#can't really talk about what the freelance market is like

[eisbecherovka]

Saw some post about AI art whatever and the op mentioned that AI "killed the field of translation", someone in the tags was lamenting that their career plan for becoming an interpreter was ruined because of that...huh??

Machines can't interpret (yet) and I think that technology is probably a ways off. But the real thing that everybody ignores is that a machine translation can only ever be as good as the source text. And if you feed a source text with typos and inconsistent terminology usage and...interesting sentence construction into a machine, you're going to get absolutely boiling hot nonsense out. And let me let you in on a little secret. Most technical texts - which make up the vast majority of translated material - are not very well written. The AI can't guess what the author was trying to say (yet) and it can't backtrack through other languages if the source text itself was a translation. It can't make use of supplemental material and it can't ask the author questions. It has the text and the text itself and that's it.

[hotvintagepoll]

Do you have any opinions on modern (post-1970s) movies that you feel capture the essence (in a good way) of Old Movies?

No, unfortunately. That doesn't mean I don't like modern movies or that modern movies aren't good, but modern movies—and here I'm really using modern to mean post-2010, so contemporary movies—have different standards for pacing, characterization, budget, and production that make it harder (or impossible) to capture some of the magic of old movies. Even when modern movies clearly try to emulate that old-movie feeling—I'm thinking of La La Land, The Artist, The Shape of Water, In the Heights—they play the homage too broadly, or they ignore crucial components that make the original films work.

There's kind of too much to go into here without writing a full essay, but essentially, the Old Hollywood system—ugly, failed beast as she was—made some movies simply more accessible to make, due to the ongoing storage of props, sets, master craftsmen, crew, and onscreen talent that could move from one movie to the next without pause. If you needed a dancer, he was already on staff. If you needed a fancy bed, it was already in the warehouse. That kind of longterm storage is invaluable if you want to crank out movies quickly and cheaply because it saves so much time on individual negotiation and sourcing. Modern production companies have to work out individual contracts for every actor on every film; crew members have to negotiate rental contracts and source pieces from scratch; if you need someone with specialist skills, you have to contract them specially at a high rate, which a lot of small companies can't (or won't) budget to do. There's sand in the wheels where there needn't be any. It's wasteful, and costly, but that's the system modern movies are made with.

Which all means that even if the modern movie system wanted to make a classic movie musical just like the old ones, they couldn't, because the talent isn't already there—it hasn't been trained up enough, and there's not that breadth of knowledge you can only get from people who have been allowed to work in the same department in the same place for decades. Movies like La La Land fail, for me, because they present themselves as descendants of Fred Astaire or Busby Berkley movies, while missing the bit where Fred Astaire was a master of his craft. When you watch Fred Astaire dance—or Moira Shearer, or the Nicholas Brothers, or Ann Miller—you are watching a true artist at work, purposely showcased by the studios because they already have them on contract. Modern movies, on the other hand, tend to take people who already have star talent (as actors) and try to convert them into dancers/singers—or they pull dancers/singers off of Broadway, but then they don't have the star power built in. You end up with lackluster musicals where no one truly knows what they're doing, or they do but they're not built up enough by the studios to sell. And that's me discussing just on-screen talent for musicals—there is a huge loss behind the scenes, as well, for all kinds of movies, where roles that would have been filled by union crew who moved continuously from one job to the next have been swapped for freelance labor who live with immense turnover, financial insecurity, and knowledge loss. You could hand me the budget and I could try to make an old movie, but the industry itself has changed so much it's impossible to recapture that charm of steady, niche talent, the amazing possibilities of bonkers set design, and the ability to take a risk on a smaller movie because the other films being produced by the same studio can help balance the budget.

I've talked way, way too much about all of this! Sorry, I just have a lot of thoughts—and the one above is just one of them; the talent loss and storage issues are only facets of a much bigger problem that extends to how we watch movies today, how we market them, what we expect of them, and what's allowed in them. It's a crying shame because the talent is still there, but times change and so does the industry, for better or for worse. (And, just again to clarify, I don't think modern movies are bad—they're just missing a lot of the juice old movies got to play with, even if there's more talent available than ever before.)

[steadycoffeeflow]

I'm coming out of my cage and things are not fine, I'm screaming at NaNo "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

If you haven't already been made aware how borked NaNoWriMo is, in the past 24 hours they've released an endorsement of AI after partnering with an AI software program.

The problem is, much of what they're saying is outright bullshit, and I don't even need to get into the nature of belittling the very writers they claim they're sticking up for by talking over them. It's an exploitation of a community, using them as a PR meat shield.

Because it should be awfully apparent NaNo's goal isn't to foster a healthy writing community. If that were the true goal, their missteps for the past year following the child harm allegations wouldn't be happening. Rather, instead, it's more likely the reason every company has relentlessly pursued and pushed AI: $$$

I don't think I'm entirely off base to say money is the reason AI is mucking up much of our creative spaces. At the peak of this fervor, you could load up some listicle titled '5 Ways AI Boosts Your Side Hustle' or some YouTuber claiming to make thousands a month with their AI writing, as if it were that easy to make a living writing and silly authors have just been leaving money on the table.

The mad gold rush that followed impacted literary magazines and publishing spaces, such as Clarkesworld Magazine freezing submissions as they were inundated with poorly written nonsense. The people behind NaNoWriMo, however, apparently believe Clarkesworld Magazine is just being classist and ableist in their anti-AI stance. Yes. Certainly because of those reasons.

And not because their submissions jumped an untenable amount, almost 500% from their usual submission intake, and cost the lit mag staff untold amounts of mental harm (as well as a very real number amount of staffing hours and financial costs to combat this problem).

But to that, NaNo Org argues that AI is cost-effective, actually!

Which, we're back to the opening argument that NaNo is full of shit (in case you didn't realize that citation link was sarcasm and not evidence in support of NaNo's stance). It may be free to the end user to access AI, notwithstanding the many many models one can buy including NaNo's own sponsor, but the financial damages being incurred by the use of this tech is anything but. The fact NaNo glosses through this in three little bullet points is insulting.

But what really has gotten me to write off about this on a mostly dead Tumblr blog, is that I've worked in the publishing industry all of my adult life and I've been a part of the creative writing community about as long as NaNo claims to. Hell, part of my contract freelance work has been to go through slush piles and evaluate, by hand, if the submission utilized AI or not. Full transparency, that work has helped me get through medical bills this year.

Yet that's my point. Someone had to rearrange their budgets to hire many people like me to combat rampant AI-generated submissions, from college admission offices to literary magazines to other publishers. What could have gone toward the print run of a special issue or increasing the marketing budget of a debut author now has to go making sure illegal, plagiarized work isn't being unwittingly published and endorsed. It's not classist to take a stand against a technology that's disruptive enough to put people out of business, but NaNo takes aim and fires off some bullshit claim they're pro-indie authors.

