Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Pompeii by Robert Harris: Book Review
Started: February 10, 2025
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
Links to things mentioned:
* My review of An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2014/11/an-officer-and-spy-by-robert-harris.html
* My review of Conspirata by Robert Harris: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2014/09/conspirata-by-robert-harris.html
* Started: Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes by Richard LaFleur: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2025/01/started-sculptors-and-scribes-by.html
Related Playlists:
* Books I read in 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7Fev7Uv6_tzuSf84LtYwQu&si=Im1rdozRXrgGnr99
* Book Review Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7dao6py7ODX_PkUvrAEch7&si=EJ7CG8iO9IouNaYY
* Ancient History Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7tomUoLdvaX2CsHML6AjHz&si=IOhaDc0RQGgVkRH6
Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman
Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman
Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4hP5LvD (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Monday, February 17, 2025
Starting: Bone 3: Eyes of the Storm by Jeff Smith
Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4b2s1Qw (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4b2s1Qw (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Starting: Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4hS4aWg (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Check out this book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4hS4aWg (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Housekeeping Announcement; Deleting Youtube Videos That Feature Reused Content
Time once again for a bit of housekeeping. Go ahead and ignore this post if you're not interested.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I've decided that I'm going to make it a goal to eventually monetize my Youtube channel.
One of the things I've picked up among the Youtube chatter is that channels that have reused content are frequently penalized or demonetized.
All of the reused content on my channel is just me re-using myself, so I'm not sure if I have anything to worry about or not, but just to be safe, I decided to go ahead and delete all the reused content.
The reused content on my Youtube channel fell into 3 categories:
1) The past couple months, I've been remixing clips from my recent book reviews, and releasing them as Youtube shorts.
2) Last year, I took all the reviews that I had uploaded in multiple parts, edited together into a single file, and then uploaded that single file up onto Youtube as a separate video.
3). About 8 years ago, I reuploaded videos from my previous channels (dfcs and dfcs2) onto my main channel.
I've now deleted the reused content from all 3 categories.
As a result of this, there are several old posts on this blog that now feature deleted videos. I'll break them down as follows:
For category 1 (the Youtube shorts), I never posted them on this blog, so there's no effect to this blog.
For category 2, I posted those videos on this blog. That now means that I have several old posts that feature a deleted video (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)
This Week in Booktube: February 16, 2025
(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below. Support Booktube. And let me know what you've watched this past week.)
The Financial Diet: Rich Dad, Poor Dad Is Completely Unhinged
William’s Library: Glossy Garbage
Steve Donoghue: Epic Comic Book Wednesday: The Joe Kubert Tarzan!
Bookish: Believe the Victim
Steve Donoghue: Response Video: Are Classics Still Relevant Today?
Jared Henderson: How Amazon hurts writers (and you)
William’s Library: Paris In The Twentieth Century By Jules Verne Review
Library of a Viking: Addressing the Daniel Greene Allegations
Daniel Greene: In Response To Naomi King's Allegations
Bookish: Ten Short Books for Black History Month
Michael K. Vaughan: Weekly Reading Report 2/11/25
Bucky749: Booktube review: best of WWF 1985 vhs guid .
Bucky749: Booktube review: world of SmallVille issue 1 comic .
House of Words Podcast: HOW EP64 Abbie Hoffman - Steal This Book
Military Industrial Museum: "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman Book Report Review (Google Deep Dive LLM)
CPL Radio: Books of the Week - February 10th, 2025Thursday, February 13, 2025
Abscam--Interesting Random Facts
I'm currently reading The New Teen Titans Volume Four, which contains comic books originally published in 1982-1983. One of the interesting things about reading old comic books is that it contains a lot of references to things that were once in the news, but are now forgotten.
At one point on p.38, the evil Brother Blood is talking to his politician Senator Hardy, and demanding to know why the Senator can't buy the necessary votes with the millions of dollars Senator Hardy has given him. Senator Hardy responds "It's just that since ABSCAM things have been touchy. It isn't as easy to offer bribes."
Hmmm, I thought, what is Abscam?
So, I googled it and, holy smokes!
Abscam, sometimes written ABSCAM, was a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation in the late 1970s and early 1980s that led to the convictions of seven members from both chambers of the United States Congress and others for bribery and corruption.[1] The two-year investigation initially targeted trafficking in stolen property and corruption of prominent business people, but later evolved into a corruption investigation. The FBI was aided by the United States Department of Justice and convict Mel Weinberg in videotaping politicians accepting bribes from a fictitious Arabian company in return for various political favors.[2]
More than 30 political figures were investigated, and six members of the United States House of Representatives and one member of the United States Senate were convicted.[3] One member of the New Jersey State Senate, members of the Philadelphia City Council, the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, and an inspector for the Immigration and Naturalization Service were also convicted.
Wow, they actually caught six House members and one US Senator red handed! Crazy.
Go ahead and read the whole Wikipedia article. The whole thing is wild.
It's a reminder that political corruption existed long before Trump and Musk.
