Is it hard to build a web app that makes at least $1000 a month?

I added a blog at some point. It's done in WordPress. The plan is that most new content will go up there, in part just to make my life easier since the old part of the site is such a pain in the butt from so many perspectives.

A webcomic sounds fantastic! Are you any good?

I have no idea. It's still in the concept stage. My 23 year old son thinks in pictures, like Temple Grandin. I did the full-time mom thing and homeschooled both my sons for some years as well, so spent lots of time with my kids. I developed an image-rich speaking style without really thinking about it because that is the most effective means to speak with my oldest. This style of communicating with him has impacted my online writing and I think it is part of why my writing is praised as much as it is. My hope is that this will lend itself well to developing a web comic. I am encouraged that the artwork for XKCD is so simple and that the artwork for a couple of other web comics I know developed enormously over time. My drawing is not that great but I did pursue art as a hobby somewhat as a kid and did have an art class in high school, so I am aware that there are certainly worse artists out there. :-D

I also have a history of being "fascinating" to people (and controversial) and I am hoping this will be a much more positive experience for me as someone in the entertainment space than as someone attempting to share helpful info. The degree to which the focus gets put on me rather than on "these are good ideas to try" has been a huge thorn in my side for many years.

If you can put out something like xkcd.com, then simply add Twitter/Facebook share buttons to it, that can be a quick way to build an audience right there.

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you for that.

I remain frustrated with comic press software and similar. Any ideas on that? I don't really want to grow my own. My coding/web-mastering skills are not that great and, hey, you see what that got me for Health Gazelle. Not really keen to repeat that experience.

Thanks.

I have considered making the blog the main site and the main site an "archive", because the information there is mostly pretty outdated but makes for a good intro/overview. It would involve a lot of work and I'm not sure how to tackle some of the technical issues.

Any idea how I could easily make the blog more visible?

I'd write a one paragraph summary of who you are and what you're trying to accomplish, the "elevator pitch" if you will. I feel that a lot of what is on your current main page would be more appropriate on a longer form "About" page. I'd put the elevator pitch front and center so that new visitors can know exactly why they should care and keep browsing your site.

I actually started working on redoing the main page. This past year has been very hard in terms of my physical healing process. It's been enormously eventful (like I have had way too many Saturdays where I threw up all day). There are plans to redo the main page, there really are. But I really don't want to put the focus on me (re your comment about explaining "who I am"). I have struggled a lot with the fact that information on the site is so personal -- not because I care about sharing such info (I spent years in therapy for sexual abuse endured as a child and both my therapists were ministers -- I'm perfectly comfortable blathering on about crap that makes other people desperately want to tape my mouth shut) but because of the negative fall-out that occurs and that it takes the spotlight off the information per se, which is where I want it to be. So I wrestle a lot with that and I very much want to work on making the site more about "this is good info and helped me" and less about "me, me, me", which just causes all kinds of problems in all kinds of ways.

I'd consider coming up with a short timeline - as a new visitor, I might be interested in quickly knowing things like how far along you are in your journey. Like were you just diagnosed? Have you just recently decided to turn your life around or have you been working on this for awhile? As a new visitor, it helps me more quickly identify with your story and what I can expect to get from you.

Thanks. I did start a time-line. I never finished it or published it.

So if keeping the site going makes you happy, don't give up!

Oh, it doesn't really make me happy. I would much rather be in the entertainment space. But you can't separate this dramatic piece of my life experience from who I am and I don't think it's possible for me to entirely walk away from it. I think if I shut down the site and made a fortune doing something else entirely, then years down the road reporters would hound me for info on how I got well. I would rather just leave the site up and say "here's that info -- now back on topic, it's so not that interesting, thanks". As I noted elsewhere, the site grew out of an off-the-cuff remark I made on an email list I belonged to and the strong reactions people had to the information I casually commented on as a normal part of my everyday existence (a list, btw, that had nothing to do with health issues at all).

Thanks for all your feedback.

You do value free "get rich selling stuff on eBay" and "save your marriage" sites?

People want free information, but people don't act like free information has any value.

If I tell you about the feeling elimination technique, which is useful where you imagine a situation and feel a sudden physical feeling (e.g. imagine a being in an aircraft and feel your stomach tense up and you get anxious, or imagine eating fish and your face screws up in disgust, or imagine confronting someone and wanting to curl up and hide, that kind of thing).

That the technique involves imagining one situation hard, noticing the physical reaction in your body, focusing on what you're imagining to intensify the physical response - like grasping a nettle hard - then holding that state while counting backwards from your age to 0 (start in 5 year increments to age 5, then 1 year increments to age 1, then month increments to -9 months) and each time pause a couple of seconds and ask yourself if you still feel this way.

That's it. It exists, it works, if you practise doing it you can get rid of some kinds of automatic fears which have been a deep set part of your life for decades, and you can do so in minutes. This is free, potentially life changing information. I would bet money that you wont even try it, and think it probable that you wont even take seriously the idea to try it and plan to do so "one day" and never do. That nobody who reads this will give it a second thought.

But if you'd paid good money to meet a consultant about some fear you have, and they told you about it, you would think hard about it, try it, and when you fail the first time, you would try again. And if you can't do it, you would try a different fear assuming it was you at fault not the idea. But if it's free, you're much more likely to try it once and if you can't get it to work first time on one fear, assume it's bunk.