You might be thinking, "But Steady, if the business can't adapt to the market, they shouldn't exist!"

And to that I say, not every single little thing needs to have a financial commodity price tag slapped onto it. Not everything needs to make money. Things have a right to exist without a price tag stickered on them. The onus of this situation is because NaNo partnered with an AI sponsor. They're outright seeking to make money out of this. Because they're well aware of the PR fiasco, they're high-grounding the situation by claiming they're sticking up for the little guys, while outright taking money from a harmful billion dollar industry.

Meanwhile, the little guy will find no publisher will touch their work, that their writing has no copyright protections attached to them, and they'll be blacklisted by those they stole the work from. NaNo claims this is unfair; sorry folks, that's just how it works. Stealing from your fellow writers tends to get those same writers to rally against you.

I don't need to be told that the publishing industry has issues, that fanfiction writers are made fun of and lambasted. But most of those issues stem from and feed right back into the very problem NaNo is claiming to stand against: The financial commodity of writing.

NaNo has everything to gain by you believing them and using their sponsorship coupon so you can generate works as a writer that have no copyright protections and likely violated the copyrights of fellow writers works in doing so (I can play the bolded words game too, you pricks (see their update in response to the massive backlash this stance has generated online)).

The final point I have to say, is that in NaNo's defense they claim their online workshops are just full to the brim! See the demand! Look, look with your special eyes how popular AI is!! You fools, this is the future at hand!!!

Except, I, an avid anti-AI writer and publishing professional, attend webinars about AI all the damned time. Mostly to understand what new angle or developments we'll have to defend against. Every single one of these publishing industry or writing webinars are, in the end, a sales pitch to get you to pay them rather than a fellow freelancer.

Notwithstanding, it's a marketing and sales 101 faux pas to mistake interest in a thing, eyes on screens and butts in seats, for tacit endorsement in said thing. Besides the obvious point that people most impacted by this tech would be interested in learning more about it, there's the very real possibility that the same crowd who drives clicks to Forbes and YouTube videos is partially the same crowd that flocks to these NaNo webinars seeking to make a quick, effortless buck.

So, in the end, NaNo isn't speaking to writers. They're speaking to people looking to exploit a blind spot in an industry in order to make $$$ in our Capitalist Hellscape. And in NaNo's rush to join that race, they're trampling over the community they've grown and fostered for over 20 years.

The insinuation of this entire statement is that NaNo is standing tall for the "little guy" that the writing community has just let wilt and suffer for years, neglected and unheard. And it's totally not that NaNo nuked their own forums, a free, accessible resource for such writers to utilize, and without warning fired all of their volunteer staff all because they dropped the ball in moderation and safety checks (I'm not touching on whether the groomer is still working for NaNo since that situation is tainted by rumors, sensationalism, and directly conflicting stories).

And topping this all off with a pithy little cherry on this shit sundae: "For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions."

So not only does NaNo condone plagiarism and theft, they're quick to both-sides the issue, only to immediately say "we're all free to make our own decisions!" Not said is the heavy implication, "oh but if you stand against AI you're a classist, ableist dickhead!" Which, if it wasn't obvious, is so far removed from the truth it's insulting.

In short, fuck NaNoWriMo.

Also what the fuck does "further-proof" mean.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

What is something you wish more people understood about you or if you prefer about your job or hobbies?

Hey Lovely!!

Ahhh, oh gosh SO much, honestly.

So I'm a graphic designer by trade, and an illustrator and freelance designer as my side gig, and my hobbies are art-related as well.

FOR SURE, I have to say that I wish people respected designers as the creatives we are. I've GENUINELY had clients who think all I do is hit a "design ad" button and BOOM it's done, and don't think they should have to pay me because – and this is ONLY because I've been doing this for 20 years – I can finish a print ad in under an hour, and booklets under 5, not taking into account the AMOUNT OF CHANGES and STUPID things I have to talk people out of to not make them look bad.

Some other things:

Microsoft Word is not a design program. I HATED this when I worked at the Paper. Good fucking LORD the amount of times I've had to rebuild an ad because the client couldn't resize it themselves and couldn't understand why if they moved something everything fucked up is astounding.

Canva is good for mocking up design, but I'm sorry, you're NOT a designer if you learned design in Canva. I know it sounds gatekeepy and pretentious, and I am sorry about that, but even with Canva you need to know SOME principles of design to get something appealing out of it. A designer, after-all, MADE your templates you're working from. We're everywhere. We're a silent bunch that's under-appreciated. You're never going to get the precision and nuance and a proper eye that you'll get from a designer. Sure you'll get quick and dirty designs, work fine for socials, but I LOATHE when people send me shit they made in Canva that I have to, once again, rebuild because they can't figure out how to resize in Canva and complained to me that Canva isn't making it look nice when they export it (to be fair, that's a them problem, the tools ARE there for you to do that stuff)

When your designer tells you one thing and you're trying to push for another, your designer is trying to save you the embarrassment of your "vision". We know what we're doing. We spend most of our days knowing market trends and what will make eyes go to your advertisements and products.

Strokes don't fix everything.

I can't read your mind. PLEASE, if you wanted an element there from the start, you need to tell me, and not tell me I'm a fucking moron who should have guessed by the blobs you drew on a napkin as your layout.

Fuck AI; I see the benefits of it for smaller things like content aware fill to add a bit more height to a stock photo I'm using, or the smart-select to route a photo faster, but literally that's all I see useful for it.

I know there's loads more I'm missing, but I've seen SO much that I'm numb to a lot of things and tend to just "autocorrect" stuff without even thinking anymore.

I love my job though, I really do. The joke in my industry is that "I get paid to play in Photoshop all day long" and there is some truth to it after doing this for nearly 20 years. But I wish people would understand that we are trained professionals who want to make them look good, and to do that I need time and money. We are literally background characters for the main protagonists, and the pay isn't great unless you're really lucky (which I am, but it took me 12 years to finally get in where I am), and I wish people would stop saying my job is easy.

It literally is not. Think of it as retail, but you deal with the same people every single day nitpicking the tiniest things over and over again despite you telling them countless times that 6pt font is probably the smallest you should go, but no 3 pt must be on this ad.

Anyway. 🙃

My favourite though is Layout Design. I love designing the booklets and mailers we do at my job, because I get to be super creative. My boss is pretty lenient with me, since "you've been here longer than all of us, you know better than me how this works", so I get to have fun.