It's also crazy how quickly this stuff gets forgotten. This must have been huge news back in the day, and now, nobody even remembers it.
(Although, as always, I feel like I should check my own intuitions against that of my audience. I had never heard of this before, but maybe that's just me. Have you heard of this before? Let me know in the comments.)
The Great Cow Race (Bone #2) by Jeff Smith: Book Review
(Book Review--Bone Series)Started: February 08, 2025
[This is a reread in the sense that I read these same issues before when I read Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic. However, this is my first time reviewing this volume by itself, so for the purposes of my new review project, I'm going to count this as a video only review.]
* My review of Bone: Quest for the Spark Book Two (in which the giant bees make another appointment): https://youtu.be/vv3c2Pj5WO0
Related Playlists:
* Books I read in 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7Fev7Uv6_tzuSf84LtYwQu&si=Im1rdozRXrgGnr99
* Book Review Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7dao6py7ODX_PkUvrAEch7&si=EJ7CG8iO9IouNaYY
* Rereads Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5dMXnK5v4Yc7a8MF5p32Bx&si=JNrop81hE5jmkWTL
Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman
Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman
Check out this book on Amazon: https://youtu.be/blA1kZVfEqA (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Starting: The New Teen Titans Volume Four by Marv Wolfman and George Perez
Check this book out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3Eziqok (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Check this book out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3Eziqok (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Youth Memes (I've Played These Games Before)--Interesting Random Facts
The past few weeks I've been substitute teaching. And I don't know how many times I've heard kids randomly yelling out "I've played these games before!" Particularly at the elementary schools and the middle schools, there's always a few kids every day who will yell this out during class. (Often the kids will yell it out in response to being asked to do an activity that they've already done before, but it seems to me that they are just as likely to yell it out without any apparent context.)
I had no idea what they were talking about. So eventually, I got curious and Googled it. And now that I've figured it out, I thought I would make an Interesting Random Facts entry out of it, because I'm assuming most other adults have no idea what it is. (Or am I wrong? Is it just me? Am I just out of it? Quick straw poll: How many of you out there have heard of "I've played these games before!"?)
Apparently then it went on to become a common meme on Tiktok among gamers, which is why kids are always yelling it out now.
In the course of researching all of this, however, the thought occurred to me: the kids are always yelling out something.
Now, granted I've been outside of the United States for most of the past 24 years, but I've been teaching kids in Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam, and in all these countries, I've noticed that there's always some slogan or catchphrase that the kids are constantly yelling out.
When I was in Japan, it was the catchphrases of Hard Gay that the kids were always yelling:
...it used to really annoy me at the time, because I'd be trying to get the class to listen to me while I explained the next activity, and then some kid would just randomly yell out one of Hard Gay's catchphrases, and start thrusting his pelvis.
At the time, I remember a Japanese friend telling me that Japanese teachers really hated Hard Gay, and I could see why. Although, even at the time I realized that if it wasn't Hard Gay, it would just be something else. The kids are always yelling out something.
Anyway, if you're thinking to yourself, "Hard Gay? That sounds like a really offensive stereotype."
Yeah, yeah I know. Well, what can I say? Japan has different ideas about political correctness than the United States does.
Anyway, if you've never heard of Hard Gay, he was really big in Japan about 20 years ago. Wikipedia has a whole article on him:
A character (introduced in 2002) developed and portrayed by Sumitani is Hard Gay (ハードゲイ, Hādo Gei). The term "Hādo Gei" is a Japanese reference to American gay subculture in similar fashion to "punk". In Japan, gender subculture with distinct dress style is referred to as "Gei ゲイ". In turn, the term "hard gay" became the reference to more masculine oriented "drag" seen to be prevalent in America. The fact that Hard Gay does not portray any Japanese gay subculture also explains why the sketch was allowed to be aired on Japanese TV, which has its own code of political correctness.
The official name is Razor Ramon HG. Dressing in a tight black PVC gay fetish outfit, he performed acts of charity (yonaoshi, “social improvement”) for unsuspecting bystanders while performing trademark pelvic thrusts and vocalizations, often accompanied by "Livin' la Vida Loca" by Ricky Martin.
According to some accounts, the name "Hard Gay" was the suggestion of Sumitani's senior comedian in the Yoshimoto Kogyo group, Kendo Kobayashi, in reference to his hard dancing. The name has also been described as a pun on 芸, gei, which means "skill" or "art." However, to develop his character, Sumitani visited gay bars in Doyama-cho, Osaka’s biggest gay area, and his costume, which consists of hot pants, a small vest, and cap, all in black PVC, along with aviator sunglasses, was purchased at a shop called VFTQ in Minami-Horie, Osaka, which specializes in gay fashion. Hard Gay makes regular use of a number of catchphrases in his act; he usually makes his entrance in front of the camera shouting "Dōmō Haadogei desu" ("Hello, it's Hard Gay"), with arms thrust out and a spin afterwards. His self-introduction is then followed by his dance moves. He often shouts "Hoooooo" (フゥ～!) or "Foohhhh!" (フォー！), a running joke in his performances. He often stops people saying unfavorable things to him by shouting "Sei sei sei sei sei" with his palm in front of the person's face. Whether this means anything is debatable, although Sumitani has commented that "sei sei" is something that comes out from his mouth when he is not happy, and that he does not mean "say" as in to speak something, although one might compare this action to the "talk to the hand" gesture. A possible interpretation might be that the origin lies in the word urusai (lit. "noisy," meaning "Be quiet!"), which is often pronounced urusē うるせー in Kansai dialect, shortened to sei. Another theory is the word sei written by kanji 静, meaning "quiet."
