Trying To Make Money Off This Blogging Thing

Before I start a blog post, the first thing I see once I sign into my Blogger is the list of the previous blog posts I've published.  Next to them are the number of times each blog post has been "watched."

Sometime in the last ... oh, year, two years? my views have gone from single digits to double digits.  That may not sound like a whole lot, but to me it does.  And once it started it never really stopped.  It doesn't get past the teens, but for my last Expenses Without Receipts post, I am at 63 and counting.  I don't know what's so special about the places I've been to and the things I bought, but actual live human beings or Russian bots want to know, so thank you!

The way it works with Blogger is that you get money commensurate with the number of views you get for each page.  Obviously you don't get anything for single-digit impressions.  But I've been at this game long enough where I remember, a long time ago, Blogger actually paid me $25 for all the posting I've done at Wailing And Failing.

I had been curious whether this upturn in viewership would accelerate my payments, so I went to a different part of Blogger (where, surprisingly, I had to re-enter my login) to see the payment structure.  When I saw it (and this was at least a couple years ago), they moved the payment threshold, the amount at which they would cut a check and deposit it into my account, from $25 to $100.  So even though I believed I'm rolling up the impressions my writing is making, the goal post has been moved four times away, so it still feels like I'm running toward a horizon that will never come.

So I'm now desperate to make this site more efficient.  Google has for years tried to sell me with ads and ad tools.  So right now I'm doing something -- namely a script that is supposed to trigger advertisements that have a more direct appeal to you, the watcher.  We'll see if it works.