Thank you for this question :) And gonna promo myself here, if anyone ever needs design or layout services, I'm your gal :)

[brehaaorgana]

Btw since we're talking about ADHD strategies for handling organizing events and tasks — I like this book Grip: The Art of Working Smart for workplace (office, freelance, creative) organization (and growth!) advice. Rick Pastoor really breaks down how to manage a work calendar (he focuses on/prefers digital), and to-do lists. Basically he starts with the premise that people "aren't natural born planners," and we can't possibly remember everything we need to, so we have to create an external hard drive for our brain.

There's also stuff for like, evaluating your job (if it's a good fit, if you want something else) and performance, finding valuable feedback (and who to listen to which is like!!! Great advice) and stuff like that, but the beginning parts about organization are why I bought it.

Highlights:

Figuring out your work habits and how to experiment to make things easier for you

Action plan for last minute jobs

The Eisenhower matrix for figuring out priorities of tasks. I started doing this at work when I feel like I have too much to do and no idea what to do first. The book explains each quadrant and like, what to do about tasks in those places and it has saved my skin at least twice.

How to make a to-do list. Literally a whole chapter. There's prompts for what to put on it, how to deal if you have too many things jangling in your brain to start, setting up keyboard shortcuts for digital list entries to help preserve focus, how to turn vague tasks into to-do list actions, and then only later does he explain how to get more complex with the lists. How to use the list.

He even talks about like, intentionally hyperfocusing and setting up the right environment to do that when you want to crunch through something lol.

Whole chapter on dealing with work emails!! I have so many, all the time. Necessary to defeat the beast.

There's an added mini chapter at the end about preparing for a vacation from work and returning from work without everything being maximum stress which is great.

Basically EVERYTHING IS BROKEN DOWN!! EXPLAINED!! steps provided to make it easier or less to tackle!!

Apparently it didn't do so hot in the English (US/UK) market which is a shame because it was VERY HELPFUL to me. (I went searching and found someone else with ADHD recommending it, which is how I found this out!)

[eusuchia]

sorry to the anon but I couldn't figure out how to edit my answer once it was in my drafts (great website).

the question was (badly paraphrasing) shouldn't we try to preserve the livelihoods of ceramicists and weavers too? and instead of saying 'mass production already killed this industry, and it will happen to others,' try to save more art from it?

basically yes! deskilling due to industrial capitalism sucks and mass production makes commodity fetishism infinitely worse. I think it's important to preserve craft knowledge and don't think we should just cede everything to industrialization, but that feeling isn't going to shift industrial trends -- only industrial action will do that. for what it's worth, it's really annoying to hear 'just unionize!' as an artist, when many, like me, are self-employed/freelance, and without sudden mass interest in some kind of low-entry-requirement sectoral guild, are not very unionizable because we don't have workplaces in the traditional sense. but by sheer numbers a lot of the job loss to AI would be corporate-level, I think, and there's more potential for people employed by like, marvel, to actually do something significant about the use of AI, than for individual customers trying to throw their weight around by buying or boycotting. I'm happy to get proved wrong here by some targeted mass boycott campaign, but I'm not holding my breath.

on a personal level I regularly spend money on handmade ceramics, fiber arts, and original art commissions both physical and digital because I find them valuable and beautiful. but I also use my IKEA plates and print-on-demand t-shirts, functionally devaluing those crafts. no amount of hypothetical discourse shaming me for 'stealing from working craftsmen' would really change that due to the economic realities. (tangentially, I don't use AI as a stand-in for commissioned art because they are not at all interchangeable to me.)

broadly though, isn't every kind of automation 'taking a livelihood' from someone in theory? my original reply to metamatar's post was basically asking where you draw the line. digital printing is taking the work of typesetters and sign painters, canva presets are taking the work of graphic designers, slip casting is taking the work of ceramicists. yet those trades still exist, and if anything I think their creative horizons are a little wider when the drudgery of the industry is taken up by machines. I know that's paltry compensation for a vanishing job market under capitalism, but isn't it a good thing when ceramicists and weavers are free to explore their ideas and not confined to backbreaking work of making the same bowls or yards of tweed for years on end? (especially in The Good Society with robust social protection that we should all be fighting for anyway)

there can be different use cases for these things (artisanal vs mass produced) and one use doesn't mean 1:1 something is being stolen from the other. personally I'm never going to pay someone to render my likeness instead of taking a photo; the money that's being 'lost' by a realism portrait artist there is purely hypothetical. same for when people get mad about others generating AI art for fun. 'you could have paid an artist for this [generated meme in the style of hr giger]' ok but they weren't going to and you can't make them.

I think people are unthinkingly flattening all kinds of creative labour when they talk about what might happen with AI. to start with, people are often talking about the job market of the first world/imperial core/etc despite the huge amounts of creative labour in/outsourced to other countries. but wherever you want to apply AI -- I don't think boutique client-based work is ever going to vanish, because the stuff that AI can do well is limited to certain types of digital illustration and animation, and you need human, creative problem-solving for new creative work, even on industrial levels with lots of automating tools in the workflow. art directors with good sense can see that. big name editorial illustrators are going to remain big name editorial illustrators. etc. (tbh, I think even the stuff AI is 'good at' looks dogshit a lot of the time, hence my disinterest in it, but that's a personal valuation and has no economic bearing.)

I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, especially because managers and execs are often stupid and have bad taste and want to 'incorporate AI' when it makes no fucking sense, and would gladly thin out their staff for any reason. but that is ultimately a labour problem and not an artistic one.

[eleni-cherie]

ok nobody's gonna see or care this but I'm gonna rant bc I am sick of my life and maybe someone can relate: so long story short, I'm a 27 year old graphic designer who was working 2 years at a big e-commerce shop until the new asshole supervisor didn't want to continue my contract that expired bc of his hurt ego bc I (along w pretty much everyone else bc he liked to pick fights w ppl from all departments bc he got into everyone's business) dared to argue w him BC HE KEPT CHANGING HIS MIND EVERY TWO MINS AND KEPT CONTRADICTING HIMSELF ALL THE TIME. so I lost my job last October and ever since I'm unemployed. I live in germany (Berlin) so I get unemployment money, but it only lasts for a year and it's already the end of July and I still can't manage finding a job although I've probably applied to 90 jobs by now of which only about 10-15 turned into job interviews - or the new trend "getting to know you meetings". of which only 1 invited me for a 2nd interview. now I get there's sadly so many designers, the job market is kinda oversaturated and for one job probably 20-30 ppl apply. but then sometimes this isn't even the problem. I had an interview for what seemed to be my dream job so I was super excited for this but then when I met the two guys doing it, they were very underwhelming. I mean little to no reaction to what I was telling them about myself and at the end they only asked 3 quite superficial questions. that's it. meanwhile others for companies I'm less suitable for, ask me like 20. then there's this other case, where they give you tasks and I don't mind tasks but one time I'd have needed the whole creative suit for them and like - hello? I'm unemployed and don't have the extra money to spend 60 euros every month on Adobe? I only an old Photoshop Version and that's it. then another time they gave me tasks that were only 40% graphic design related (but very vague descriptions/no real info) and 60% marketing/copyright related and like sorry, but I only have basic marketing knowledge and I'm not a fcking ad writer? there's this trend nowadays, they say they want a graphic designer but what they really want is a graphic designer / marketing expert / social media manager / copywriter / photographer / editor / etc. but still w only a graphic designer salary, so they don't have to pay five different ppl. like FCK YOU!

