I want to talk about a couple things that have come up lately about the blog. The email subscription newsletter has had a few problems lately. A small percentage of the newsletters are not being received. Let me explain how the email newsletter works. My blog is hosted by Google. It uses a service called Google Blogger. One feature of Blogger is the ability to offer an email newsletter. Every day when I make a post on the blog, Google automatically turns that post into an email and sends it out to anyone who has signed up to receive them.Unfortunately this does not give me as much control as I would like but it's free and the pay services can be very expensive for a blog with as many subscribers as I have. This blog has around 20,000 email subscribers. FeedBlitz is an alternative service thatr might be more reliable but for that many email subscribers we are talking $1,700 a year.
So to make a long story short I have to work with Feedburner to deliver the newsletter. If you are one of those who are not receiving the email the first thing to do is look in your spam folder. That is the most common issue. Most email clients allow you to right click anything in the folder and say it's not spam. That will fix that problem.
If that does not work then we can cancel the current subscription and start a new one. That has fixed almost every one so far. You can do it yourself if you still have one of the old email newsletters. Just scroll to the bottom and click unsubscribe. Then visit the blog and sign up again. I'm sorry for the headache but I'm kind of at Google's mercy here. Thanks for your patience with this problem.
The second issue I want to address is advertising. I know almost everyone hates web ads. The truth is that many websites would go away without ads. Mine would be one that would slowly die without the little money I receive from ads.
There are two types of ads on my blog. On the blog there are Google served ads. I have little control of their content but they are usually targeted ads that are suppose to be of interest to the reader. It's not perfect but does work most of the time.
The second ads are the ones for the few products I sell. They include the Pattern archive DVDs, The Jigsaw puzzle templates and the new Wooden Vases on the scroll saw book.
The ads and the very kind donations I receive pay for the blogs upkeep with some left over for me to buy a few new tools from time to time. Trust me when I say not many people get rich blogging. It is a passion for most bloggers but without some return it would be tough to do it.
So far this year we have had 230 days. I have posted a blog 178 times. Most of those posts included a free pattern if not more. I have been doing this for over 7 years. One of those years I posted 367 times. That's more than one a day. I say this to make the point that I am a dedicated blogger
There was a recent post on a Facebook group that I want to post here also.
"Has anybody, besides myself, noticed that Steve Good's website is getting filled with more and more advertising? I noticed that his book, Wooden Vases on the scrollsaw, which I bought last week (or the week before) is advertised 5 times on today's Daily Post. I don't mind an occasional "plug" but this is getting to be more and more advertising and less "scrolling". Just a thought!"
His facts are mostly correct so I don't have a beef with that except for the comment that the blog is more and more about advertising and less about scrolling. I never post a blog with only ads. Every time a post goes up there is either a free pattern or other scrolling content. I would venture to say that I give more free things of value away than any other site on the web.
I'm not pointing this out to blast what this person said because he was just expressing an opinion and he was not insulting or trying to harm me in any way. He actually did me a favor because it made me look at how I blog. It's easy to get complacent after so many years of doing this and it's helpful to step back every now and then and see if you can do things differently.
If you are not interested in the things I have for sale I completely understand. I have absolutely no problem with you just taking the free patterns. For the most part I do this for fun and it's fun when people download my free stuff. Please understand that I am going to sell a few things and those things will be advertised on the blog and in the email newsletter. I promise I won't try to sell you cheap car insurance or or a get skinny in 30 days plan. I will keep it a scroll saw related.
Sorry for the long post now for the ads......
Click book to purchase.
This book is only available in digital format. There will be a link on the final payment page that directs you to the download page. I will also send an automated email with the link to the download page.
