For once in my life something went according
to plan. Usually when I am planning to release something and things are going
in the right direction, the invisible force in charge of my curse is alerted
(perhaps by means of a secret alarm going off in his or her office) to this and
pulls out all the stops in order to derail things. He or she (I’m guessing it’ll
be a she given how most of the bad luck and career stalling has been the fault
of women – that’s not fair on women so I’ll rephrase it to ‘mental girlfriend
in my early twenties’ and ‘wife’) must have been on holiday because there was a
range of things she could have done in order to scupper the release of the
bonus Saturday edition of The Sunday Alternative;
disconnected or slowed down my Internet, broken my laptop, or involved me in an
accident that ended up with me losing my fingers rendering me unable to type
the show blog or advertise it on social media. Thankfully nothing of the sort
occurred and the Saturday bonus went live this morning without a hitch.
Even better was the fact that the podcast
enjoyed a steady climb in listeners all day, not quite matching my biggest
figure of all time but respectable enough and there is a week to go of course. Releasing
the regular Sunday podcast tomorrow might put an end to the ratings climb of
today’s edition because with it being a new music show it never seems to achieve
hits once the dust has settled. Putting the link at the bottom of every daily
blog has helped obtain a small trickle throughout the week but nothing compared
to the first 24 hours of traffic. If there is a knock-on effect on the figures
for the main Sunday podcast, or if it helps to improve things, will help in my
decision as to whether or not to continue making two podcasts a week.
As from this week I have added a little note
about the need for donations in order to keep things going. While I don’t
expect people to pay for a regular podcast it seems a little bit of a punch to
my face that the biggest thing I do in terms of audience brings in the smallest
amount of money. The last thing I want to do is to have the podcast sponsored
as I don’t want to relinquish any creative control, although I might consider
running maybe three adverts, beginning middle and end, as this shouldn’t cause
too much disruption to the flow. I also don’t want to come over as too heavy
handed with asking for donations (I only quickly mention it at the end of the
podcast) and risk driving away the audience and goodwill I have built up for
The Sunday Alternative name as a media entity. Don’t get me wrong, I do the
podcast for the love of discovering and sharing new music and money shouldn’t
be an issue. It isn’t that I want to be paid to do the podcast; I do however
want to be able to create additional free entertainment. There are many avenues
to explore when it comes to using the Internet as an entertainment medium and I
have ideas coming out of my ears for music broadcasting, comedy and
documentary, none of which can be done with small change and buttons.
On a lighter note, Jack and I had a lovely
time at the park this morning.
Listen to The Sunday Alternative Saturday Bonus Podcast here.
===
February housekeeping
I rely on donations via the PayPal button to enable me to provide free
online content. This year there are plans afoot for more podcasts plus
documentaries, comedy sketches, short films and other content that will be
available free of charge.
My audio books can be downloaded from my Bandcamp page.
My books (including my latest, Bowie Day), are
available to download to your Kindle.
This daily blog can be delivered to your Kindle for just 99p a month
If you want an audio book or e-book and would prefer me to get more
money, cutting out the corporate middlemen (or women) then make a donation of
one pound or more, and then email me with ‘I paid a pound or more’ in the
subject line. In the email simply tell me what you want and I’ll email it to
you.