Sumitani's supposed homosexuality was exposed as a gimmick when he was caught in the midst of a date with Japanese actress and swimsuit model Anna Suzuki, whom he has since married. He has been criticised for his stereotypical depiction of gay men and for building a career on using bizarre and extreme antics to "parody" a social minority. A spokesperson for the Hokkaido Sexual Minority Association Sapporo Meeting, a support group for gay, lesbian and transgender people, has said: "Hard Gay’s acceptance by the Japanese public shows me that there is a strong tendency here to see homosexuality as something to be laughed at. That is sad."
....Over the years, I've forgotten most of the other catchphrases and fads that were popular in various countries I've taught in. (It may come back to me later, in which case I may update this post.)
The only other one I remember off-hand was from teaching in a university in Vietnam a couple years ago. During the first day of class, the students were supposed to prepare a presentation about their group for the rest of the class. Among other things, the students were supposed to talk about their hobbies. One group said their hobby was Bing Chilling. I had no idea what they were talking about, but they mentioned it like it was just a common thing everyone knew. So I asked them what it was, and they didn't really explain it at all. (There was a communication breakdown going on, because they were assuming everyone knew what Bing Chilling was, and so they couldn't understand what I was confused about. They kept saying, "You know, Bing Chilling." And I kept saying, "But what is Bing Chilling.") After a few back and forths, and several follow up questions, I eventually got the explanation story out of them.
So, there's this video of John Cena in which he shows off his ability to speak Chinese by talking about ice cream. The Chinese word for ice cream sounds like "Bing Chilling".
...apparently, it was popular in Vietnam a couple years ago for people to memorize the whole speech, and then film themselves reciting the whole thing, and then they would upload it onto Tiktok.
I've just checked with Know Your Meme, and yes, apparently this was a thing a couple years ago. Apparently not just in Vietnam, but everywhere.
In November 2022, John Cena's script went viral on TikTok after a series of creators began making videos delivering the dialogue in near-perfect Mandarin. On November 14th, TikToker[4] @giapaoohehe posted a video that gathered over 4 million plays and 300,000 likes in nearly four days (seen below left). On November 13th, TikToker[5] @alfallis posted a video saying the dialogue as well, gathering over 13 million plays and 2.7 million likes in nearly three days.The trend soon grew popular, with various creators making videos repeating the phrase, oftentimes mimicking Cena's particular pronunciation rather than an authentic Mandarin tone. Other creators discussed how Cena's videos inadvertently altered the way they speak Mandarin as their native language.
So there you go. I'm assuming this is something that was just for the kids, but how many adults out there knew about this?
*********************************
So, if indeed the kids are always yelling out something, I guess that begs the question: What did we yell out when we were kids?
Well, I've been searching my memory banks on this one. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was of course tremendously popular among nerds. If you were a bit nerdy in high school, I'm sure your group of friends quoted from that movie all the time. (I know mine certainly did.) But I don't think it ever got much beyond the nerd circles.
When I was in middle school, I remember people constantly quoting Wayne's World, and probably "Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!" was the most frequent thing being yelled out by my classmates.
Some other SNL catchphrases also had some popularity.
And of course, The Simpsons. Everyone quoted The Simpsons. Particularly in the early 90s, Bart Simpsons catchphrases "eat my shorts" and "don't have a cow" were ubiquitous among middle schoolers.
What else am I forgetting?
Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman: Book Review
Started: February 03, 2025
(In my started post, I had claimed this was a reread. And indeed, I definitely remember reading the introduction to this book--as I mentioned here. But the more I got into this book, the more I started to realize that most of this book was unfamiliar. I'm now pretty sure that years ago I only read the introduction to it, and didn't read the whole thing, and then later got it mixed up in my mind with another Abbie Hoffman book--Woodstock Nation, which I did actually read from cover to cover. So, I've decided I'm not going to count this as a reread after all. At any rate, because this is my first time reviewing this book on this blog, according to my new rules, I'm doing it as a video only review.)
See also: Robert Fulton
Related Playlists:
Book Review Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7dao6py7ODX_PkUvrAEch7&si=EJ7CG8iO9IouNaYY
Books I read in 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7Fev7Uv6_tzuSf84LtYwQu&si=Im1rdozRXrgGnr99
Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman
Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman
Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4aGuSP3 (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Robert Fulton--Interesting Random Facts
I was reading Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, and at one point in the book me mentions Fulton Street in New York. And I thought, "Hey, there's also a Fulton Street in my hometown. And come to think of it, I feel like a lot of things are named Fulton. I wonder who this Fulton guy was anyway." And so I Googled it, and, according to Wikipedia, it turns out that:
Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the North River Steamboat (also known as Clermont). In 1807, that steamboat traveled on the Hudson River with passengers from New York City to Albany and back again, a round trip of 300 nautical miles (560 kilometers), in 62 hours. The success of his steamboat changed river traffic and trade on major American rivers.