and thing is, in my desperation I even applied to random jobs (which said "No experience needed" in the description) like vendor or barrista. even in a copyshop where I thought I should fit in bc of my knowledge of print products, but either no response at all or I "lacked sale experience". bc Idk how it's in other countries but here you need a certificate for anything. even for a shop vendor you need a 3 year long apprenticeship. for a moment I contemplated going freelance or self-employed but a) I got no fcking clue how and what I have to do and b) taxes and insurance system in Germany is insane, I read an article and was overwhelmed.

So yeah, I'm getting fed up and sad and mad mostly also very anxious about my fcking future bc it honestly seems like I'll end up just moving back to my parents at this point. idk what to do anymore. I try and try and try, but nothing happens and I'm just done. the pressure is overwhelming and the sad thing is, I purposely decided not to visit my relatives/my grandparents this summer (the live in greece) thinking I "might find a job" and even if not, I don't have the extra money for plane tickets! they're extremely overpriced. and it's sad bc whenever I talk to my grandparents they say they miss me and how they're worried about me being unemployed. and my grandparents aren't the youngest anymore either (83 and 89) and I haven't seen then in a year, so that only saddens me more on top of feeling like an overall loser.

[causticsunshine]

if he’s gonna claim to be a man of the people, indie artist, he needs to do better. imma need him to be more vocally progressive than this bullshit.

hiii anon i'm going to reply to you and some other anons i got on this topic as well, just because this has now turned into a Discussion and it seems people may be taking my initial annoyance at any potential interest louis may have in AI—and whatever direction that potential interest may go, but that is hopefully largely anti AI in regards to how it's largely being used rn—as possibly misdirected due to the space he was in being titled 'Is AI the end of humanity?' (+ comparing two differently functioning AI engines)

but i want to reply to you first, and say: yes!! it just doesn't make sense to me how someone who preaches artistic integrity, being true to yourself and your work, yk, that the Big Boss Man Indie Artist himself, could have any vested interest in tools that are used to literally steal art for profit, unless it was to try and find a way to make these tools obsolete!

now, to the other anons i got, which had to say this:

(my reply to these inquiries btw will likely give more support to my reply to our original anon on this post as well! also put it behind a cut because i get a bit wordy soz)

as the space was over before i even saw the post—or i at least couldn't access it, simply couldn't find it, etc.—i couldn't listen in and find out what exactly the discussion was deducing. while it would seem by the first half of the space's title that they were just talking about potential pros and cons to AI usage, the subtitle of the space, putting musty elon's AI machine up against ChatGPT, made/makes me a bit more apprehensive of how the subject of AI was being discussed.

(unless, of course, the goal was still to discuss the differences between two different AI tools, as well as their individual pros and cons and how both may end up relating to the first part of the space's title: is AI the end for us?

because i think it is really important for us to discuss the ways we can use different forms of AI to help us, as well as the ways we can use it to hurt us.)

while i definitely appreciate the anon in the first screencap for pointing out that while AI (as it's being used most currently) in general is still very much bullshit, that ChatGPT does have potential to be helpful as a writing aid and did offer them help in school, i'm still apprehensive of how it was being discussed in the space, and what pros and cons were possibly being touched on. especially if this was louis', or really anyone else's, primary education source.

(also while i do know at its core what ChatGPT is, i haven't personally used it, so i can't vouch for its overall efficiency or even it's morality as a writing AI tool!)

i say this because i personally already have a fundamental issue with AI tools 9.8 times out of 10, because of how these current big AI tools work, are being marketed and used, and what purpose they truly end up serving in the end, which is: to data mine and steal from artists/creatives/people putting their work up on the public internet to turn a profit without doing any of the actual work!

plus, as someone who actively draws and writes, puts their work out on the internet for consumption, and who's been trying to do freelancing for years—as well as someone who has also had their work stolen on more than one occasion before! without the help of machines!—i know firsthand how much most artists are underpaid and how much our professions and accomplishments are belittled, all while being demanded to work constantly for people to largely enjoy our content for free.

so tldr: even if louis was in that space just to hear about the dangers of AI, or how one system may be better/worse than another, the pros and cons of both, what have you, i don't really think you can blame anyone for being nervous of him having any vested interest in the subject due to how he approached NFTs, and i say this because there's a lot of crossover between people who utilize(d) NFTs for capital gains, and people who use AI for the same reason, as well as people who are trying to market AI as they did NFTs: as a business model rather than huge source of creative theft (and in some cases, data mining too!)

i will say though, in argument to AI, that at LEAST AI art theft machines can/could be altered and thus used as a tool to help the communities and people they're currently stealing from, such as being used to help create art references, alter your own works in a new method of editing or bolstering your end product, even protecting from art theft (which i believe a university tech team somewhere in the US is actually working on rn!)

if louis were to clarify that he's wholly against the misuse of AI as a pocket-lining theft module, i'd gladly redact my earlier statement and proudly thank him for educating himself on the matter and speaking up against it! like, i'd genuinely love that! but, because of how much crossover exists between AI and NFT users and how he initially approached NFTs in a pro-model sort of way (from what we were able to see), it makes me honestly exasperated to see him engage at all in discussion on AI, without true clarification on how that discussion is being put across.

especially seeing as how much he promotes originality and being proud of one's own work and ideas.

[elysiumwaits]

New Year, New Experiences

The days between Christmas and January 1st is a lot like a hangover for me. 

I lose track of time. Everything feels a little weird and unbalanced. I just had a really good time, but now I'm anxious about what's ahead of me, whether that's going to be a wine headache in the morning or a disastrous year of my life. There are exactly 6 days to survive in that liminal space between this year and the next. This week is the butt of the bread loaf that makes up the year.

That said, this time is really important for me as a human being, because I finally have time to stop and think. Another year down and gone - what did I do? What would I have done differently? What do I hope to do next year? When is the store actually open so I can get discount Christmas candy? Where am I going to put this air fryer?

