I have big plans for this year. Having just refurbished Cynical Guides, I am looking ahead to the future. Apart from trying to be more on top of releasing guides (at least my minimum of 12), I am also considering starting up my own website. However that does not mean I am leaving Steam, as that essentially would be “career” suicide & my guides would fade away into obscurity.
The number one problem with Steam, is it is no longer supported by Google Analytics & Steam Guides do not rank well at all. When searching for “100% Achievement Guide “X”” sites like True Achievements, Powerpyx, etc. will always come up first (of course, naturally). But what is infuriating, is that sites that have re-uploaded my guides will appear before my own Steam Guides! This is a well-known problem across… well the entire internet really & isn’t a new issue. Unfortunately, there is virtually nothing I can do about plagiarism unless I went & copyrighted every single guide & was willing to go through legal woes. Which I am not. Though I imagine hardly anyone even goes to those bootleg sites, it is just annoying to see your hard work being stolen.
My solution, like Powerpyx, is to have my very own site. I will simultaneously upload my guides to Steam as well as onto my website – double dipping if you will. That way, it gives me a bit more credibility of ownership & potentially get my guides out there more. Plus, Steam quite often runs into glitches & can be unreliable; having my own site secures my works if anything were to get lost.
There is no rush technically for any of this… it is just the longer I do this, the more & more I am wanting to put more time into my guides than into my actual fulltime job. The number one thing I am struggling with is coming up with ways to monetize my guides… without demanding any money from the people who use them. Sounds impossible. But I am adamant: I don’t want to sell anything, I don’t want to paywall people, & I don’t want to earn my living off donations. I am considering avenues like YouTube or Patreon, but both would take a large leap of faith & require quite a lot more effort & time than I have available to be worth anything to people. In theory I could earn a few cents through having ads on my website, but I would have to be very careful with that. It can become a slippery slope from having innocuous ads along a sidebar to insidious spam content.
Regardless, the good news for everyone who enjoy the guides, is I am doubling down & taking the next baby step forwards. I will write another update in the coming months once I have put more thought into things or… am about to launch the site.
If you have gotten this far into my rant, thank you so much for humoring me & I look forward to seeing your comments in my guides – be them positive or critical! Happy Hunting!
