Need some cheddar.

The blog is now in its twelfth year. As you know it is a labor of love and I put a lot of work into it. It has allowed me to make friends far and wide and reach a lot of people.

But I am tapped. With the contraction and basic collapse of the antique business things are really dire. Bobby is on fumes.

So I need to think about monetizing this Blast in some way. What to do? Now I could let Google Ad Sense run ads on the site. They would strain our conversations and blogposts for keywords and try to stay somewhat germane but I fear that it would be a massive failure.

A few years ago Joseph and Linda Sherwood generously bought ads for six months to promote their business, High Noon. That was awesome. They have since basically retired.

I am talking to a friend with a CBD company who might run some ads. A friend at dinner last night, unprompted, suggested a readership subscription fee but I am not sure if that would work. Everybody wants everything for free these days. I am talented and all and the pictures are great but will people pay to play, I don't think so? He brought it up and is willing but I think he might be the lone ranger. And Paypal buttons look so desperate.

Google metrics are a funny thing. I tooled along at about 600 to 800 views a day in the early years, then saw it cascade up to a couple grand a day for the great middle period. It was amazing and weird, the blast was everywhere. I would be researching any old topic and my own writing would pop up and that's plain scary.

Google was giving me a metric of somewhere around 15 million views when they changed their algorithm and started to kill Google +. Some guy in Mountain View decided I was getting a little too popular for my own good.

The algorithm change definitely restricted my traffic, which really didn't bother me because I know my hardcore following and basically write for them and myself. 800, 2000 people, what's the difference?

So post algorithm shift, my traffic dropped back to roughly a thousand views a day. Which is still very good and something I am grateful for. But this week, I am getting these huge hit volumes again. Three or four thousand views a day. Don't think it is all Russian bot and porn traffic, at least I hope not. My George Washington thing got hit on a lot. I thought maybe I had been picked up again by Crooks and Liars but that didn't happen.

Advertising has always scared me because I am a loose cannon and don't want to worry about offending sponsors and having to tailor my message. But I need some cheddar. So don't be surprised if you see some ads but at least I will have control of who is putting what where.

I appreciate you. If you have a business and would like to advertise, a month, a week, a year, let me know. I am not going to threaten to quit because you and I both know that I can't stop writing. It would be nice to not feel so guilty about the time I put into this blog and to start having it pay for itself.

What are your thoughts?