Real talk, I am the type of person that has to pencil in time for self-reflection. What the past few days has done for me is offered a perspective for my life and relationships, courtesy of the ticking time-clock that I'm suddenly seeing over my shoulder. 2023 is going to be a big year for me. I'm newly married to a wonderful, amazing human that's helped me realize how much of my life I haven't been living. I finally feel safe enough to explore in ways I never have before, whether that's due to my own circumstances or society or whatever. My anxieties and fears have done a lot to hold me back over my life, and I've only started to realize just how much I've never done but really really wanted to. It doesn't help that I turn 30 in February. 

There are a few things that have been on my general bucket list forever: start a blog, find a way to help people with all of my random knowledge, make people feel less alone, talk about things that should be talked about, "live my best life." At least, at the very least, try.This blog is me checking off a few different things on that list. It's also me giving myself a way to stop letting my health, my anxiety, my circumstances, and so many other things dictate what a meaningful, authentic life means to me. 

Part of that life for me is always going to be sex. My relationship with sex is difficult at best, but it wasn't always that way. I can't stand the idea of going through life without trying some things that I want, that are available, that are perfectly fine when all parties consent, etc etc, but never doing those things because of the shadow of a man in my past or my own brain trying to drag me into an anxiety spiral. Are those things going to win the battles sometimes? Absolutely. Are they going to win the war? Nope. I won't let them.

So here it is. A 2023 "bucket list." More of a list of wants, needs, and goals. I'm going to give myself permission to take up space, to be a little selfish, to sit somewhere and pretend I'm Carrie Bradshaw for a little bit (without the whole toxic friendships and Mr. Big part, and also without the insanity of freelance writing in New York as a career, oh my god, I'd be living in a shoebox). I may add to this list, I may remove from this list. I may ask for help with some things or advice for others. 

And yes, the first one is a "gimme."

Start a sex/life blog for advice and journaling

Join the local BDSM/kink community

Start a sticker store

Become more comfortable with my body in lingerie and photos

Go to more open mics and comedy shows

Have good sex

Answer questions about sex/life with research and advice

Simple, right? I work at an adult toy store, so some of these should be a little easy to get the materials for. Starting a sticker store is something I've always wanted to do, mostly for fandoms and such, but requires me to have a tablet first. As for the open mics and comedy shows, I honestly just need to be better about marketing myself and making myself work through the mental slumps that come with being creative and also alive.

You all can help me with the questions. What do people want to know? Would you all want a basic explainer to bondage? A list of myths and misconceptions about anal sex? Reviews of all the roses? Would you want to know how the performance enhancers work? Or how about how to start a cam show, or how to explore your fantasies, or how to give your partner the first orgasm of their life? I have histories of pin-ups, of the adult industry, and a bunch of random and interesting facts (did you know that the first million-dollar budget for a porno was for the movie Pirates? did you know that there's a whole musical genre specifically for the adult industry? did you know that the artificial banana flavor we know is a different flavor than the actual bananas most of us eat?) about life, relationships, sex, cool shit, experiences, and more. In order to really expand my own horizons, I need the dialogue that comes with interaction. Let me google the weird stuff so you don't have to.

Anyway, that's what I'm going for. "Live better," I guess, is how this can all be summed up! Wish me luck, and stay tuned, I guess.

[buffysummers]

this might be a shitty suggestion bc i don’t 100% know what i’m talking about, but is there any way you could freelance as a side gig with your gif making expertise? surely that’s a skill in demand especially for brands who need people to make gif advertisements for social media?

you’re really good at this gif stuff (like REALLY good), and there’s got to be a market in that somewhere

Thank you for saying that! I appreciate you taking time to leave me this suggestion❤️

I've tried to make money through my giffing but it has proven to be fruitless :( I've tried to get graphic design positions using my gifsets to prove my experience, but since I don't have *official* experience working as a graphic designer with a reputable company, I am often overlooked.

That's why I have my tip option on, through desperation lol. But no one seems to want to tip content creators, whether they can't afford to (which is understandable ofc!) or because they don't see it as art or value it.

I applied to like 10 jobs today so hopefully I hear something.

[reluctantvnnerd]

Hi everyone. I know there have been a lot of opinions about the RSS Patreon, and I'm not going to go into that because I think people's opinions are valid on both sides, except for the butt walruses who harassed people.

That being said, I think I have some information that other people might get some value from. Back in the before times I spent 6 years working in recruiting and UX research for a AAA gaming company. My partner has also worked in the game industry as both a programmer and a product manager. I am very familiar with the salaries people get paid around the country for making video games. I also own a small business where I manufacture my own fandom merch. I think these make me qualified to talk about the subject of cost when it comes to this project, at least in a very small sense.

The one criticism I really thought was unfair, was the accusation that RSS was being fiscally irrisponsible because they were starting a Patreon. That isn't a sign of money mismanagement, that is the sign of a company looking for a way to sustainably continue to do their work.

Work is the piece of the equation that I think a lot of people aren't remembering. By which I mean that a lot of people aren't keeping in mind the is cost of labor. NO ONE on the TS team is making a living wage from that Kickstarter money, I promise you.

Now I'm not even talking living wage in a place like San Francisco or Seattle ($41 an hour is a living wage in Seattle, for reference.) I did a little digging in the part of Florida where I used to work for said large company. They severely underpay in that area, and yet the living wage for people in entertainment, not even tech, is about $65k a year, and that's usually just based on fair market value for a studio apartment and no recreation at all.

There are 12 people on the RSS team. If they all made a living wage of $65k a year, that would be $780,000 to have them work full time for one year.

Now keep in mind that is a super low ball estimate of cost. Let's talk about how much you have to pay to hire a programmer in Seattle, which has many large game companies. On the low end salaries probably start around 100k and go up to $250k for a really senior programmer. If you had 4 Sr. programmers on your team you could easily spend a million dollars in salary alone, and that's not even considering things like insurance.

RSS has already been working on the game for over a year, and a significant portion of the cost of the Kickstarter is likely going to merch, not labor. There is no way anyone working on this game is being paid what they deserve, and they're likely working on top of fairly intensive 9 to 5 jobs, or freelance work. They're doing a massive lift on an amazing game and probably making pennies from it. If you backed the Kickstarter you may have read the update about the team creating a tool from scratch to help improve the game. That's a BIG DEAL and I think speaks to the talent and dedication of the team.

Which brings me to my next important note that I share as a business owner, specifically about merch. Imagine how much time and money you think it will take to put out a product. Now multiply it by 3, bare minimum. That's what it's like manufacturing a product. What I make isn't even on the scale of this game's merch, and it's still a battle every time.

So many costs and delays are completely out of your hands. We do our manufacturing in house (literally in my house) and even then we had one of our 3d printers die three days before our first show. Suddenly I'm out $350 for a damn printer that I never expected to buy. And if manufacturing for merch is anything like manufacturing for makeup (another special interest) factories will even bump your order for bigger customers. It's brutal.

