January 6th was the second anniversary of MachinistBlog.com. I’m not usually one to brag but I am proud of this achievement. Almost everyone who starts a blog quits within a few months, or even a few days, after they find out how much work it is to keep creating content for one. When I started out I thought it would be easy to write at least one article each day. I was very wrong and quickly decided that one article per week, on the average, would be a more reasonable goal for someone with a family, a full-time job and some other interests. I’m not going to claim that what I write is well-written or very interesting, but for two years now I’ve been regularly adding new content to the web site. But I have had a lot of help and I owe a lot of thanks to these people:
- My wife, for putting up with me and my hobbies.
- Nate, who has been my copy editor from almost the beginning. He has greatly improved my writing by patiently and gently pointing out my errors. He’s also written some of our most popular and interesting articles even though he’s not a machinist.
- Mikey, who really should be the one with a blog. He’s a much more experienced machinist with excellent writing and teaching skills. Mikey has contributed articles, he’s been very supportive and he’s given me some excellent advice.
- Earl, Bick, Bogs, Pat, Ralph and Steve (coming soon), who have contributed articles and other material. I owe a lot, and I think we all do, to them and others like them who are willing to share their knowledge and help others learn.
- All of you who have visited this web site. I don’t earn any money from MachinistBlog.com. Most of the reward I get is from watching its popularity grow and learning we’ve helped someone or taught them something.
Future Plans and Challenges
It’s been getting harder to meet my goal of writing one new article each week because the things I want to write about lately require more time and preparation.
I hope to create my first YouTube video soon. It’s going to require learning some new skills and overcoming my natural desire to achieve perfection, which often gets in the way of getting things finished.
I’d like to do more photo essays and tutorials. But first I’ve got to buy some lighting equipment because my camera’s flash is too harsh and directional. I think I need an umbrella light but I’ve never used one and I don’t know what to buy. If you can offer me any advice I’d appreciate it.
I’d also like to get the forum going more. I’m not trying to compete with the more established ones but I would like it to have enough users so we can get some discussions going. I chose the forum software we’re using because it’s the only one that integrates completely with WordPress, but I’m a concerned that it might be a little difficult to read and use. Again, I’d appreciate any suggestions or feedback you have.
Just got back from vacation and saw this entry – thanks for the kudos but we all know who does the real work around here. Congratulations on your success, Rob! This site is a reflection of the MANY hours of hard work you put into it and I am happy for you.
Mikey
Rob (and team), congratulations on making it to 2 years. I have to agree that finding that balance between making and writing about making can be a challenge but you seem to be doing ok. Hope the site is around for many more years.
Thank you Andy. I regularly read your blog, Workshopshed.com. But I didn’t realize until tonight that you’ve got me beat for both longevity (October 2008) and productivity (about 2 articles each week).
I see you’re in the UK and I’m in the US. I know we could talk on the phone, but I wish we were close enough to meet in person once in awhile and talk about blogging. I don’t know if your experience has been different, but I’ve found that running a web site can be very lonely sometimes.
Hi Rob, only just spotted your reply. Feel free to get in contact about blogging and machining etc. I’m hoping to port my site across to wordpress at some point in the future, possibly even this year….
I’m curious what your views per day are. You blanked that on the left of the graph.
I’d also be curious if you are monitizing your videos on youtube. If not.. you’d be surprised how much money you can make if you can get enough hits. My site probably has a smaller audience than yours, but I may be making more cash. Just collaborating and sharing. 🙂
Our traffic has doubled to more than 50K page views per month in the year since I wrote this post. And I expect it to at least double again in the next year.
I started this web site to share information and help others if I can, not to make money. So there’s no advertising on it and I plan to keep it that way unless I lose my job or the cost of running it becomes a burden.
I do have another web site, MachinistVideos.com that has advertising. I started it as an experiment and its a long ways from paying for my web host, let alone buying my wife and I dinner at a nice restaurant once in a while.