I was approached recently by one of those companies asking if I would like to have my own Internet radio show. Bottom line is that for a contract fee of only $6,000-$8,000 a year (or something like that) I could have my own show. Lucky me.
Which means that if sponsors don't buy that many ads, then I would pay that much for the pleasure of streaming audio through a website, which is the accurate description of what is happening. It is really a misnomer to call it a radio show or a radio station if you cannot pick it up on a radio receiver.
Radio advertisers always buy ads based on how many people listen to a show. That is the first question they always ask. The follow up questions will be about what kinds of people listen to the show.
Magazine and newspaper advertisers want to know how many people read those publications. TV advertisers want to know how many people watch those shows. Even when people buy ads on a website, they want to know how many people go to that website.
If you were the advertiser, wouldn't you ask the same question? Would you be willing to pay thousands of dollars for an ad without knowing how many people listen to a show?
Ask yourself. How many hours a week do you listen to Internet talk radio shows?
The person selling the concept will tell you that being on an Internet talk radio show is a great idea because the whole world can tune into your show.
Yes, and the whole world can read our blogs and websites, but how many people do?
Success on the web is dependent on two things. Creating a great website is step one. Getting people to come to it is step two.
While being the host of your own radio show certainly appeals to a person's vanity, before shelling out your money, ask the usual questions. How many people listen to this Internet talk radio station? How do you know?
Personally, when I want to listen to the radio, I turn on the radio. When I am researching things on the web, writing emails or writing my blog, I am focused on my task. I do not want some talk show to be broadcast out of my computer while I am doing these other things.
If you really like the idea of having your own talk show, make your own podcasts and make them available on your own website, since you are already promoting your own website and trying to get people to come to it. Even if you have to hire someone to teach you how to make a podcast, it will be far, far less than buying one of those contracts.
And you won't have to try to persuade people to buy ads or listen to you by going to somebody else's website. You can simply invite them to listen to your podcasts and visit your website, which is what you really want them to do anyway.
Just some things for you to consider when you get that call.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Popular Romance
So tonight and tomorrow night, I will be doing tarot readings for people at the Rocky Mountain Romance Convention, a huge get together of romance novelists and their fans.
This should be a good fit, since one of the important questions most people ask about is their love life.
As of this date, I have been reading a lot of mystery, detective, suspense novels, some of which contain a bit of a romantic story in them, but I have not been reading romance novels.
The woman who runs the used bookstore where I trade most often says that she cannot keep enough paranormal romance in stock. There is a huge demand for stories that involve vampires, ghosts and such. Interesting that that category is so hot right now. Then again, those ghost busting shows have never been more popular on TV and mediums who bring messages from the dead have been popular for a number of recent years. So are vampire novels, tarot decks, and TV shows.
It will be interesting to see what all this means live and in person. I am looking forward to it. I think I am about to get another perspective on what puts the pop in popular. I expect that it will be a lot of fun reading for this group.
This should be a good fit, since one of the important questions most people ask about is their love life.
As of this date, I have been reading a lot of mystery, detective, suspense novels, some of which contain a bit of a romantic story in them, but I have not been reading romance novels.
The woman who runs the used bookstore where I trade most often says that she cannot keep enough paranormal romance in stock. There is a huge demand for stories that involve vampires, ghosts and such. Interesting that that category is so hot right now. Then again, those ghost busting shows have never been more popular on TV and mediums who bring messages from the dead have been popular for a number of recent years. So are vampire novels, tarot decks, and TV shows.
It will be interesting to see what all this means live and in person. I am looking forward to it. I think I am about to get another perspective on what puts the pop in popular. I expect that it will be a lot of fun reading for this group.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
The Pop in Popular
There was a time in my life when I read tons of non-fiction, history, biographies, how to books, self help books and for fun, some mainstream fiction. I knew that millions of other people were busy reading mysteries and romances, but I just never got around to that. There were so many subjects I wanted to know more about that reading for fun usually got squeezed out, except for perennially irresistible writers like Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut. But they were the exception rather than the usual fare.
Then one day several years ago, I felt like it was time to read some popular fiction just for fun. I was wanting to relax with an intriguing story populated with interesting characters.
The change started when I used to have long commutes to and from work and I wanted something else to listen to besides what was on the radio. You can only tolerate so many traffic updates while you are sitting in it, or hearing the same few bits of news and music repeated over and over. I went to the library and the bookstores and started listening to books on tape and CD while I was driving. I enjoy a well told story, and some of the authors who write popular fiction are good storytellers. You are not going to learn a lot of facts from them or get tips on how to improve your life, but you can get a story with interesting characters who make you want to know what happens next.