Sure, you budget for some wiggle room, but there are simply things you can't predict, like ships getting stuck in the Suez canal, or the a global pandemic. You can't predict them and you can't always easily absorb the cost, even though you did nothing wrong. You find yourself making frustrating decisions where you have to do things like balance quality with speed, and being slowed down like that is bloody soul crushing if I'm being honest.

All that is to say I don't think most people are being malicious when they question the way RSS is using the KS funds (some people definitely are and they can walk on flaming Legos) but I also think they may simply be operating without all the information.

And I want to cut some folks off at the pass - before you start talking about transparency, please remember that backing a Kickstarter isn't an investment, it's a gamble. There is no guarantee you'll get what you pay for, and once they've taken your money the devs could buy $900k of silly string and we'd all be out of luck because that's how gambling works.

I think we're going to get a great game from RSS, but they aren't a publicly traded company, we aren't shareholders (I include myself as a day 1 backer) and we don't have any right to ask them for things like financial information. Also why do we want them trying to justify spending instead of perfecting Leander's massive tiddies and Vere's 200 belts?

Anyway sorry, I know that was incredibly long, but I hope it soothes some fears for people who haven't really been sure what's going on, or are simply curious about video game salaries and manufacturing. Please keep in mind the cost of labor, and how many things can be outside of a company's hands. Please don't assume people are greedy or doing a bad job when we haven't even come close to the launch date of the product. How about we all chill and go play the demo again?

Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback regarding our upcoming Patreon! We sincerely apologize for any confusion the announcement caused. The Patreon will be put on pause for now while we reevaluate some things! In the meantime, we ask that you please refrain from posting hostile or threatening messages or sending them to our team members. We greatly appreciate your kindness.

[defiantbird]

Bruhs, I have had A Day.

I'm not gonna go too far into it cause it's stupid. Suffice to say I fell for an extremely obvious scam, but thankfully it was a "sign up for our third party thing and we'll help you for a huge fee" scam and not a "clear out your bank account and run" scam. It was extraordinarily stressful and it took me 2 hours of being on the phone to fix it. I hate talking on the phone.

I also got my shots, and I'm having weird feelings about my parents randomly paying for things for me.

My bestie bought me lunch the last time I saw him. I mentioned feeling guilty and he told me something really sweet about how friends should be able to rely on each other in tough times. A few months ago, another friend I hadn't seen in a while covered lunch for us as well.

I'm going on a hike next month and I need shoes for it. My dad works part-time at an athletic shoe store. Today he messages me with a picture showing a pair and asks if I want 'em. I said yes and told him to tell me what it came to. He said it was on him, and also bought me new running shoes

I'm in a weird place. A long time ago my SIL told me that my middle brother once said I'm "a princess". I see how it looks from the outside. I'm the youngest and I'm the only girl. I also have chronic depression. My parents did not and do not really know what to do about it besides getting me on meds as a kid, so sometimes I think they do things like this to cheer me up.

I'm grateful, really. I'm also just wondering if I look like a sad wet creature and it makes people want to pay for me.

I mean. I know that's not real. Literally every person who has given me things recently said it's because they love me. And I'm super lucky for that. But also. I was raised Catholic.

I guess I just feel like a sad wet creature.

I have an interview for a contract job Thursday. Other than that possibility, I have no income right now. It's hard to get into the freelance editing market when so many people do it. I sometimes wonder if I could make any money if I offered editing services here.

Or, I've set up a profile for dog walking. Or, maybe I can get paid to do birthday cakes.

I have good savings, I have good support, but it's so uncomfortable for me. I built my savings by pretending since I was a teenager that that money was untouchable. Having to touch it feels bad. Feeling like I can't spend much money to go to restaurants or out with friends feels bad. I want to pay for my friend's lunches. And I will when I can again. But man. It's hard not to feel pathetic right now.

Really ought to stop wallowing and embrace gratitude for how many people love me.

[serenelysimple]

I'm convinced that everybody hates me.

An update for the past two years since I stopped posting here in 2022.

2022 - Intense relationship and personal doubts.

2023 - My job since 2020 started to do a face-to-face setup. It was actually fun and comfortable. I am anxious and have self-doubts to begin with. But I didn't realize how heavy it would feel to be talked about behind my back, and be called selfish. I was criticized for the way I managed the studio, and for taking my time to conceptualize and produce marketing assets. They said my designs were ugly. They said I spoke too slowly. I was called selfish for reflecting and expressing my feelings — about how my colleagues looked and treated me. I still managed to lead the scholars and produce a recital.

2024 - It was the same as 2023 but heavier since I needed to lead interns and new employees. My boss wanted me to focus on administrative work and was willing to replace me the day before my art classes, without orienting my lesson plan to the person who would replace me. I also managed to handle and lead another recital and art gallery and created the lesson plans. The teacher who replaced me earned twice more because she was assigned to teach the classes I planned, even though she did not follow most of them and didn't execute the techniques properly. I also resigned due to the unfair treatment during the summer classes and the days leading to it. They doubted and stepped on me. They didn't even raise my salary after the promotion. Now, they are thinking that I am just after the money, when in reality, I sacrificed a good freelancing career, and the possibility to try corporate jobs because I believed in their vision. I have been blinded by good words, despite being treated like shit.

Still, 2024 - After quitting my job at the studio, I got hired to a corporate work-from-home job. I'm still under probation until February 2025, which makes me anxious about the possibility that I will not be regularized because of how slowly I work on the marketing materials. Back in the studio, it was a bit easy but now, I have the skills but don't have enough speed to finish them.

I feel like I wasted four years. During those years, my classmates were already married, comfortable, traveling, receiving multiple awards, and so much more. At 29, I am still just beginning. And just when I thought I would be more independent and comfortable now that I had a new job, I suddenly got the responsibility of feeding 3 (my aunt, and two cousins) people passed on to me. They told me "help would be given", but I am the only person working my ass off to feed them and give them school materials. While I can't disclose why the responsibility of caring for them was passed on to me, I did not ask for it and was not ready.

I asked God many times, "Why do these things happen to me at times when I want to fix myself?"

I'm just trying to have a good day and have peaceful meals. I don't want to entertain traumatic stories daily because I wasn't involved in their problems and I have no idea who they are talking about anyway. Am I selfish for trying to protect myself, because absorbing someone's words and negative energy causes me stress? I'm feeling stressed because I have to step out of my comfort zone, deal with debts that I didn't cause, and ensure I stay composed for my new job.

And what if I really am not talented enough? Maybe I am not getting what I thought I deserved, because I am not really meant for it. Because I am just an average person. I don't work twice as hard as my classmates, so I don't have to expect that I would receive the same recognition that they are getting.