In 1800, Fulton had been commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, leader of France, to attempt to design a submarine; he then produced Nautilus, the first practical submarine in history.[1] Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the Royal Navy.[2]
Well, there you go. Another interesting fact for you.
Part of me wonders if I should have known who Robert Fulton was before Googling him. Did I learn about him in high school history class? I can't remember. What about you, dear reader? Is Robert Fulton a name you recognize? Should I have known who he was?
Wikipedia also confirms that lots of places in the US are named after Fulton. See their list HERE.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Starting: Pompeii by Robert Harris
Check this book out on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4hP5LvD (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Sunday, February 09, 2025
This Week in Booktube: February 9, 2025
(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below. Support Booktube. And let me know what you've watched this past week.)
William’s Library: We had lunch at a police station!
Steve Donoghue: A Bunch of BookTube Stuff!The New Teen Titans Volume Three by Marv Wolfman and George Perez: Book Review
Started: February 02, 2025
(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)
Related Playlists:
DC Comics Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x6kPikhXNalrSh9BnvzZi2f&si=4rAijTT4v9u_06q2
Book Review Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7dao6py7ODX_PkUvrAEch7&si=EJ7CG8iO9IouNaYY
Books I read in 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x7Fev7Uv6_tzuSf84LtYwQu&si=Im1rdozRXrgGnr99
Teen Titans Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x4_-BaiPwS0J-LsMStZZlJq&si=EwPsg0qwXoP9MqVi
Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman
Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman
Check out this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/40Y2Fjs (This is an Amazon Associate's Link. If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)
Saturday, February 08, 2025
Support This Blog
I am now introducing several ways in which you can support the work I do on this blog:
* Or you can purchase something through one of my associate links on Amazon, and I will get a get a commission.
You're free to support me in any way you wish, of course, but I am envisioning that the Patreon could be used if you want to support my ongoing work from month to month. If you want to show your appreciation for a single post, or for any of my past work, you could donate through Ko-Fi or Paypal.
As for the associate links on Amazon, I would never ask you to buy anything you didn't want. But if there's something you wanted to buy anyway, why not do it through the link? I get a commission, and you don't get charged anything extra, so it's win-win.
Why Am I Doing This Now?
Up until now, I've run this blog for 21 years without attempting to raise any money off of it. So attempting to monetize this blog represents a significant change in style, and I feel like I owe readers an explanation as to what is going on.
That being said, the reasons for this change are incredibly predictable. They're the same reasons why everyone switches to monetization.
1). I Need Money
When I started this blog 21 years ago, I was young, single, living abroad, and not worried at all about money. Back in 2003, I would have viewed it as beneath my self-dignity to attempt to get money out of my blog.
Now I'm middle-aged, have a family to support, have recently moved back to America, and I am constantly worried about money, and I do not at all view it as beneath my dignity to try to get a bit of money out of this blog.
2). I Can No Longer Justify Spending a Lot of Time on this Blog (...unless it starts bringing in some money)
Regular readers of this blog will no doubt agree that over the years I have spent a lot of time on this thing. I used to regularly post long reviews of everything I read. (I was particularly loquacious in my book reviews from 2011 to 2021). And it costs me a lot of time. I used to spend whole afternoons writing up just one book review. Sometimes for a longer book review, I used to spend several afternoons on it.
Now, I had my reasons for doing it: my ego, my desire for self-expression, my wanting to prove to the world that I existed and that I had thoughts, a desire to interact with my reading material, an outlet for all the thoughts that were in my head, etc. But even back in those days, I had my doubts about whether or not this was the best use of my time. Should I be using this all this time to learn a new skill, or apply for a promotion at work, or get another degree, or something? Often I didn't particularly know what I should have been using that time for, but just a nagging feeling that I should have been using it for something else.
But, now that I am middle-aged, have two kids, and have to worry about all the stuff that goes with modern life, I really don't have the time to spend on this blog anymore. As I've written on this blog several - times - before.
Since moving back to America, my life has become particularly busy. Navigating the bureaucracy of modern American life is particularly time-consuming. (The past few months, I can't tell you how many afternoons I've wasted on the phone trying to get the health insurance situation sorted out.) I'm currently working full time at a temporary job while on spending my weekends and evenings on the job hunt for a more permanent job. And I've got two kids who need to be taken care of.
I mean, I had a good run on this blog for many years, but those days are absolutely, positively over now.
...unless, I can get this whole enterprise to generate a little bit of income. If this blog can become a bit of a side-hustle, then I can justify putting some time back into it. And if it can't, then I can't.