I liked listening to their stories so much that I started picking up more of the books in print by those authors. When I found an author I liked, I kept reading them, then looked for others who also had a style that appealed to me.
Now I know why some authors are popular. Of course, you can only read so much, so it is natural to gravitate to storytellers who really click with you.
Interesting to observe how we change over time.
Then one day several years ago, I felt like it was time to read some popular fiction just for fun. I was wanting to relax with an intriguing story populated with interesting characters.
The change started when I used to have long commutes to and from work and I wanted something else to listen to besides what was on the radio. You can only tolerate so many traffic updates while you are sitting in it, or hearing the same few bits of news and music repeated over and over. I went to the library and the bookstores and started listening to books on tape and CD while I was driving. I enjoy a well told story, and some of the authors who write popular fiction are good storytellers. You are not going to learn a lot of facts from them or get tips on how to improve your life, but you can get a story with interesting characters who make you want to know what happens next.
I liked listening to their stories so much that I started picking up more of the books in print by those authors. When I found an author I liked, I kept reading them, then looked for others who also had a style that appealed to me.
Now I know why some authors are popular. Of course, you can only read so much, so it is natural to gravitate to storytellers who really click with you.
Interesting to observe how we change over time.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Structures from Silence
Often, there is so much noise in the world that it is hard for us to digest the changes that we are encountering. Courage is required for our progress in uncertain times. There are times when we feel compelled to act quickly.
Then there are times when our best next move is to be silent, sense our feelings toward our next choice and let our intuition guide us toward the choice that is best for us.
In that silence we will sense our next best move, our best position, and we gather our strength to take the next step. As we look at each option in our mind's eye, we will be able to feel which one is stronger, and that is the one that is signaling us to come forward.
Quiet contemplation allows our spirit guides to work with us better. If an idea keeps coming back to us, that is one sign. If we keep getting a yes when we hold it in our inner vision, there is a warmth that illuminates our path and ignites our passion.
The silence is the breath that we blow on an ember to coax it to burst into flames and renew our light, our heat, our desire, our vision. Once that fire has warmed us, our next breath is the fuel that sets us in motion.
Then there are times when our best next move is to be silent, sense our feelings toward our next choice and let our intuition guide us toward the choice that is best for us.
In that silence we will sense our next best move, our best position, and we gather our strength to take the next step. As we look at each option in our mind's eye, we will be able to feel which one is stronger, and that is the one that is signaling us to come forward.
Quiet contemplation allows our spirit guides to work with us better. If an idea keeps coming back to us, that is one sign. If we keep getting a yes when we hold it in our inner vision, there is a warmth that illuminates our path and ignites our passion.
The silence is the breath that we blow on an ember to coax it to burst into flames and renew our light, our heat, our desire, our vision. Once that fire has warmed us, our next breath is the fuel that sets us in motion.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Immigration and Offshoring
So I got called back to work, starting tomorrow. I had a lovely week off, although without pay. That was due to my job being sent to India. Knowing that my last two jobs with this company have been transfered to India, at some point this one probably will go too. I was thinking about the situation we are in. Where I work, the company continues its plan to send as many jobs as possible overseas, where they can hire people cheaper than they can in the US.
Because of this I have seen more people come and go at work than I can name. Turnover is beyond ridiculous. It used to be a management philosophy that if you can keep reliable employees and train them to do different tasks over time, that would be the road to being profitable long term. But that was before execs started celebrating the joys of finding cheaper labor and showering themselves with money like it was confetti, congratulating themselves on the genius of this strategy.
In the facility where I work, the janitors are all Mexican and many of them have outlasted a great many computer techs and customer service agents, which shows some of the current concerns about immigration from Mexico as misplaced. After all Mexicans have been coming here to work on farms and as laborers for the better part of a hundred years.
Looking at it from where I work, it is not the Mexicans who are causing unemployment. It is the American execs who send wave after wave of jobs overseas, laying off wave after wave of American workers at the plant in Colorado. The Mexicans are doing the same janitorial jobs they have done for years.
So when you add up all the decent paying jobs that American execs have shipped to countries like China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and so on, there is a far more sinister and devastating effect on us, on the whole economy, than any influx of Mexicans coming here to be farm workers, slaughterhouse workers, janitors, busboys, gardeners, maids and construction laborers.
When these large corporations ship jobs to India, for example, they do not pay any taxes to the US on the money they make over there. So that is one loss of revenue to our economy. The second loss to our economy is that when people lose their jobs to offshoring, many who end up working at some lesser paying job that is not in their field will be paying less in income taxes, so that is a second hit to our economy. Third, offshoring sends ripple effects through the economy. When people have less money to spend, it drives down sales at retail stores, cars, appliances and durable goods, entertainment, contributes to defaults on home loans, car loans and consumer credit cards.
