Story critic nee software engineer

[TimK]

Actually, I'm still a software engineer. But I know I don't want to be one forever, and I don't want to go into management. So I started a blog and podcast called be the story.

This is still very much an experiment. I'm serious about making it profitable, but I'm not even sure if there's an audience for the content I provide. I'm experimenting with different ideas and updating the site to try these different ideas. But I'm still largely flying blind, with little hard marketing feedback. Then again, every now and then something happens that tells me I'm not crazy or that at least I'm thinking along the right lines. I'm currently building a subscriber base. Then I'm hoping to be able to experiment with different ways to monetize the site.

One way I've used to get attention of other bloggers and podcasters is to post on my blog regarding something on theirs. This is of course obvious. But obvious means overlooked. At least, I haven't heard anyone specifically recommend this practice.

Where I'm eventually headed, whether by podcast or other means, is to take up a role as a story expert, a story consultant. I know that role doesn't exist as-is in today's industries. But there are similar roles today, and there will be similar roles tomorrow.

One more thing: I was pretty pleased when I did some Google searches on keywords, testing to see if my own AdWords ad would be appropriate there. I did a search on "storyline patents" and found that the episode I had done on the subject was already listed right after the storyline-patent site.

-TimK