schemes:2All screen shots should be assumed to be from https://www.onlinedimes.com/how-make-money-on-tumblr/
The short version of this strategy is this:
- Find some niche you like, and start a Tumblr blog related to that topic.
- Using some automated tools to post ad infinitum, build up a critical amount of Tumblr followers (50+). Don’t bother with original content–just repost from other like-minded blogs.
- Set up a basic Amazon store selling products related to your blog’s theme/brand.
- Use your automated posting tools to advertise your store on all your posts as they spread through Tumblr like a virus.
- Profit.3To be clear, the profit is via a small commission of 2-7% for everything you sell via Amazon–it’s not actually your products in the store.
- Repeat Step 5 without lifting a finger.
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Last I left you, I was reveling in the fact that my main task at hand–trying to get people to follow me–could be done from the comfort and convenience of my own crapper…
Journal Date: 27 January 2020 (Monday)
After a little over a week of relatively active pursuit of Tumblr followers, I noticed that some of my new followers were ones that I had not solicited at all.
In other words, I was starting to see some “organic” growth in my fan base. I have no idea how they were coming across my blog, but I do offer a lot of pretty pictures of food, so I’m not totally surprised that people are finding themselves attracted to kimchi-and-keto.
I tallied up the new users I didn’t recognize, and concluded that of the 14 new users I had since the last update, I was pretty sure that 7 of them were ones that I hadn’t put direct effort into obtaining. It’s BOGO on new users I guess!
More specifically, it was 7 new users over the course of 7 days, so I’m thinking that if I’m getting 1 new user every day on average without putting in extra work, then maybe I can start shifting my focus elsewhere…
And there are definitely “elsewheres” where I need to start putting some serious effort into. Also, money. I need to start putting money into other efforts.
There were two expenses that Franklin, our online guide, had included in his Tumblr domination plan, but I had originally balked at just dropping money before having an idea of whether or not it was worth it.
However, I think in the back of my mind I’ve finally resolved to just jump right in and go ahead and invest $20 in Queue+ and $70 on a good theme. Glancing at one of the themes previously, I realized that it definitely offered a lot of valuable features that there was no way in hell I would be able to create myself, even I had the skillz already. It’s all about added value, yo.
First, let’s get that theme so we can start building a real website with real products, and at least have a non-zero chance of someone visiting it and patronizing us. Here is the link as prescribed by the aforementioned guide: https://codecanyon.net/item/woozone-amazon-associates-bundle-pack/11240475. Clicking on it now, and…
…that’s definitely not that same site that came up last time I followed that link.
Oh, just great. When I finally get the gumption to pull the trigger on buying a theme, the hosting site decided to experience some downtime.4Note that it was back online when I checked the following day. So good news there… Goddammit.
Okay, so maybe that’s I sign that I shouldn’t focus on that just yet. My motivation for paying for the premium version of Queue+, is that with the free version I’m limited to queueing up 600 posts at any given time. Now that may seem like a lot, but when posting one every 15 minutes, that comes out to roughly 6 days of auto-pilot before having to load it up again.
But I’m most decidedly at the point where reloading it is more of a distraction, and also I’m starting to run low, so now seems like a good time to drop $20 and then load the mother ----- up so I don’t have to touch it again for months.
Upgrading now, and…
For the record, it’s $27 a year now (instead of $20 whenever the Guide was put together)…oh well. Okay, time to load this ----- up as much as possible!
OMFG, trying to add from this archive: https://keto.tumblr.com/archive/2016/2/filter-by/photo but it won’t let me select any posts.
Argghh! It won’t even let me select a single one. Dammit. Why me? Why now?
*Does a quick Google search; only glances at results*
Oh GOOD ----- LORD. The second I drop money on Queue+, they get shut down for having an illicit cryptocurrency script running in the background.
I don’t know if they’re shut down for good or what, but sounds like that I could have loaded up my Queue a few hours earlier than when I tried, and at least had that going strong (it seems the extension is the offender).
This is what happens when you hesitate, folks. I’m getting screwed over as punishment for my hemming and hawing, I guess.
