Achievement Unlocked! 7,500 Followers!

I wish there was more to celebrate! My follower count keeps going up, but my earnings keep going down. That's really confusing. With SBD at $1.4 USD at the time of writing, even powering down some money, I will not be able to make rent. I am only not panicking because it wouldn't accomplish anything useful.

Not really sure what I'm going to do, though. How did this happen? For a while in 2017 I was reliably doing 30 SBD per post, with occasional spikes to 50. Then it was 20 per post with occasional spikes to 30. Now I don't quite make 5 per post. I'd sure like to know why.

It's frustrating to see people with around 1,000 subs doing 100+ SBD per post, which would finance my lifestyle many times over, when their content is stuff like travel photography with a couple sentences of commentary. But the market wants what it wants, there is no use throwing a fit.

What should I change to reverse this trend? At this rate I'll clear 10,000 followers in 2 or 3 months but be making nothing per post besides what I give myself just in order to continue sleeping indoors and eating hot food. I'm looking back at how I spent some of my money now when the SBD was plentiful and wondering about the wisdom of those decisions.

Did I need that flamethrower? Probably not. The drone? Also no. But then there's the charity. I'm torn on this one. Half of my brain says it was foolish to give so much when I needed it to support myself. But the other half says that whatever you give to people worse off than yourself is impossible to put a price on.

Belongings are fleeting, but the knowledge that you took action to diminish the suffering of a fellow human is something you will cherish for the rest of your life. So I don't regret doing that, and nothing can happen to me that will change how I feel about it.

If only I knew what was driving whales away. I post about a lot of controversial topics, but feel there's tremendous value in doing so. It is not in me to be a sycophant. I am not here to blow smoke up anybody's ass, or to give people the warm fuzzies by telling them pleasant half-truths. Haven't we all had enough of spammers lavishing us with semi-comprehensible praise because they want money?

A number of formative experiences growing up left me with the conviction that the pursuit and defense of truth should be my highest ideal. That's a risky horse to hitch your wagon to however, as few other goals in life will make you as many enemies.

It wouldn't if people knew they could entertain objectionable ideas without necessarily having to accept them. That the exchange of ideas can be like playing with toys, instead of combat. But when you bring up sensitive topics, everybody's claws come out and their brains shut down because they've gone into battle mode.

The other possibility is that long time whales have seen all my writing by now, and unsubbed because they don't care for the video content, or silly stuff like Ultimate Zoo Battle and Stickman Adventure. That stuff is pretty far outside the original intended theme of my blog.

The solution in that case would be to go back to work writing new horror. But it's hard to find time or energy for that when you already must write 4 articles per day just to pay the bills. I'm really not sure how I'm gonna solve this, just that I have to somehow.

For Steemit to keep being my fulltime means of support, I don't just need the occasional valuable upvote. I need those people to put me on auto-upvote so the income is reliable. I dunno how to convince them to do that without begging, which I know damn well doesn't go over well here. Like a PBS televised funding drive, begging for donations.

That leaves me with precisely dick in the way of options, except maybe to experiment more with my content. If there's a means of advertising to whales I don't know about (besides the promotion button and promotion bots) I'd sure like to know about it.

Thanks for sticking with me as long as you have, though. When I have little else, I still at least have a fanbase of people who diligently read my work and leave interesting, thoughtful comments. I hope I'm still writing for you a year from now instead of flipping burgers or digging ditches.

If worse comes to worst, I know enough about how to live offgrid and aid the homeless that I should be able to do alright for myself even if I have to live under an overpass or something. As long as I have my computer I'll still be able to post here and at least make enough to eat, which is more than many less fortunate people can manage.

Another solution might be to sell most of my shit and emigrate to a country with a much cheaper cost of living. That's an idea I've floated for some time. The meager $483 or so I will make this month from SBD would go much, much further in several South American countries that come to mind.

I really hope that statement will appear needlessly dire when I look back on it. I hope SBD picks up, though I'd be doing fine if the whales who followed me a year ago had stuck around. All I can do is hold out hope, even if it's tough to type with all your fingers crossed.

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^{Stay Cozy!}