Archive News: Future Uncertian

My apologies to everyone this week. I’m emotionally spent after being hit with a major crisis that could affect my livelihood.

Long story kept short, my roommate just received a major cut to her hours at work – a cut so bad that I can’t make up the deficit and we’re looking at the very real possibility of not being able to afford our rent anymore.

At this point, I’m trying to explore all possible avenues of getting out of this situation. Unless we find a way out, we’re both looking at being kicked back with our parents or possibly worse.

I really need to focus on this for a while and I’ll try to keep you all posted on the situation as things develop. I thank you for your patience and I’ll be back shortly.

The Agent’s Quest for Financial Independence (or ‘What Would You Pay For This Crap?’)

The life of a creator is rewarding… Just not always in a way that benefits the wallet.
Source: Thought Catalog

Let me be on the level with all of you right now. I really love writing like this every week. In fact, I wish I could make it my full-time job. But in order to do that, I need some help from you.

You see, I’m not the kind of person that can be resigned to being a janitor for the rest of their life and I really don’t want to try. So, for the last few weeks, I’ve been puzzling over how to make The Archive better and turn it into my own proper business.

Why am I telling you this? Because this just as much for you as it is me and I want to know how to make my work the best it can be. To that end, I’m asking you – the regular readers – for assistance in helping me.

Here’s what I’ve been kicking around in my head so far and how you can help.

Ad Revenue

I know that no one likes ads. They’re intrusive, ugly, and ruin perfectly good visual design. But, they’re probably the easiest money available to me right now.

I’ve already agreed to let WordPress run ads on the site, but I’ve yet to see a return from it so far. So I need you to help me out on this end.

Firstly, if you use an ad blocker, be sure to whitelist this page. I get that it’s a security measure for the more seedy parts of the internet that hide malicious viruses in their ads, but it hurts legitimate content creators. In fact, be sure to check your frequently visited sites that you have confirmed safe and make sure you whitelist them too.

Next, if you haven’t already, be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter and share my posts via those channels. I get a lot of views and likes on them which is very encouraging, but sharing/retweeting ensures that others will see it as well and draw more fresh faces to The Archive. Word of mouth is a powerful force as we’ve seen in recent months.

Patreon

I have been tinkering around with the idea of a Patreon campaign or similar monthly subscription service to help fund me. The problem that’s keeping me from following through with this though is that I want to give some kind of reward to supporters and I’m at a loss as to what that should be.

If you’re someone that would like to support a Patreon  page for The Archive, please let me know how much you would be willing to pay and what rewards you’d like to see be made available. I want to be able to give back to the people that make this project such a labor of love and only you can tell me what a fair price would be.

YouTube

Let’s be honest; written media is dying. Nobody enjoys dragging their eye across text when they could have bright flashy pictures to look at and/or pretty noises to entertain them.

I’ve been wanting to break into videos on YouTube for some time now. However, technical limitations have prevented me from doing so at the level of quality I’d like to see. Right now, if I went out and bought a microphone today, the only thing I could produce is *shudder* ‘Commentary Videos.’

Still, if you have no problem with that, let me know. You could always just put me on in the background while you type up your third quarter spreadsheets or something. I would, of course, be working on increasing the budget for them and getting away from the Commentary genre as time went on.

Your Suggestions

I’m sure I’ve missed some obvious ideas somewhere, but that’s why I’m consulting you. Let me know if there’s something you’d like to see here or a change in focus you’d recommend.

Remember, I do this for you as much as me and I want to feel like I’m giving something back to you for your love. So, let me know what form that love should take.