Hi Chris –
I’m an imaginary reader who loves TMO and couldn’t help noticing a dramatic decrease in the number of new articles hitting the site over the last week or so. What gives? Are you OK?
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Thanks for the note, imaginary reader. Always great to hear from a fan of the site. Yeah, things have been a little sporadic over the past two weeks. Everything is fine, and I’ll be doing my best to ramp things back up as soon as I can, but there’s been a relatively big change in my life and it’s going to be affecting my focus for the foreseeable future.
No, my wife didn’t leave me. It’s even worse than that – I got a real job.
HELP END THIS NIGHTMARE
Become a Patron of The Motorcycle Obsession
Longtime readers of TMO will know that at the start of the year I decided to turn the site into my full-time gig. Starting from scratch*, the site was making exactly no dimes back then, so, to continue to keep a roof over our heads, we** lived on savings. When those savings burned up not too long ago, I took out a loan.
Time will tell whether I’ll regret that decision, but at the present I don’t. I believe in TMO and I believe it can ultimately achieve viability. However, when looking at the state of my finances late last month it became pretty clear to me that solvency is still a ways off – further into the future than my existing funds could carry me.
A lot of magazines and websites have fallen by the wayside over the last year or so, and it’s become very common to bitterly lament the state of the motorcycle industry as a result, either blaming the old guard or lamenting its demise depending on how the site/publication had been operating. No such moaning here. This stumble is entirely of my own doing. I have no experience running my own business and I woefully underestimated how long it would take to build a functioning ship. Whereas I was thinking in terms of months, I should have been thinking in terms of years.
KEEP READING: How You Can Support The Motorcycle Obsession
So, anyway, I went out and got a real job. I lucked out in the fact it is a good job with a good employer, and, to be perfectly honest, I think the act of regularly getting out of the house – as well as having to more rigidly schedule what I do and when – will be good for my work ethic and mental state. Indeed, there are a lot of potential positives, but there’s no getting around the fact that in the immediate future, TMO will suffer in terms of the amount of content delivered each week. I simply haven’t got the time to be writing a full, seven-days-a-week moto website.
Note that I say “immediate future.” Long-term, one of the positives of my getting a real job is that it removes the need for the site to earn enough money to support me. Which means that once the paychecks start rolling in I can start using the site’s earnings as an editorial budget– spending the dough not on myself but on bringing in some cool and unique voices.
All the more reason for you to join the awesome group of people who support TMO as patrons, if you ask me. Alternatively, you can financially support the site by buying a T-shirt or hoodie. Christmas is coming up, after all – why not adorn all your family and friends in paraphernalia from a moto-blog?
MORE TO COME: This Change Will Help TMO Tell and Share More Unique Stories
Or, you can simply continue to support the site by sticking with us. With articles coming a little less regularly, now is a great time to subscribe to TMO. That way you’ll receive an email as soon as new stories are published. You can find the “Subscribe to TMO” box in the sidebar on the right if viewing the site on desktop. If you’re checking us out via mobile or tablet, just scroll down a bit.
For everyone already doing those things: thank you for your support. I promise to work my ass off to deliver a site focused on honesty, good writing, and great storytelling.
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* Switching TMO’s CMS to WordPress (it had been Blogger) obliterated the site’s SEO standings, effectively hitting “reset.”
** My wife is currently going to university, so I’m the primary breadwinner these days.
Dancing the Polka 