Bustin' Out: Blogging Full Time
We’ve been mumbling for some time now about quitting our day job to devote ourselves full-time to blogging. Well, by this time next week, that dream will be a reality. For a variety of reasons, we’re going to have to keep a low profile for a few more weeks, but we’ll be throwing a coming…
We’ve been mumbling for some time now about quitting our day job to devote ourselves full-time to blogging. Well, by this time next week, that dream will be a reality. For a variety of reasons, we’re going to have to keep a low profile for a few more weeks, but we’ll be throwing a coming out party by house tour season for sure.
So what does this mean? In addition to no longer dreading getting out of bed in the morning, we’ll have a lot more time to focus on building the content of the site. The first sign of this will come on March 1 when we launch a new Contractor Ratings feature (hey, at least the brokerate.com software was good for something!). We’re looking for a few beta testers in the meantime, so if you’ve had occasion to use a GC, plumber, carpenter, etc. in recent months and wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes uploading some info and kicking the tires on the new site, please drop us an email at brownstoner@brownstoner.com. We’re also about ready with some new slide show technology that will let us start doing more interiors and renovation features. In addition, we are already working on some off-line events for the Brownstoner community (more on those later).
Until now, there has not been a lot of pressure for the site to generate income, a luxury which goes out the window with this move. Obviously we think the trade-off of a few more ads will be more than worth the benefit to the site of our full-time attention. And although we don’t think Brownstoner’s going to feel any more commercial going forward, we are going to spend some time trying to increase the number of direct ads on both this site and Brooklyn Record, as Google ads won’t exactly pay the mortgage. The one thing we would ask of our readers would be to please participate in the reader survey we’re going to put up in the next few days. While it’s primarily to help us get a clearer picture of reader demographics for the purpose of selling ads, we bet there are more than a few of you who will be curious to hear the results.
In the meantime, we’d like to thank everyone who has sent us tips, participated in discussions and contributed content over the past two years. The next two should be even more fun!
Cheers,
Mr. B
Good for you and good for us. I kind of like the annonymity. Preserve it. The blog is already addictive but can’t wait for more Brownstoner with my morining, afternoon and evening cup of joe!
congrats, but let me get this straight. you work on wall st. and have time to post an already high volume of content throughout the day? in addition, you earn enough at this arguably part-time wall st. job to buy a brownstone? are you like milton from office space or something (just a second there, professor. we, uh, we fixed the *glitch*)? my experience on wall st. is that big money only comes with big responsibility. i have no time to run a blog from my desk as fun as that would be. must be nice…
So are you going to update your own Reno blog http://bstoner.wpengine.com/renovations/
the last entry was November 16, 2005. Surely you have done “something” to the place since then?
ooh, we get to see who’s behind the curtain? awesome. congrats on the self-employment and the ditching of wall street!
Free at last! Free at last!
Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Stoner. Brush the haters off your shoulder and keep it moving. I am both jealous and inspired.
Congratulations on your retirement. How many years until the social security kicks in? I think the idea of “off-line” events is a great idea, whatever they turn out to be. Maybe we could play “Pin The Name On The Reader”, where we try to figure out which person is Jimmy Legs, Electricgreek, Mentch, etc.
You could have your readers brainstorm different ideas for things that could be Brownstoner branded to help supplement your income.
I am excited for you, for your family but most of all for us since now we get to see who is behind the curtain! Congrats!!!!!
God bless. As I’ve written before, your site has been a godsend. For years I’ve been looking for a brownstone in brooklyn and felt isolated and alone in my search. Finding your site and the community you’ve put together has made the ordeal a little less scary– and (PS) I finally found my brownstone. It was one of your HOTD postings. If all goes well, I’ll repay the favor with a renovation blog. Love the idea of a contractor rating system. I’ll be happy to participate in anyway i can.
Contractor ratings will make this site a serious draw (like it isn’t already!)
congrats!