To buy me some time, I’ve throttled back how often I post, changing it to every 30 minutes instead of every 15, thereby getting double mileage out of my remaining stock.
Journal Date: 28 January 2020 (Tuesday)
When I search google for news of Archive Poster being taken down from the Chrome Store, I only find articles dating from around December 2017/January 2018, so I’m wondering if that’s a red herring?
But I’m trying it on [a much more up to date computer I have access to] and it’s not working there either…I also try logging out of kimchi-and-keto and logging in as kimchiandketo, but still no dice. Seriously What The Fuck?
So, good news: the current Archive Poster is not the previous naughty version that got kicked off the Chrome Store. Bad news: it stopped working for no apparent reason.
I’m seriously freaking out here, because having a copious amount of automated posts are the critical marketing avenue for my forthcoming kimchi store. And if I can’t add posts to my Q+ en masse, then the whole project becomes too tedious and time consuming for me to continue…
Journal Date: 31 Friday 2020 (Friday)
I’m down to less than 10 posts in my Q+ and things are looking pretty bleak. Fortunately, I found an instance where the Archive Poster works, although it just lets me add from my current feed…and I’m following so many random-ass blogs, that only about half (or less) of what shows up in my feed is on-brand enough for me to reblog.
It will do in a pinch, and I’ve added enough to last me over the weekend…but only because I’ve throttled all the way back to posting every 90 minutes now. Oof.
I’m actually thiiiiiiis close to figuring out how to reverse-engineer these cursed Chrome extensions, and figure out how to fix the stupid thing, given that I’ve found one similar example where the code actually worked. I’m telling you, knowledge is power, and once I get my web-dev coding chops in order, I’m going to be a ----- god.
But that’ll have to wait, because, yeah, I tried it and I’m definitely in over my head.
Journal Date: 3 February 2020 (Monday)
On an unrelated note, the Chiefs just won the Super Bowl in heart-stopping fashion last night, so hellz yeah that was pretty awesome.
But back to the crisis at hand. Here is my Queue+ dashboard:
The Prissy Pet Project is at Death’s doorstep here, people.
However, it turns out that the Chiefs’ world championship in football Americano wasn’t the only awesome thing that happened. After checking regularly over the past week, it appears the Archive Poster extension is back to working!!! Have no idea what was wrong…but what I found humorous was that the fiasco was chronicled in the Review section for Archive Poster on the Chrome Store (be sure to read them bottom-to-top, and also at the time of this screen capture, “5 days ago” was actually around the 1st or 2nd of February):
Anyways, to quote Mr. Pacanelili above, “thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.” Time to make hay while the sun still shines!
*Goes to ----- town adding posts to Q+*
Later that night:
I’ve turned back up my posting rate to every 30 minutes, so that comes out to a burn-down rate of 48 per day. So I should be good for another ~137 days. Heck, yes.
Given that I’ve been on autopilot for about a week in regards to working towards my first goal of attaining 50 followers, I figure I would give you an update-update.
But first, I’ve posted my Tumblr dashboard below, tracking the number of Notes,5Number of times that people have either liked, commented, or reblogged one of my posts. which is pretty much directly proportional to the number of Posts. You can very clearly see where my posting volume/frequency just fell off a cliff thanks to Archive Poster’s busted ass:
Although I just realized that the picture above kind of spoils the drama of revealing how many followers I now have, I’ll share the New Follower (over the last month) dashboard with you anyways:
I’m up to 446Actually 47 at the writing of this post on 6 Feb. overall, and holding pretty steady at a do-nothing rate of ~1 a day!
Now, FINALLY I can get back around to try putting my kimchi-themed website together.
Wish me luck! I just hope that my next update doesn’t end with the following:
The point of the story is, maybe you should listen to the Universe when it tells you pretty clearly to stop whatever the ----- that is that you’re up to.
If you finally are motivated enough to take long put-off action, only to find yourself thoroughly cock-blocked by God-with-a-capital-D-so-my-Censorship-plugin-doesn’t-bleep-him-or-is-it-really-her-out and/or technology, well, maybe that’s a sign you should have quit while you were ahead…
definitely how I hope to never end one of these blog posts
Content created on: 6 February 2020 (Thursday)
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