Cookie cutter blog farming? And instant reaction. Yuck!

Water outlet (Hydro power station - Vännäs Sweden) All I wanted was a glass of water.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Article factories

Now, there’s something about calling something a factory that really turns me cold.
Yeah, I get that people want content and they want it fast. They want readable stuff that catch the interest of potential customers. And because it might take thousands of reads for just a few of those to ultimately spend money on something, there needs to be some serious traffic going on.

I get contacted a couple of times a day with offers to either fix up my website to look attractive to customers or to write articles for me. Oh, let’s get you hooked with $1 per article, real fucking quickly, and never mind the content. The article making factory can write shit for me.

Um, Yeah No!

And before you get mad at me; let me just say that I do get it. Your strength may not be in writing stuff and since there are people who do little else but write stuff, then why not? It’s the perfect content creation partnership — if it’s done right. Trust me, I do get that. and I’m not saying it’s all bad. But it is not for me.

My reaction to these offers is simply: No thanks, not interested, go away, please.

If I don’t have hundreds and hundreds of blogs on my website, it’s because I haven’t written hundreds and hundreds of articles. It’s not because I couldn’t find mass produced content for cheap. It is because I don’t want content that is not mine or completely endorsed by me on my site. I don’t have time to sift through sludge to find nuggets. I really don’t. and to be completely honest, I don’t trust content aggregators to know what’s right for me, my brand, and my website. I’m really not all that interested in numbers.

I read enough bad content online to know I don’t want that! And I also see so much crap out there that I do not want to contribute to this cluster-fuck of awful that happens when demand goes from quality to quantity where no one benefits. Except for the Blog writing farms that pay pennies for creativity.
You know, you get what you pay for.
An article I pay a dollar for will not be a good one no matter how you slice it. And in such a case where the read is actually quite interesting, I would feel uneasy about not showing the creator enough respect to pay them properly.
I would happily link to the article, endorse it, and see that people find their way there. Sigh. Old fashioned? 🙂 maybe. Then so be it.

Cookie cutter blog farms? No thank you. not for me. Sorry.

House of Imp 26 – Catching up… Well, trying to. Late night impulse recording

A woman standing on sand that is sinking.
Reading Time: < 1 minute

late night chat about this and that. Trying to catch up with myself.

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It’s been one of those weeks. Well, two of those weeks.
Icarus machine is working on the patreon page which has been neglected for too long. so there is hope. 🙂
Tired ramblings.
Imp is here. Or is this just another delusion? I tried to ignore him but it never works.

JennyK and Imp – Making things harder than they need to be since 2010.

House of Imp 24 – Interlude – Considering the reality of dreams and gear misunderstood

The toilet paper conspiracy is real.
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An interlude – Living the bad dream – Microphone update

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I interrupt the regular programming for a rant. Dreams can sometimes make more sense than reality. At least one can escape a dream. 🙂 But on a good note, I finally got motivated to really check what I’ve got and see if I really did get the best out of my gear. Which of course I didn’t. Microphone trouble taken care of. I got looking into all of this thanks to a new, for me, youtube channel. Check out Booth junkie if you want to get the best out of your voice and your gear when working with voice over. It’s not the same thing as singing btw. 🙂

Mentions:

Although I regret not mentioning this in the podcast, here is Mike, The ultimate
Booth Junkie on Youtube.

My gear:

heading level 1 Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone on amazon
The MXL 771 Condenser microphone on amazon.
the studio Projects VTB-1 on SoundOnSound.
The Mackie Onyx 820i on SoundOnSound.

Never look up, never look back, never ever ever grow up.
Now, if you want to go crazy like me, you should start a podcast. Here’s a good place to start that insane project of yours:
Join the School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

Nope, not an affiliate of anything mentioned and certainly not of amazon. I just happen to be lazy and that is where i bought my microphones.

JennyK and Imp – Making things happen in odd ways since 2010.

