new developments with the blog

I have been thinking about what to do with this blog for some time. I would like to be able to show my collage work, my paintings, photography and other aspects of my creative side - and not forgetting my song writing. I am in two minds how to proceed. I could of course have a blog for each subject, or subject group; but this is likely to prove too difficult to maintain posts with any sort of regularity. I have seen people with several blogs and invariably one or two become dormant after a while. A real danger therefore! I could also mix and match all sorts of posts but this means that readers may not be interested in many of the posts - will they keep coming back? So I feel that there must be a happy medium.

I have explored many internet sites/applications with a view to earning a little cash to fund my hobby ( at least to pay some of the broadband fees - I have no illusions of riches coming my way) and have succeeded in making small, very small, amounts from several different sources.

A new experiment is by becoming an Amazon Associate and providing links and search boxes which potentially earn a small subscription if a sale for Amazon results. Is this selling out? Will this turn readers off? I feel it is worth experimenting.

I shall not be inserting lots of them, but the advert on the left is an example of what it is all about, anad you may have noticed the Amazon search box on the right hand margin.

I have to admit the largest slice of cash earned over the web has come from Ebay. I have not been selling for a couple of years, rather getting involved with trading ATC cards, I always used to buy as many aceo's as I sold. Not a great way to earn money and Ebay of course did very nicely thank you. There are of course many competitors to Ebay now, and a lot of these are specifically for selling art/craft/hand-made goods. Lots of scope for experimentation.

I have several articles on Squidoo, and have received money based on the number of readers - this could be a central plank of my plans for the future. Other sites do exist which provide opportunity for selling articles.

Selling images rather than the art itself is also a possibility, I have just made my first sale ( on a greeting card) via Zazzle ( Cafe Press is another option) and many sites exist to sell the rights to use your photographs.


Last but not least for now is the Google Adsense route, do you ever click on adverts when you are reading a web page? Siome people do and it earns money for the page author. Slowly but surely, however a large footfall is required to make any reasonable amount here.

I am sure that I have not mentioed all the different ways of picking up a few pence via the internet, the book here will no doubt offer many more opportunities. Just a last little plug, LOL.

I would be interested in your comments about this subject, hope I haven't bored you and thanks for reading.


Addendum: I wrote this post last night and saved it as a draft, unsure of wether to actually use it. Sleeping on it I have decided that I will definitely start a couple more blogs; the first to accomodate posts specifically about my painting and to involve my art group. This will have a different audience I feel. I will still post images of some of my paintings here butthe blog will be more true to the original aims of this blog - a history of the trials and tribulations of a leisure artist.

The second new blog will feature more photography, and I will consider two others. One about my music, basically my songwriting and the other about my experiments in generating a little cash from the internet. These last blogs will be something I shall post to from time to time. I know that the concept of a blog is that it should be regular to attract readers but I am more concerned with publishing material that I feel will be available from my main blog as a "see it if you want" basis. The main blogs will then be uninterupted for my art/craft readers.

I will also be making much fewer and smaller comments on the posts to my Flickr photosteam, a link to my blog will exist for those who want to read about my artworks