Howdy Reader! I watched a video on blogging in 2025 on YouTube. Not surprisingly, the speaker talked about how to use AI effectively. He fed his entire blog content to ChatGPT for it to analyze. He did this by installing a plugin that prints the contents to a single PDF. I broke down and got a ChatGPT Plus subscription, and did the same for my blog. The PDF was 3,042 pages long. Twenty-plus years of writing off and on amounted to that much. Doing things with some consistency adds up. It adds...
1 day ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Simple question for you today ... What help do you need with your creative journey? Hit reply and let me know! ~ John When you're up for it, here are some other ways I can help you: Follow me on Threads and tag me there with a question about building your online presence Check out my other writing on my blog or on Medium Learn from my current side hustle challenges on Substack Note: Some links in this email may be affiliate links, and I may earn a commission at no additional...
2 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! A travel blogger I know had this gem talking about how he approaches writing newsletters for others. From his post on LinkedIn: Most people think ghostwriting is about pretending to be someone else. It’s not. It’s about helping people sound more like themselves. ~ Kevin Payne, Family Money Adventure If he's helping others sound more like themselves, it must be a good thing, right? Your own voice and your own stories are your secret sauce. AI can't faithfully reproduce it. People...
3 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! In my last email, I talk about how I helped my wife back up her Threads posts. She had good reason for typing them directly into the Threads interface. She wanted to format the posts for length and the like. My suggestion of typing them in a Word document first wouldn't really work for that. But she did agree to save them off in a document going forward, so I count that as a win. 😁 I do things a bit differently. When I write a post, it goes into Obsidian first. It goes there...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I helped my wife back up her Threads posts. For a few weeks, she's posted very nice information about historical books. Lots of likes and interactions, and she also broke 100 followers. But all of the work was put directly on Threads. This makes them vulnerable. If they suspend her account, they're gone. (Not that we have any reason to think they would, but who knows?) So I tried to use the data export tool. It was less than helpful. Every individual post and comment was lumped...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! I puttered a bit today. It's a way to get things done. It's not the most efficient way, perhaps, but it's far better than nothing. I started by getting a load of laundry going. I went through a very old folder of business documents. I found the document I was looking for earlier in the week (yay!) I uploaded that document to Wise, hopefully this will fix things. I opened a bunch of mail that had been sitting on the buffet for a week. I put our van's registration stickers on. I...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Getting a side hustle going is a great way to sleep better at night. You're building something for yourself, regardless of what happens with your job. But since there are so many options for side hustles out there, it can be overwhelming as to where to start. My friend Colin has developed this 12-question quiz that can help to narrow down a good fit. It's free to take the quiz. Check it out! Let's grow together! ~ John When you're up for it, here are some other ways I can help...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! A lot of people make money directly on Amazon by posting videos. This requires account approval. A social media presence is needed, something like 1,000 followers on a video channel. I'm not quite there yet, so my account request was rejected. But it's still possible to make money with videos with Amazon without this approval. Sign up for the Amazon Associates program. Record videos (shorts) of a product. Include your associates link in the video description. Post on TikTok,...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Howdy Reader! Over 20 years ago I bought this book by Robert G. Allen called Multiple Streams of Income. It covered a broad array of ways to make money: Real estate Digital marketing Covered call options Affiliate programs More These streams are all over the place, but they all can make a lot of money. Where I'm going, though, is that one source of income is risky, especially if it's unreliable income. I have a web client who is a decent poker player. He runs well, and sometimes,...
10 days ago • 1 min read