Now, I don't think I'm ever going to hang up my hat entirely. It's important to find some format to give my thoughts on the books I read. But if I can't make any money off of it, I'll continue doing it in the most minimalist way I can. (And I'll also secretly feel guilty about any time I spend on it.) But if I can get some income coming in, then I won't have to feel guilty about
3). Everyone Else Already Started Monetizing
Most of the bloggers who I used to read for free on blogspot or wordpress have moved to paid the paid subscription model on substack. This includes some of the bigger bloggers I read, as well as smaller bloggers who I read because they are old school friends. And many of the booktubers that I follow on Youtube have started Patreon memberships or Ko-Fi donations (including a lot of small channels--channels that are about my size.)
Now, I do realize that "everyone else is doing it" is always a poor justification for any action, but to the extent that I am worried about any social stigma related to monetizing, the fact that everyone else started monetizing long ago mostly removes any anxiety about making the jump.
The only remaining anxiety I have is the imposter syndrome--the fear that everyone else is allowed to monetize because they're actually good at creating content, whereas I just create terrible content and I should be ashamed of myself.
But, ultimately it's for the audience to decide my worth. If people want to read or watch my content, they can support me. If they don't, then they won't.
I don't think anyone will deny that over the past 20 years, I've put a lot of time into this blog. (I've often been accused of blogging too much, but never blogging too little.) So in terms of my work ethic, there's no question I've been putting the hours in. The only question is: am I any good? And to that I can only answer that I've been doing the best I can. I am keenly aware of my many shortcomings--both in written form and in video form. I wish I were better, both at writing and at speaking. But I've been doing the best I can, and if people find any of it entertaining or useful they can support it, and if not, they won't.
4). My Friends and Family Don't Read This Blog Anymore
For many years, the primary audience of this blog was friends and family, who were reading this blog because they were interested in me as a person, and they wanted to see what I was up to. And because they were indulging me.
Over the years, all of those friends and family have stopped reading. (I guess 20 years is a long time to expect your friends and family to keep indulging you.)
As much as I miss the comments I used to get from friends and family members, knowing that they've stopped reading this blog does free me up to try to monetize things. If there was a friend or family member who was reading this blog just because they cared about me as a person, I'd hate to ask them to pay for the pleasure of caring about me.
Now, granted, if all my friends and family have stopped reading this blog, that does raise the question of whether or not anyone is reading anymore. But according to the stats available on Blogger Dashboard and statcounter, this blog is still getting a decent amount of traffic. It's a little bit unclear how much of this traffic is genuine human beings, and how much of it is bots. (Or at least it's unclear to me. Maybe someone with more technical knowledge would have a better grasp on it.) These appear to be mostly people who find this blog via a Google search. If they like what they see and decide to return and read more, if they have mutual interests to me and appreciate the posts I do, then they may be interested in supporting me, and I'd prefer to cultivate this kind of audience then to impose upon my friends and family.
5). The Process of Job Hunting has Inured me to the Fear of Rejection
In the past, I would have been afraid of trying to monetize for the fear that nobody would want to support me, and I would end up looking stupid.
However, as I wrote on this blog previously, I am now in the process of job hunting, as a result of which I have so far spent several afternoons filling out applications for jobs, and then not heard back anything at all. But I'm not complaining about this, because this is the process. Everyone who looks for jobs has to spend a lot of time filling out applications for jobs that they never hear back from. But you do it anyway, because eventually one of these job applications will lead to an actual job, even if the first several of them end up being a wasted effort. And you also keep doing it because, hey, what else are you going to do?
This job hunting mindset has completely removed my fear of failure when it comes to monetizing this blog. For example, I spent 40 minutes setting up the Patreon, and there's a possibility that no one will join it, and it will be a wasted effort. But I've also applied for about 10 jobs in the last 2 months, each of which took me several hours to complete the application, and the majority of which I never even heard back from. So in life, you sometimes just have to keep throwing these lines out there, and see which ones catch something.
6). Booktubing Can Be an Expensive and Time-Consuming Hobby (And it would be nice to at least try to break even)
First of all, I don't know how much money I've spent on books over the last few years. (Although granted, now that I'm back in America and making active use of interlibrary loan, this is less of an issue then it was in Vietnam). And then there's the equipment.
For years I told myself that I wouldn't buy any new equipment for booktubing purposes, but then my wife got me a camera and tripod for Father's Day. So I guess we're now spending some money on this hobby. (My wife's money is of course really our joint money.)
When I listen back to my videos, it annoys me how tinny the audio quality is, and I think about getting a decent microphone, but again, I can't really justify spending anything on this hobby until it shows some potential to pay off.
7). It Would Be Nice To Get an Extra Income Stream in These Uncertain Times
Admittedly this last point is a bit of a fantasy, in that it assumes that I actually am successful at monetizing, which I know is not at all certain. And even in this fantasy, I'm not assuming that I could actually quit my day job and do this full time. (In my wildest dreams, I'm still only thinking this would be a side-hustle.) But still, it would be nice to get some extra security these days, huh? ESL has always been an unstable job no matter where you are--it's continually subject to demographic changes, changes in funding, and changes in government policy. And with AI replacing a lot of jobs these days, it's not clear what jobs are stable for the next 20 years.