Roll of toilet paper
Roll of toilet paper

Focus, Girl, focus! On the slippery borderland between inspiration and desperation – Reflection on the todo list

Reading Time: 3 minutes

JennyK on her nice new Mac, but what good is it when it's not used for something? :)

Focus! Get at it. Rant time for JennyK — Again. 🙂

Feeling scattered, unfocused, restless. So much I want to do. But what? Which of the many things I want to do should I direct my attention to? O, what a first world problem. 🙂 But still, it’s something that unfortunately becomes bigger the more I ponder it. One day becomes a week becomes a month becomes the seed of uncertainty. Writers block? — Maybe.
But honestly, it it was only about sitting down to write because I’m not writing, I could simply sit down and write. But I find it hard to sit down and write when the constant critic in the back of my mind reminds me that I should record those vocals and transcribe those lyrics, world-building for Mother of Crow. And do some social media promotion, update the twitterverse, format my old computer for someone else to take it over, push to find someone to review my book, write an interesting blog on the website, some fantastic reward on patreon, add something on reverbnation, upload a track on soundcloud, do the laundry, organize my backup cds, scan my mail for OCR, call my mother, get the….

Whoah there, Fool. This is getting more than ridiculous.. and I didn’t even mention exercising, , writing a 100K word novel, feed the dog, making an appointment with the dentist, deal with paperwork I would rather burn…. and cut my toenails. —- Oh, and podcasting, don’t forget the people who actually do know I’m around and who do hear me, my music, my band and our music, subscribe to my blogs, and perhaps also enjoy my fiction and other rants.

Oh, and I really should be social and call the few friends I do have, make an effort to “get out there” and be interested in the rest of the world.

Well.
Should, could, would. Aint gonna unless I — focus?

Here is that point… The point I often reach when I drag it out in the open to look at it and realize how ridiculous it really is.

It’s the point where I balance on the slippery borderline between inspiration and desperation.

I can choose to look at that list and get overwhelmed by it. I can be sad for the people I feel I’m disappointing and despair over the inevitable giving up on me. And I can add to that list this: I need to get better and work harder.

😀 (And we all know how well such a pledge works. It doesn’t!)

Or….

I can take a look at that list and break it into pieces, see them as parts of the whole and realize that at this moment, this second, just now; I can’t deal with all of that no matter how much I try. If I look at those things one at a time I will notice that none of them are a big deal. If I see them separately, they are all good things.

Oh, maybe not the dentist thing.

But seriously; It’s all good.

With focus. Hmm. Back at the beginning. I feel a pattern appearing as I type this. Seeing and dealing with one thing at a time does take some type of focus. And that is where I get lost.

So I ask you, listener, reader, friend;

How do you focus? . What are your tips and tricks to manage all the things when they start to overwhelm you? Do you procrastinate to the point of anxiety and panic? Do you schedule your days and stick to it?

I know I’ve been rambling like a neurotic nut in this post, but I am genuinely curious. Leave a comment and share your thoughts. I didn’t manage to make things much clearer in this rant so I need to sit on this for a while as I’m sure the amazing “back of my mind” is working on it. As long as I let it do that without fretting more just now and then maybe. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll leave it to you – and my poor subconscious for a little while.

Let me know what you think 🙂 Because I could really use your help. Certainly some other perspective and maybe even the classic kick in the ass. 😀

Jen

Audio production tidbit – Archived – Sonar for the blind- JSonar- Inspector- template plus bonus rantt

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Tutorial – A quick look at Sonar, JSonar, and the inspector

Updated!
For some reason the audio for this episode is gone. I never even noticed. That’s just so ME. LOL. However, the audio boo is still around. And that was after all the point of this post. So enjoy this Boo from the past.

Listen to it here: Jenny K Brennan AudioBoo, where I show how to set up the inspector in Sonar and just showing the basics on how to use the track equalizer and how to find plugin parameters.

JennyK