I'm convinced that everybody hates me from the people who blocked me to protect their peace, to being uninvited and not being considered. I understand that. I don't like myself either.

[myagencyexperiences]

The Power of Personal Branding: Leveraging Your Unique Identity

In today's world, personal branding is like giving yourself a unique stamp. It's about proudly displaying what makes you, well, you! Your personal brand is like your very own billboard that tells everyone who you are, what you're great at, and what matters to you. It's like having a sign that shouts out your special talents and passions for everyone to see.

What is Personal Branding

Personal branding is all about making yourself stand out from the crowd. It's like crafting your very own special identity that tells everyone who you are and what you're all about. It's like having your own spotlight that shines on you, showing off your talents, skills, and personality for everyone to see. Just like how superheroes have their own cool costumes and superpowers that make them unique, personal branding helps you show off what makes you special and awesome.

When you work on your personal brand, you're basically creating your own personal advertisement. It's like putting up a big sign that says, "Hey, this is me, and this is what I'm good at!" It helps people remember you and understand what you're passionate about. Personal branding is like having your own mini marketing campaign, where you get to show off the best parts of yourself to the world.

Why Does Personal Branding Matter?

Stand Out: Personal branding helps you stand out, just like how superheroes with their unique powers catch everyone's attention. It's like wearing a superhero cape in a crowd of ordinary clothes – people can't help but notice you!

Be Trusted: When people know what you're all about, they trust you more, just like how we trust our favourite superheroes to save the day. Building trust means people are more likely to want to work with you or listen to what you have to say.

Make Friends: Your personal brand helps you make friends and find cool opportunities, kind of like having a secret handshake that lets you connect with other awesome people who share your interests.

Get Cool Stuff: When people know who you are and what you're good at, they want to give you cool stuff to do. It's like how superheroes get called to save the city – but instead of saving the city, you might get cool job offers or get to work on exciting projects.

How to Build Your Personal Brand

Know Yourself: Knowing yourself is like finding your superpowers. Think about what makes you awesome – what do you enjoy doing the most? What are you really good at? These are the things that make up your superhero identity, setting you apart from the rest.

Tell Your Story: Everyone loves a good story, and yours is no exception! Share your journey – the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Talking about your experiences helps people get to know the real you, making you more relatable and understandable.

Look the Part: Just like how superheroes have their own cool costumes, your personal brand should look good too. Use the same colours and logos everywhere so people can easily recognise you. It's like having your own signature style that makes you stand out.

Help Others: Superheroes are all about helping others, and you can be too! Share helpful tips, offer advice, or simply be a friendly presence online. It shows people that you're someone they can trust and rely on.

Make Friends: Connect with other awesome people who share your interests. Leave comments, join conversations, and build relationships – it's like assembling your very own superhero team, ready to conquer the world together!

Conclusion

Personal branding is like putting on your superhero cape and showing the world how awesome you are. By letting people know who you are, what you're good at, and what you care about, you can stand out, make friends, and get cool opportunities. Whether you're a freelancer, entrepreneur, or business owner looking to boost your personal brand, or even a branding agency in Bangalore helping others do the same, embracing your uniqueness, sharing your story, and letting your personal brand shine is key to success in today's connected world. And for those in Bangalore seeking professional assistance in shaping their personal brand, partnering with a reputable branding agency in the city can provide invaluable guidance and support on their journey to building a strong and impactful personal brand.

[rozinaaa]

Notes on AI, Business, and Other Things

I really need to say something about this, since AI has now officially become too big to ignore, to the point where it doesn't seem like it's a fad anymore (it's only been just over a year, right?), but something that is inevitably here to stay, just like how the internet has been here to stay for the past 30 years or so.

For me, I realise that my stance on AI over the past year has gone from full on hatred to acceptance with a twinge (read: still a lot) of hatred attached, because on the one hand, it can be helpful and efficient at times (although these are usually few and far between, so it's pretty much hit and miss), but other times it's downright absurd.

What I really want to focus on, however, is how AI has changed my approach to things, and not necessarily in a good way, what with the likes of ChatGPT and DALL-E trying their very best to take the things I enjoy doing the most (writing and creating art), and doing that stuff for me, which is what I don't like, or something that I don't want to actually happen.

Sure, I'll probably use ChatGPT to write some cringy marketing copy for me (so that I don't have to deal with the firsthand embarrassment that comes with trying to sell my soul in the name of art), and refine it if I need to, but I will still write and write and write approximately 99.9% of things by myself, using my own mind and my own hands, instead of outsourcing it to some giant glorified thief and artist killer, which just remixes everything that exists.

However, isn't that what everyone's done to some extent, where we've just remixed things and iterated them by mainly improving upon them? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about that, so I'll probably look into this.

The main suspect for me is the likes of DALL-E making illustration as a profession and a trade essentially become obsolete, since now, anyone can type a silly little prompt into a silly little prompt box (also known as prompt engineering, which sounds like a load of nonsense, because that's just a really fancy way of telling a thing to do something for you, like telling a search engine what you want to look for, or telling Alexa to play you a song, but I wouldn't call it prompt engineering, although that's what it technically is), and they can just get a full blown image that looks deceptively detailed and realistic, until you actually look at it for more than 5 seconds, and when you begin to slowly notice all of the AI generated mistakes unravel themselves right in front of you, such as noticing a hand having a ridiculous amount of fingers on it, but I've got room to talk since I've been through art school and can't draw hands that well, but then again, realism isn't my thing.

I do enjoy creating illustrations (mainly for myself), but as of recently, it's felt a bit lackluster, and I'm not sure if it's just me, or if that's how it is now, especially with AI on the rise, so this probably explains my pivot into graphic design, with a very strong focus on web design (it's literally my full time job, but even if I decided to go freelance again, I would focus purely on web design (which also includes UX and UI design, essentially the things that I've learned on the job), although this is something that I've been wanting to do for a long time now, so I guess I'm already halfway there since I'm doing it for one company, rather than many different clients, without having to constantly market myself, but I want to be able to get over that hurdle in a way that suits me, so that I don't get burned out), especially now that I know that I actually prefer doing things digitally, and focusing on things that you can interact with, since I've got some actual industry experience under my belt.

I guess I could find a way to somehow creatively incorporate illustration (as a discipline) into websites, just to keep it interesting, as well as being able to keep both things afloat, whilst somehow doing it in a way that's harder for an AI to replicate, especially now that I know that it's inevitable, and there's not much I can do with it, but to embrace it in a way that I can (such as using it to be my marketing and sales department for me), so that I can move with the times, because the one thing I've realised is that being a stubborn Luddite (basically someone who doesn't embrace new technologies and refuses to keep up with the times) is that it gets me nowhere fast, but instead, it makes my life harder than it has to be.

