“Are you still writing your blog?”
Six simple words. One innocent question. A cast iron frypan of reality checking me right upside the head.
A good friend and a close relative each asked this of me within weeks late last year. And with that, a nagging, unsettling truth I’d been ignoring for some time suddenly came into crystal focus: A Crock of Schmidt needed to die.
Ten years ago, this very month, I made my first blog post. A Crock of Schmidt burst onto the internet with a hesitant and confused but nonetheless hopeful whimper. Now, a decade later, it’ll slip away into obscurity with another whimper, still hesitant, but no longer confused. Hope? Oh, that bled out behind a dumpster years ago.
In retrospect, I was never cut out for being a blogger. Not a successful one, at any rate. And by successful I unabashedly mean monetarily rewarded and popular. Perhaps not to rich and famous standards, but certainly to the point of earning consequential income and getting more views than flyers stapled to telephone poles. Neither happened.
In theory, A Crock of Schmidt started as a dad/stay-at-home dad blog but from its very inception I was never comfortable with exploiting my kids for clicks. I only ever published a handful of genuine dad content and even then, couldn’t bring myself to plaster pics of my children all over the internet. I don’t regret that for a minute, but it certainly handcuffed the potential of my endeavour.
I further eschewed conventional blogging wisdom and refused to choose a niche. I wrote posts touching all nature of subject matter from nostalgia driven pining to personal health issues to humorous ramblings to earnest pontificating. None of it captured anyone’s attention.
I’m not eloquent enough to inspire, witty enough to enchant, or insightful enough to persuade. I haven’t the fortitude to make myself a brand nor the confidence to be yet another opinionator in the rage farm manure pile.
The serial procrastination surely didn’t help. Contrary to what I profess on LinkedIn, I’m not, in fact, an excellent self-motivator. Mostly, though, I just don’t enjoy writing. Not enough to invest the time required to make a truly successful blog. Or any other writing venture, for that matter.
Oh, there was a spark of satisfaction when I completed a post, but it paled in comparison to the insufferable grind getting there. And the deflation I experienced whenever a piece I thought was “the one” would be all but ignored would send me into a funk of self-pity. Yay, ego!
Making money would have helped. Don’t it always. Turns out I was as naïve as the rest of you on what bloggers really make doing this. I wasn’t delusional, by any means, but I definitely believed I was crafty enough to extract a few bucks out of the world wide web. With time, more than a few bucks was within reach. At the very least, surely enough to cover basic blogging expenses of domain registration/renewal and hosting services.
So, how much did I make? As of writing this post, I have pocketed a total of $1000.10 from Google AdSense. An additional $52.52 sits in my account since Google requires a minimum balance of $100.00 to trigger payment. That’s … not much. $105 per year does not cover the basic expenses mentioned above, never mind the costs of ISP, electricity, computer, office, and, oh, I don’t know, my time.
Granted, that average income number is highly influenced by the first four years when I earned sweet fark all. The 2020s have been better, if only slightly.
It all changed when I posted my first campground review. Campground reviews are now the backbone of A Crock of Schmidt. Exciting, hey? And, oh so sexy. You might say, I found my niche!
Consider the following. I’ve published 110 campground reviews, 62 of which have more than 1000 views. Only 11 have fewer than 100 views. The Sibbald Lake Campground review tops the heap with 10,149 views. At the bottom is Fort Steele Resort & RV Park with 40 views. And don’t forget my two reviews of our new Geo Pro trailer which have 16,945 and 8,100 views respectively.
Compare that to my ill-fated “My Life Is A Song” anthology of posts, of which there are 114. This was my attempt at regular, weekly activity on my blog. I’d share a short anecdote from my life and tie it to a favourite song. I thought it would be a winner and build my audience. To date, only a single one of them exceeds 100 views. 8 have fewer than 10!
As my repository of campground reviews grows, so do my views and by extension, my income. Covid provided an unanticipated pop in readership followed by a reversion to the original trend. Last year saw a return to growth which was exciting until put into the context of actual dollars.
The Covid year earned me $300 while the last two each garnered $200. That covers annual hosting and domain expenses but doesn’t exactly line my pockets. The time and distraction required to create said reviews can’t possibly be justified with what’s left of that $200. Describing campground pit toilets isn’t as magical as it may sound.
I contemplated spinning off the campground reviews into a stand-alone website dedicated to RVing/Camping. With a sincere, focused effort, it might have proved more successful than my hodgepodge first effort.
Still, it was hard to envision a dramatic increase in the cashflow. When my Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Park reviews didn’t erupt in unprecedented blog traffic, I realized it was all a fantasy. I’d be better off getting a job cleaning those pit toilets than writing about them.
Having friends and loved ones ask if I’m still blogging, twice within weeks, was just the final, compassionate nudge I needed to pull the pin. But like everything I do, it’s a slow, tortuous pin pull.
I’ve culled a significant amount of material from the blog. My Life is a Song? All gone. Personal health oversharing? Gone. Political drivel, failed resolution commentary, book reviews? Gone, gone, gone.
The campground reviews remain. As do the silly bits I felt were innocuous enough to stay live until the bitter end. To paraphrase Lloyd Christmas … there’s a chance.
After all, I had a small credit from my hosting service to use up. That made one final year viable assuming I get my now routine $200 in ad revenue. I may even post some more things if I feel an urge to scribble down my thoughts. But come February of 2025, A Crock of Schmidt will vanish.
God help the first person to ask me, “Where did your blog go?”
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