So, time to think about sidehustles, and extra sources of income.
Since I'm clearly already spending a lot of time on this blog and the Youtube channel, those are the logical places to try first.
What I Perceive My Value to Be
One of my difficulties with asking for money is that I'm constantly denigrating my own efforts on this blog. I'm constantly telling my readers that I know I'm not very good at this, and then asking for their indulgence and forgiveness as I keep making content.
Like many people, I am my own worst critic. And, because I don't want to be accused of lacking self-awareness, I'm always trying to show my readers that I am aware of my faults.
But I wouldn't be asking for your support if I believed my output was entirely devoid of value, and so perhaps I should make a case of my value, as I see it.
For any fellow ESL/TESOL teachers out there, I believe I have put together a very useful index of teaching material. Granted, my decision to post all of my teaching material, without controlling for quality, means that some lower quality material is mixed in alongside the higher quality material. But, if you're willing to sort through it, I believe there is a lot of high quality material in that index. I believe my discussion of grammar points and TESOL related books can also be useful.
Going forward, I'm not sure how much I will add to this index in the future (it will depend somewhat on where my future employment takes me), but you can certainly show your appreciation for my past work if you find my TESOL archive to be useful.
I also believe my collection of reading and listening practice material for English Language learners is of value. I occasionally get requests to expand this material, and if you would like to see this collection expanded, feel free to show me some support.
My written reviews also vary somewhat in quality. Sometimes I read an old review, and I'm embarrassed at how clunky and disjointed the prose is. But just as often, I read an old review and I think to myself: this actually holds up--the prose flows nicely, I have a few good insights, and the review is structured in such a way that it's interesting to follow my train of thought.
Under my new system, I'm doing less written reviews, but the new system still allows for me to do a long-form written review on future rereads, and I'm still hoping to find the time to do that occasionally. And again, you can also show your appreciation for past work if you find an old review to be useful.
The video reviews are, unfortunately, probably my weakest link. (I'm a terribly introverted and awkward person, and not a good public speaker). But even here, I don't think that they are all bad. For whatever reason, I have good days and bad days. There are days when I turn on the camera and struggle to find coherence, but then there are days when the words do come easily, and when I am pleased with how well I articulate everything.
Now obviously, the final judgement on either my writing or speaking content is not for me to render. I am stuck inside my own head, and can't determine how my work is perceived by another human being. You, the audience, will have to be the final judge. All I can do is put myself out there, and see what happens.
But beyond the quality of my individual reviews, I also believe that by talking and writing about books, I'm doing important work in helping to combat the current reading crisis. I'm not alone in this, obviously. There are hundreds of other booktubers (W) out there. But I'm part of it. I am helping to show the values of reading for pleasure and learning. I'm bringing attention to the classics with my Blogging the Canon project, but I'm also deliberately mixing in the high-brow stuff with the guilty pleasure reading. The goal is to first entice people into reading generally by intriguing them with the easily accessible low-brow content, but then also show them that they could also enjoy the classics at the same time as the low-brow material.
If you think that it's valuable to encourage literacy by talking about books on the Internet, there's another reason to support me.
I also hope that I'm helping to increase awareness of history by talking about history books and historical fiction. (One of my goals for my reading list going forward is to read more history books, and talk about them.)
It is true that if you look at the archives of this blog, I've posted a lot of junk over the years. Much of which I'm not proud of. (I largely regard the stuff I wrote 20 years ago to be by a completely different person, who just happens to share the same name and birthdate as me.) But since June 21, 2020, my goal has been to focus only on reviews and TESOL material. I've occasionally lapsed in this regard over the past 5 years, but I'm going to try to keep that my goal moving forward. So if you choose to support this blog, at least you'll know what you're supporting.
And I'll probably keep doing Interesting Random Facts occasionally. I usually figure that if I find a piece of trivia interesting, someone else will probably find it interesting as well, so I hope that by posting these little tidbits, I'm not only amusing myself, but also giving you a little diversion.
Additional Information
Amazon Associate Links:
I don't know how you all feel about these changes, but personally I quite like the idea of adding in the Amazon links. Often in the past, I've linked to Amazon product pages for the various books I was reviewing, even before I was trying to get into the Associate's program. It just seemed like it helped to make the book review more helpful if I could include a link to the Amazon page, where my readers could get more information about the book. (In the earliest days of my book reviewing, within every review I did my best to sneak in a link to the Wikipedia page and the Amazon page. An example of that is this early review here. I didn't keep this up, obviously. Mostly because I was worried about confusing my readers with too many links (I already had a lot of self-referential links which went back to earlier blog post of my own, so trying to shoe-horn in two additional external links on top of all that seemed like overkill.) But nonetheless, I like the idea of having a link up to Amazon so that my readers can quickly just go over to the book page and get additional information about the book.
