Hey Ya Bastard! What's With The Ads?

Yeah, you're right... if you're reading this directly on my blog, and not from Facebook, AliveNotDead, Plaxo, whereever else I've got a "feed" set up, you've probably noticed the new "feature" up at the top of the page. Does this mean, as one emailer said the other day, that I've "sold out and started putting ads on [my] site?" Well... yeah, I guess it does... but is it wrong to try and make a little scratch from something you enjoy doing? That's what I've been doing for most of my professional life, ya know?

Look, as I said way back in the beginning of March, "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Creative." This year has been an interesting one financially... On one hand, my acting income is WAY up from last year. I've had a pretty good year. On the other hand, my day job has taken a bit of a hammering over the past year. I mean, it's not a surprise... when money's tight (or when people are afraid that money's going to get tight), they hold off on repairs or investment in new systems. Consequently, the guy who does the repairs or helps set up the new systems... yeah. You get the picture.

Now, Don't get me wrong... Trish and I aren't eating rice and beans every night or anything like that (though I won't pretend that finances didn't play a part in Trish's decision to spend more time outside gardening this year - with good results, I might add. We won't be buying tomatoes for a long, long time!) We've have had to watch our pennies a little, though, and we've had to explore alternate means of income... for instance, I finally got my voice studio finished in the garage, and have been sending out voiceover auditions.

Similarly, though I've resisted this for a long time, I've started a Google Adsense account that puts those small, text-based ads at the top of the blog. It doesn't cost me anything, and it's just one more possible revenue source. Now, I have no illusions that I'm going to get rich off of these little ads... for one thing, my blog traffic just isn't that high. I have maybe 500 page loads a month? Maybe?

That's ok, though... if these little ads yield $10 a month, that's $10 a month. That's just one more little stream (or trickle) of income to add to the pot... which is how Trish and I have been living our financial live forever. A little trickle here added to a stream from this project there and a residual from that project and a small stipend from the other project... it all combines to get the bills paid and save a little each month. As long as you're smart about where you put your money and how you spend it, you can do ok living life without one single, steady pay check.

There's an added bonus, as well... I'm starting to work on the producing side of the camera a bit with some of the web series I appear in. Learning how to generate revenue from web resources is all a part of that... that's not to say that you're going to start seeing Google Ads on Animus Cross' web site... but, then again, some times you never know where they'll pop up...

So, that's the story with the ads. If you'd like to help out a little, click on one of them up top and see where it leads. If you're reading this through a "feed" to Facebook, Plaxo, or wherever, visit the source at http://trishandharold.blogspot.com/ and click the ad there... I'd appreciate the extra $10, if you don't mind passing it my way.

Thanks for listening...

-Harold