I also think that working at a tech startup has forced me to stop being such a Luddite and grumpy boomer about things, and has allowed me to be more open minded about mainstream technology and platforms again, especially since the software that I'm designing for them uses AI (not to create art or try to replace me, but to detect things more effectively, although knowing all of the inner workings of this particular AI are currently hidden in multiple layers of abstraction, which I would have to spend a lot of time unravelling as it would contain an insane amount of technicalities that only an expert in the field would be able to understand), which I'm surprisingly okay about, and is probably why I've slowly started to have a neutral approach towards AI, since it's just a tool that can be used for many different things.

To be honest, I think a lot of this comes from unlearning borderline toxic art school ways, where you usually end up being overly precious about your work and attaching way too much meaning to it (which I've never really liked, since things can usually exist without a load of philosophical nonsense, just so as long as it does what it's supposed to do), because the one thing I've realised about actually creating things (and trust me, I've had to create multiple iterations of the same design by listening to feedback, focusing on what would actually work, and sometimes coming back to things after spending weeks away from it), is that it's okay to let go of it, as well as knowing that the first thing you do isn't always going to be the best thing that you've done.

This could also potentially be applied to business, especially if I decide to go freelance again, because as long as I have a minimum viable product, I could always build upon it and improve it, instead of making it perfect from the word go, because that never actually happens, and would end up causing a lot of unnecessary stress.

Additionally, this is why software (especially now that I've been working within a software team) has different versions and releases, since everyone on the team focuses on what went well, what could be improved upon, and what features to include, along with features to remove or put somewhere else.

This also leads me to think about my little side project where I've curated digital art/things that exist at the intersection of art and technology (which I haven't worked on in a while due to working full time, and finding it virtually impossible to update the site on my personal laptop, in which I finally put Linux on and complicated the whole development process for no reason, but something that I kinda regret doing, although that laptop is slow no matter what, so that's essentially my sign to upgrade it once and for all), and although it's currently just a list of things in alphabetical order, I want to find a way to make it more accessible to other users (especially now that I've also learned about user experience), as well as making it easier to find things, perhaps putting items from the really long list into different categories, or completely updating the website so that I can still have the creative freedom to design it the way I want without having to write any code, but for me personally, discussing iteration will be for another post, because I've already talked about AI and business, so I think I'll leave it at that.

[secretlifeofmoney]

Free Article Content

In an effort to increase traffic to their website and increase their bottom line, some bloggers use articles from free content sources. This is extremely useful for the people who have only recently started working as affiliates for different businesses, do not yet have any funding, and must create smaller niche websites to attract visitors in order to start generating income.

Even while it may often be the only choice for people with zero budgets, this is not a strategy that can successfully increase traffic to your website or income. This could hurt your efforts to create a business for a few different reasons.

#1 - Search Engines

Your website will only be considered by search engines if it has content that is 100% unique and not copied from other websites. Less sites sharing your content means less of a benefit to your ability to rank well in search engines.

In order for people to find your website and click on your affiliate links, you must have high search engine rankings. You won't ever generate income if you can't even attract visitors. Priority one should be given to improving your website's SEO so that you will eventually rank highly enough to attract customers.

#2 - Getting visitors to click

It takes a lot of work to rank highly in search engine results pages and attract customers, but sadly this is only half the battle. Also, you must be successful in convincing those customers to click on your affiliate links. They will be less inclined to click on your links if they find the same content on your site that they have already read on a lot of other websites. This is so because most customers prefer to buy items that have been highly recommended by those they respect or who they believe to be experts in the field.

You will come out as someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about if your content is just copied from other websites. As a result, people won't trust your product recommendations. As a result, fewer people will be inclined to click through on the page.

#3 - Author Bylines

The majority of free content is only made available to you if you agree to credit the authors in the article's byline (you can get into trouble if you try to use it without following the stipulated rules). Given that most author bylines contain links; this presents a challenge. After reading an article that really piques their interest, there's a good chance they'll click on the author's byline link rather than one of your affiliate links. To begin with, these authors provide free articles just for the purpose of promoting their names and links to the general audience. By using this kind of content, you run the risk of losing potential paying website visitors.

Simply because you utilized free website content from blog posts, you are looking at a significant decrease in revenue once you combine these three issues. If you have the money to purchase your own unique content, you should do so even though it could be your only choice for some. However, if you don't have the resources, you could be better off creating your own content first and then hiring experts once you have some money to work with.

Freelance Writers

You can search through several outsourcing companies to hire a freelance writer to help you expand your business and your website if you are unable or do not want to create your articles yourself. These freelancers will "ghost write" articles for you, which means that you will own the copyrights and can use the content however you like. Although freelance writers have a talent for writing, they prefer to earn quick cash by writing for others rather than investing the time to create a niche website that will require extensive marketing and promotion in order to start generating income. They are typically not marketers, but rather people with a talent for writing. On the other side, marketers are the ones who want to profit from content. Instead of just getting a one-time payment, they want to construct websites that will bring in money over time. You will have a fair chance to obtain the original, high-quality content you need to create your niche website thanks to freelance writers.

How Much Can I Make?

Each person has a different earning potential by posting articles and affiliate links to their website. The success of your website will largely determine how much money you can make. This refers to achieving high search engine ranks through SEO efforts, creating interesting and educational content for your site, creating your site around a strong niche topic, as well as the size of your site and the number of sites you own.

However, most people shouldn't expect this kind of success, especially if you are very new, as that kind of success typically only comes with experience and gained skill. Some people claim to make as much as $10,000 per month ($120,000 per year) through building and promoting niche sites, but most people shouldn't expect this kind of success. After putting in months of work to increase traffic and connect with quality affiliates, a realistic revenue from a niche site could range from $500 to $1,000 per month. However, because this is recurring income, you will continue to profit from your work on that one site each month; it is not a one-time purchase.

Most people continue to create niche sites once they have a popular website. The more the income you can produce, the more sites you should create. Some people also value creating websites that load quickly and are brief over ones that are a little bit longer. It should be mentioned that you will probably make more money from each of your sites the bigger they are.

As you get started, it's important to keep in mind that your first site will always be the most challenging because you're still learning the ins and outs of the business and that not everyone is cut out for marketing and promoting niche websites. Everyone in this business must accept the risk that it may not work out for them and that they could lose some money as a result.

If this is truly what you want to do, it's important that you give it your best effort before giving up. Your first site could take a while, the work might be boring, and you might feel like giving up. But if you quit too soon, you'll never know what may have been. And you might turn out to be the next successful website marketer!

And if you want to learn more about affiliate marketing and how to make money online

Just CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE TRAINING