In the first few posts in which I included Amazon Associate Links, I initially said "buy this book on Amazon here". But after a couple days, I decided that this was being too pushy about making a sale, so I changed it to "check this book out on Amazon here". If I've brought a new book to your attention, and you want to just check out the Amazon page to see some book information, or see what other people are saying about the book, then I'm happy to provide a link for that, whether or not you purchase anything.
(Legally, I have to include a disclaimer with every link that states its an Associate Link, and I get a commission if you buy anything. So when you see that statement accompanying every Amazon link, that's not me begging you for a purchase, that's just me fulfilling my legal obligations.)
But if you did want to buy one of the books I've reviewed, that would please me as well. As someone who worries about the state of reading in modern society, I also would be very pleased if I personally was responsible for increasing book sales in this world, even if it was just by a modest amount.
And yes, I know, a lot of people these days don't like Amazon as a corporation, or Jeff Bezos as a person. I personally hear some good stuff about Amazon and some bad stuff, and I don't really know how the scales would ultimately weigh up in the aggregate. But I also believe that one has to make compromises in the world one lives in. Amazon is the most prominent Internet bookseller, so that's the site I use. If you want to take your business to a different website, I won't hold it against you.
The only problem with the Amazon Associate's program is that you need to get 3 purchases within 180 days. Which I didn't realize until I was already registering for the program.
I had been thinking that I would just do Amazon Associate links for several years, and perhaps I'd get a handful of purchases over 10 years. I hadn't realized I had a deadline to get three purchases.
Given the amount of traffic this blog gets, and given the unlikelihood that someone else will want to read the exact same book I am reading, it's probably unlikely that I'll get 3 purchases before the deadline. Which is unfortunate because, for all the reasons mentioned above, I'd otherwise be quite happy to be a member of Amazon's Associate program, whether it brought in a lot of money or not.
The good news is that apparently you can always re-apply if you don't get in during your first 180 days. So maybe I'll just keep re-applying until I get the purchases. (Like I said above, I don't mind creating a link for my readers to follow to Amazon. It's the kind of thing I'd want to do even if I weren't trying to get a commission.) The problem is every time I reapply, I have to create all new links. as all the previous links would no longer get me a commission on my new account.
Given the amount of links I create, I'm not sure it's a good use of my time to go through and update all my old links. So I might just erase the index every time I have to re-apply, and then start building the index up again with new links as I create them. But I'll update more about that when the time comes.
Patreon
I tend to view the Patreon as mostly just an opportunity to support me from month to month. The "special content" that your getting is that it allows me to do more of the content creation I'm already doing for the blog and Youtube channel.
However, since the Patreon model is built upon creating special perks for paying members, I've done my best to try to think of some things I could reasonably do. (As I wrote above, the whole raison d'etre for attempting to monetize this blog is that I no longer have time to continue to do it for free. So it seemed a bit counter-productive to create a bunch of new content obligations for the Patreon. Especially in the early days, when it's still unclear if the Patreon is going to attract enough members to be a viable source of income.)
The $1 a month doesn't have any special perks, but I do appreciate the support. (Don't be shy about pledging $1 a month. The best way to grow a Patreon account is to get a lot of people who sign up for a very low rate each month. According to Blogger's stat counter, this blog got 31,385 views last month. If everyone of those visitors signed up for just $1, the total amount would be significant.)
At the $3 tier, I am committed to posting some updates for you on the Patreon. (Probably more information about what books I'm planning to read, and when I'm planning to read them.)
At the $10 tier, you can see a couple written reviews from me every month. (I know my current system is that I do written reviews only for rereads, but if I can get a couple people chipping in $10 a month, that would justify me breaking that rule.)
At $25 a month, I'll give you early access to everything. (Anything I would post on this blog or on Youtube, I'll post a day early on Patreon.)
And at $50 a month, you an actually request for me to read and review any book you like, and I'll do it. (I'm usually very reluctant to surrender control over my reading list, but for $50 a month, I'll make an exception.)
Adsense
You may be wondering, since I'm now committing to try to monetize everything, why haven't I started running ads on my blog through Blogger's Adsense program.
And the answer is that I've applied several times, and I keep getting rejected.
Why do I keep getting rejected? Who knows. Typical of the way these big platforms operate, the response I get is always generic. " After reviewing your application, our specialists have found that it does not meet our program criteria." blah blah blah blah, and then finally, "Please note that we may not be able to respond to inquiries regarding the specific reasons for our decision. Thank you for your understanding."
You then get directed to a generic helpsite listing typical reasons that websites aren't approved, but no specific information.
So, you're guess is as good as mine, really.
It has occurred to me that since I've been cutting back on blogging over the past few years (see here and here), the content on this blog is mostly started posts and embedded Youtube videos. So maybe blogger is finding me guilty of "insufficient content" or "content quality issues".
...except that I first applied for adsense 5 years ago, when the written content on this blog was much higher. (June 2020 was the first time I decided I was wasting too much time on this blog, and I only wanted to focus on career and family. That was the first time it occurred to me that I was making a switch to everything being more professional, and I might as well try to get some money out of this blog.)
So, I don't know. It's a mystery.
