The Art of Money Making With a Song in Your Heart and a Blog on the Web

Check out this article. It's about a "shaggy" looking 36 year old computer programmer who somehow convinced his wife to bless the idea of him quitting his job and becoming a full time singer and song-writer. Not an easy feat for her when you consider bills, the economy and the price of fuel. He made a rule for himself that he would write and record a song each week and then post it to his blog. He stuck to his goal through all the writer's block and difficulty. He had always had a dream of being a full-time musician and figured this huge challenge would be the way to do it. Those of you who are thinking "big deal" so the guy is a full time musician consider the fact that in order to be a full time anything you have to spend all of your time doing it. This means you can't spend any of your time with some other job which makes you any sort of money or compensation. Not because it's against the rules but simply because there isn't any time. So has he become successful? Who knows? I guess that would be based on what your definition of success is. He has however made a "reasonable middle class living" at it. He pulls in between $3000 and $5000 with the CD's and digital downloads of his music on iTunes. I don't know how that compares to being an average computer programmer but I do know how it compares to what I make. I make between $1500 and $3000 a month doing what I do and only parts of it are fun and none of it is what I have ever dreamed of doing. To me if you can make the minimum it takes you to just live while doing something you've dreamed of doing most of your life then you are successful. I plan to move to LA one day and become an actress or singer. Does that mean I will be famous and have paparazzi chasing me around on the streets? Likely no. It does mean however that little children all over the country will recognize my voice when I speak because I'm the voice of their favorite cartoon character. As long as I make between $3000 and $5000 a month then I'll be happy. So kudos to this guy (Jonathan Coulton) for doing his thing and more kudos for getting published in the New York Times and being the 3rd most linked article on blogs for just today. This means that he has in one day increased his blog traffic from more than 3,000 people daily on average to who knows how many. I have to say I'm a bit jealous that I haven't spent some of the money I blow on eating out every day on some recording equipment and a few guitar lessons. I had the voice lessons in middle school.

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achieving, Americans, Blog tools, Challenges, computer, daily, Do-It-Yourself, Entertainment, extra money, focus, General, goals, guitar, husbands, interesting, job, Jonathan Coulton, music, New York Times, news, purpose

Checking in

Hello All. I wanted to drop a line and let you know that all is fine. I have not been on the blog since January 5th because life has been very busy. I have been fighting with my apartment management company to get them to perform maintenance for all of the tenants. They have not done any significant maintenance for 2 years now and when they slacked on performing my maintenance I got fed up and started a war. I first went around the entire complex and took pictures of every problem I could see. The worst of which was the sewage spewing from the back of our building and into the home-owner next door's yard. After that I went door to door in the complex notifying tenants of the goings on and asking them if they had any problems. All of them allowed me to inspect their apartments and take pictures of the problems. When that process is complete I am writing letters for all of the tenants requesting that the code enforcement officer come and inspect their apartments for problems. In the mean time I went to a city council meeting and let them know what was going on by giving them a 6 page typed report of the violations from half of the complex which totalled 177 or so violations. I have a couple of court cases to prepare for on Wednesday that I hope to help tenants win or at least get a continuance on. I am also doing lots and lots of taste testing trials for all the food samples I received. I will be publishing all of them when I am done. Some companies wanted you to know what their products were like and others didn't so I will be publishing that information as well. Thanks to all the companies who provided me samples and thanks to all of my clients who decided to let me feed your kitties and dogs all sorts of tasty samples. All of the furry friends are being cared for in the mean time. Samson and Delila, Tiger Lily and Skye, Winnie and Mary Lou are all doing just great. I will be getting back into the blogging again soon but I just wanted to check in so you all know I'm alive. By the way if any of you are interested Meridian Management Company is the company who I have launched a war against. The city mayor met with them on Friday because of the gravity of the information I've brought forward about them. This company is in Atlanta, GA so if you have renters as friends or are a renter yourself and you know this company give me info. If you do not then hope you never do.

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Atlanta, GA, Child safety, Court, Do-It-Yourself, Family Issues, General, Journal, mold, pet sitting, public safety, Safety, sewage, slum lords, small business practices

2006, Brought To You By You

Check this article out if you are into blogging, videos, music and the like. It spot lights the increase in Do It Yourself websites in the last year as it relates to Music, Video and Blogging. If you're a blogger, a music lover or a video lover this article names some sites and links that you may be interested in using. Everyone knows about YouTube, Blogger, and MySpace but there are more.

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Technorati tags:
Blog tools, Blogger, Dailymotion, Do-It-Yourself, Entertainment, GarageBand, General, metacafe, MySpace, You Tube