So when you factor all that in, is our economy hurting because Mexicans have come here looking for work? Or is it that executive decisions to "outsource" more has really damaged the American economy?
I think that they Mexicans became a convenient scapegoat. It was easy for corporate spin masters to get their talk radio mouthpieces to gin up the talk about the wave of Mexican immigrants taking our jobs. I don't see that as true. I think it is a classic case of misdirection.
We were sold a bill of goods by the politicians who told these lies about how Chinese people, for example, had all this pent up demand and were eager to buy American goods. But is that what has happened since we signed off on all those free trade agreements?
No, exactly the reverse is true. The Chinese did not have enough income to buy our goods. After our jobs were exported over there, they developed more of a consumer economy, because only after that could they afford to go shopping for more than the bare necessities.
Meanwhile, over here, we have towns and cities that were built around various businesses, and now that those businesses are gone, there are a lot of unemployed people and towns that are having to cut back on basic services people expect from a town, city or county.
So when you are thinking about why our economy is down, and why people have a hard time finding decent paying jobs that utilize their knowledge and skills, don't look at the Mexican janitors as the cause of the problem. Look at the people in the executive suites who are giddy over the fact that they replaced thousands of Americans with thousands of employees in some third world country working for peanuts.
Is the quality of the product or service the same once it is done in some other country? Even the execs will admit that it is not, but they are happy anyway, because the people over there work cheaper, giving them a greater profit margin. I think we could all name some product that we used because it was a good quality and performed well, yet the Americans who made it are now out of work because the product is now made overseas, and we have noticed that the new versions of the product do not last as long or work quite as well. Think about clothing that used to have double stitched seams that now has single stitched seams. Did you ever hear anyone say that they are having a problem with their computer and they would rather speak to someone in India about it?
I don't know if it is possible to get data like this, but consider what it would look like if we could count all the jobs that have been outsourced and offshored and compare that number to the jobs that Mexican immigrants have taken. In that process, we would also have to factor in not just the number of jobs, but the pay ranges of those jobs. So, for example, one janitorial job would not equal in pay one computer tech or programmer job. And certainly, one busboy, gardener or construction laborer job would not equal one machinist job.
So whenever you hear some radio or TV blowhard talking or read some article about how these immigrants are hurting our economy, ask yourself, is this really true? Have Mexican laborers hurt our economy more than corporate execs closing American businesses and sending our jobs overseas?
I think that influxes of immigrants are a far better development than offshoring.
Because of this I have seen more people come and go at work than I can name. Turnover is beyond ridiculous. It used to be a management philosophy that if you can keep reliable employees and train them to do different tasks over time, that would be the road to being profitable long term. But that was before execs started celebrating the joys of finding cheaper labor and showering themselves with money like it was confetti, congratulating themselves on the genius of this strategy.
In the facility where I work, the janitors are all Mexican and many of them have outlasted a great many computer techs and customer service agents, which shows some of the current concerns about immigration from Mexico as misplaced. After all Mexicans have been coming here to work on farms and as laborers for the better part of a hundred years.
Looking at it from where I work, it is not the Mexicans who are causing unemployment. It is the American execs who send wave after wave of jobs overseas, laying off wave after wave of American workers at the plant in Colorado. The Mexicans are doing the same janitorial jobs they have done for years.
So when you add up all the decent paying jobs that American execs have shipped to countries like China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and so on, there is a far more sinister and devastating effect on us, on the whole economy, than any influx of Mexicans coming here to be farm workers, slaughterhouse workers, janitors, busboys, gardeners, maids and construction laborers.
When these large corporations ship jobs to India, for example, they do not pay any taxes to the US on the money they make over there. So that is one loss of revenue to our economy. The second loss to our economy is that when people lose their jobs to offshoring, many who end up working at some lesser paying job that is not in their field will be paying less in income taxes, so that is a second hit to our economy. Third, offshoring sends ripple effects through the economy. When people have less money to spend, it drives down sales at retail stores, cars, appliances and durable goods, entertainment, contributes to defaults on home loans, car loans and consumer credit cards.
So when you factor all that in, is our economy hurting because Mexicans have come here looking for work? Or is it that executive decisions to "outsource" more has really damaged the American economy?
I think that they Mexicans became a convenient scapegoat. It was easy for corporate spin masters to get their talk radio mouthpieces to gin up the talk about the wave of Mexican immigrants taking our jobs. I don't see that as true. I think it is a classic case of misdirection.