I'd be more upset about it, except I remember from way back in 2008 or so, there was a popular blogger I used to follow called "Occasional Superheroine", and she once revealed that she only made 35 cents a day from Google Ads. And she was a really popular blogger at the time. (FYI: Google Ads is another name for Adsense).
Now, I'm currently in the "every little bit helps" mode of thinking, which is why I applied for Adsense anyway, despite knowing it would probably be 35 cents a day or less. But by the same token, I'm not too upset at getting rejected.
I've been resubmitting about once a year since 2020, and I keep getting rejected. I just recently resubmitted and got rejected again last month. I'll try again next year.
Substack
It looks like right now, Substack is the most popular way of monetizing your blogging. And among the old bloggers who I used to follow, many of them have moved over to Substack.
I'm considering it, but I'm not ready to make the move just yet.
One reason is that I've currently got over 20 years of writing archived on this blog. And as I mentioned above, much of it I'm embarrassed by, but some of it I'm actually proud of. And for better or for worse, it's my history.
Secondly, I don't like the idea of hiding my writing behind a paywall. I'd much rather that my writing was free to view for everyone, and then the people who thought it was worth supporting could chip in whatever they thought reasonable. It could well be that this isn't realistic. (After all, there's probably a reason why all those bloggers I follow moved over to substack, rather than just put up a paypal link.) But I'm at least going to try it this way first.
Youtube Adsense
And of course the other way to get money is to join Youtube's partner program and run ads on your Youtube channel.
To be eligible for this, you need 1,000 subscribers, and 4,000 public watch hours from the last 365 days.
I passed the 1,000 subscribers mark a few years back. (I'm currently at 2,566 subscribers.) But the 4,000 public watch hours is the more difficult one to hit.
When I first started Youtube, I imagined that the more videos you uploaded, the easier it would be to hit 4,000 public watch hours. After all, the more videos that are on your channel, the more content there is available for people to watch. But because of the way Youtube works, Youtube only promotes your content from the last 48 hours. After that, unless someone goes to your channel and is actively searching through your back catalogue, they never see your old videos. So over the years my public watch hours for the last 365 days has gone down, not up. (I used to be at 3,500 watch hours for the last 365 days, but then I went down to 2,000 watch hours.)
Now, as with running ads on blogspot, the amount of money I could expect to get from Youtube ads is pitifully small. Other Booktubers say they get about $25 a month from Youtube ads. So it doesn't make sense to spend too much time trying to get my watch hours up, at least not from a financial perspective. Rather than spend 10 hours a week trying to get my Youtube stats up, I'd be better off putting that time into looking for another part-time job. (There's a temptation to put a lot of time into Youtube because of the addiction you get from seeing your youtube stats go up, so it's useful sometimes to remind yourself of how little money is ultimately attainable for most people.)
Nevertheless, if I'm going to be uploading videos regularly, I might as well get monetized if I can do so without wasting too much time. To that end, I've been trying to be more mindful of the type of videos I upload.
One of the things I've discovered is that sometimes old videos can still get a lot of watch hours if it has a specific title that people are searching for. (Currently my most viewed youtube video is English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course by Peter Roach which is at 20,000 views just because it's often assigned reading in University classes, and so people are searching for videos on it.)
This is one of the reasons why I temporarily stopped doing Weekly Reading Vlogs (which never get any views after 48 hours), and decided to focus what little free time I do have on finishing off the remaining entries in my Scripted Youtube Videos, some of which might have a chance of accumulating views over time.
I've also been making an effort to increase engagement on my channel by getting back into the booktube community, and diverting some of the time I spend on listening to my podcasts to listening to booktube videos, and leaving comments. (This is why my listening progress on Revolutions Podcast has slowed down dramatically the past couple months.) And I'm getting back into the habit of keeping track of which booktube videos I watch, and posting them each week on This Week in Booktube.
I realize, of course, that the number one thing hampering my success at Youtube is I'm not very good at speaking unscripted in front of the camera. Part of me thinks I should start experiment with learning how to script and edit videos, but another part of me is cautious about sinking too much time into Youtube when I don't have very much time these days (see above) and the return on investment for Youtube monetization is not great. On the other hand, maybe just learning how to edit videos would be worthwhile in that I was learning another skill.
[Also, I think that I'm more prone to have trouble talking when I film the videos at night, because at that time I'm starting to get tired. Unfortunately, these days I film almost all of my videos at night after the kids go to sleep, because that's often the only time I have uninterrupted time to myself. But in 5 or 10 years time, my habits my change, and maybe my videos will improve.]
At any rate, for the moment I've decided that first I'm going to finish off the remaining entries in my Scripted Youtube Videos, maybe see which type of those videos are getting the most views, and then I'll think about projects.
If you want to help me increase the watchtime hours on my channel, you can do the standard things. First of all, it obviously helps if you watch a lot of my videos, and watch them to the end. (This will not only help increase the watchtime hours, but it will help these videos to get promoted in the algorithm.) Liking a video and leaving a comment also helps with the algorithm.
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