We were sold a bill of goods by the politicians who told these lies about how Chinese people, for example, had all this pent up demand and were eager to buy American goods. But is that what has happened since we signed off on all those free trade agreements?
No, exactly the reverse is true. The Chinese did not have enough income to buy our goods. After our jobs were exported over there, they developed more of a consumer economy, because only after that could they afford to go shopping for more than the bare necessities.
Meanwhile, over here, we have towns and cities that were built around various businesses, and now that those businesses are gone, there are a lot of unemployed people and towns that are having to cut back on basic services people expect from a town, city or county.
So when you are thinking about why our economy is down, and why people have a hard time finding decent paying jobs that utilize their knowledge and skills, don't look at the Mexican janitors as the cause of the problem. Look at the people in the executive suites who are giddy over the fact that they replaced thousands of Americans with thousands of employees in some third world country working for peanuts.
Is the quality of the product or service the same once it is done in some other country? Even the execs will admit that it is not, but they are happy anyway, because the people over there work cheaper, giving them a greater profit margin. I think we could all name some product that we used because it was a good quality and performed well, yet the Americans who made it are now out of work because the product is now made overseas, and we have noticed that the new versions of the product do not last as long or work quite as well. Think about clothing that used to have double stitched seams that now has single stitched seams. Did you ever hear anyone say that they are having a problem with their computer and they would rather speak to someone in India about it?
I don't know if it is possible to get data like this, but consider what it would look like if we could count all the jobs that have been outsourced and offshored and compare that number to the jobs that Mexican immigrants have taken. In that process, we would also have to factor in not just the number of jobs, but the pay ranges of those jobs. So, for example, one janitorial job would not equal in pay one computer tech or programmer job. And certainly, one busboy, gardener or construction laborer job would not equal one machinist job.
So whenever you hear some radio or TV blowhard talking or read some article about how these immigrants are hurting our economy, ask yourself, is this really true? Have Mexican laborers hurt our economy more than corporate execs closing American businesses and sending our jobs overseas?
I think that influxes of immigrants are a far better development than offshoring.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Surprises in a Rose Garden
Just a short walk from where I live, there are a couple of beautiful public parks. One of them has a fabulous rose garden. There is a large variety of different colors and scents. Walking through it, there are constant delights to the senses.
If you simply sit on a bench, the breeze will carry the fragrance to you. Simple pleasures like these make life more enjoyable.
It was good that the city did it this way, as an outdoor garden in a park, rather than inside a conservatory, so that anyone can enjoy it any time, without paying an admissions fee.
Even though I like to garden, I did not know about all of these varieties, and I would guess that there are probably some that people are cultivating that are not included in the park.
Still, if you think you know what roses look and smell like, walking through a garden like this awakens the senses of sight, smell and touch. I found myself discovering that I didn't know that there were varieties of roses that looked and smelled like this.
Getting up late in the morning and then taking a walk to smell the roses seemed like a perfectly fine way to spend a holiday morning.
If you simply sit on a bench, the breeze will carry the fragrance to you. Simple pleasures like these make life more enjoyable.
It was good that the city did it this way, as an outdoor garden in a park, rather than inside a conservatory, so that anyone can enjoy it any time, without paying an admissions fee.
Even though I like to garden, I did not know about all of these varieties, and I would guess that there are probably some that people are cultivating that are not included in the park.
Still, if you think you know what roses look and smell like, walking through a garden like this awakens the senses of sight, smell and touch. I found myself discovering that I didn't know that there were varieties of roses that looked and smelled like this.
Getting up late in the morning and then taking a walk to smell the roses seemed like a perfectly fine way to spend a holiday morning.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
A Little More Independence
On my day job, I am employed as a contractor, and at the present moment I am between contracts. The company's most recent adventure in offshoring did not go as smoothly as the wished, and did not happen on schedule, so as a result I have several days off. I wish it were paid time off, but it is nice to have time off anyway.
I now find myself with time to do some deep cleaning of things that have just been stacking up. And I also have time to go through my inventory of tarot decks very thoroughly, repricing some and getting more familiar with others that I haven't work with much.
So it is nice to have a breather so that I can watch some movies I have not had time to watch, go to the gym at times when I ordinarily would be working.
No alarm is set for the mornings. I like the relaxed schedule. I am celebrating a bit more personal freedom this July 4.
I now find myself with time to do some deep cleaning of things that have just been stacking up. And I also have time to go through my inventory of tarot decks very thoroughly, repricing some and getting more familiar with others that I haven't work with much.
So it is nice to have a breather so that I can watch some movies I have not had time to watch, go to the gym at times when I ordinarily would be working.
No alarm is set for the mornings. I like the relaxed schedule. I am celebrating a bit more personal freedom this July 4.
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