How to Follow and Support My Work
Originally Posted: August 15th, 2021
How to Follow and Support My Work
Hi. 👋🏻
I’m Evan. It’s just a single person here. This is my website. It’s called “McCann Tech” because I’m not good at naming things. I wish I came up with something better, but it’s probably too late now.
As time has gone on I’ve added more ways to follow and support this poorly-named website. I’m not the best at self-promoting, so I wanted to make a list to point people to. I’m still experimenting and finding the methods that work, but here’s what I have so far.
We all need a little support sometimes.
Discord
Invite URL: https://discord.gg/qvuMZ88Y6x
Discord is the easiest way to contact me. I do have a contact form, but that attracts a lot of spam. Even worse, that form generates an email I have to respond to. I tend to fall behind on email, but I’m usually good at checking Discord.
The Discord server is approaching 100 members. It’s a very low volume server right now, so it’s easy to keep up with. I try to not be annoying by sending out messages to @all, or generating unnecessary notifications. I just want Discord to be an easy place to pop in to ask a question or say hi.
Article Tweets: https://twitter.com/TechMcCann
Twitter is easy. I tweet when I release a new article from my @techmccann account. I tweet other things from my personal account. Sometimes I screw up and tweet from the wrong account because hey, I’m human.
I haven’t been able to get my hands on the @mcccanntech twitter account, which is annoying. If anyone reading this has any ideas for how to claim that account, let me know.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/mccanntech
Facebook is probably my least favorite and least used social media platform. The only thing I like about Facebook are some of the groups that I’m apart of there. My Facebook page is just like Twitter, with a post going up when I release a new article.
Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/mccanntechblog
I made this on a whim the other week, and haven’t promoted it or spent much time on it. I don’t know if this subreddit will ever be anything besides another place to post articles. I would like to build it into more of an active community, but it’s just an experiment for now.
Apple News
Apple News Channel: https://apple.news/TWdGguTyXRjqiFTImWrw18Q
Apple News is weird. When I first made it, I spent the time to create custom Apple News format posts. I slowly realized that was a waste of time. Now, my Apple News channel is basically just an RSS article receiver. You can follow my work there, but you’ll get the same thing from RSS.
RSS and Email
Email and RSS via Follow.It: https://follow.it/mccann-tech
Squarespace RSS Feed: https://evanmccann.net/blog?format=RSS
Old Feedburner RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mccanntech
Sigh. Where to begin.... I use Squarespace as my CMS, and it has RSS support built in. If you just want a basic RSS feed, use that.
In the early days, I tried using Google’s Feedburner as an alternative. I thought it provided more options than Squarespace’s default. Unfortunately, as is inevitable with all things Google, Feedburner is being discontinued. That feed will continue to work (as far as I can tell), but Google’s announcement forced me to look at my RSS options again.
I couldn’t find something I was really happy with, but I landed on Follow.it. Follow.It gives you an RSS feed for free, and it lets people sign up for email subscriptions. Email is another thing I’m experimenting with. I don’t like the idea of charging for an email newsletter, but all of the good tools require payment.
I’d like a better solution for RSS and email. I don’t think it exists but if it does, I’m sure it’s not free. If you know of one, let me know.
How I Make Money
This website is a hobby and not a money-making venture, but I do have a few ways to support my work. These are how I pay for my website hosting, and pay myself back for buying the equipment I review.
I’m not doing this to make money, which is good because I’m bad at it. Even if you consider my hourly rate $0, this website loses money. Thankfully writing, editing, sharing, and hearing from readers is it’s own reward. Writing articles is fun, and I appreciate every reader whether they can support me or not.
Tip Jar
URL: https://evanmccann.net/tip
Direct support is my favorite. If you want to directly support my work, make a donation to my tip jar. I don’t have any rewards or anything fancy like that. You will get a (probably very delayed) email response from me saying thanks, though.
My tip jar is another thing I haven’t spent any effort promoting, but it’s there for people to find. I’ve had people give me small donations from all over the world, and receiving those feels really good. I don’t like the other methods of making as money as much as this kind of direct relationship.
I don’t have any plans to make anything else here. For now it’s very much a “give me money and you get nothing” kind of thing. I don’t plan on adding a subscription, selling t-shirts or stickers, or any of the usual tricks. I don’t want to start a Patreon or SubStack or anything like that. If you’re tired of subscriptions like I am, feel free to show your appreciation. If not, that’s fine too.
Ads
Besides direct support, ads are my next favorite. I use Google Adsense and try to keep them as unobtrusive as possible.
I personally hate landing on a page and seeing a cookie warning, a banner ad, and an auto-play video in the background. I hate how junky and ad-filled a lot of website are. That’s why I’ve cut down the types of ads, the companies that are able to buy them, and how many are on each page. I am probably the most active user of this website, constantly referring to older posts or updating them. I don’t use an ad blocker, so I think a lot about where ads can be without being annoying. It affects me more than anyone.
I’ve removed ads from my homepage and some of the main category pages. I don’t have ads on my Ubiquiti Guide, for example. I don’t have ads pop up from anywhere, they are only inline with content. That’s what I prefer to see, and I think it is the best option for everyone. I make a fraction of the money I could make, but I feel better. I’d rather make $1 and feel good about it, than make $10 by enabling popup nonsense.
Affiliate Links
Example: https://amzn.to/3m6ARFp
Finally, we have affiliate links. The main ones I use are from Amazon, which I don’t love. Sometimes they are a direct link like what I showed above. Sometimes they are images with a “buy on Amazon” button like on the right side of the paragraph.
In an ideal world, someone who lands on my website is looking to read about a product. They would read my article, learn that they want to buy it, and were already planning on buying it from Amazon. They click my link, giving me a portion of the sale without changing the price for them. I get a little kickback for the work I did, and the reader gets the answer they were looking for. Everyone wins.
I don’t think anything is ever ideal. I don’t want to push people to buy from Amazon more than other vendors. I wish I had an easy way to link to a local network vendor, or something like that. I’d much rather never point people to Amazon, but I don’t have that option right now. I know there are tools out there to do that, and I’m looking into and considering making that change. It will be a lot of work and might cost some money, but I think it will be worth it.
I feel bad about making people click a link to Amazon to generate revenue, but affiliate income is the most effective way I’ve found to pay for the equipment I review. Most of the Wi-Fi equipment I’ve tested has been equipment I own, or has been funded by this. Direct support and ads don’t generate much, but hopefully that will change over time.
If you read my articles and never click on an Amazon link, I’m OK with that. If you run an ad blocker that’s fine too. If you never make a donation to my tip jar, I understand. I’m just happy you here reading my silly words.
Like and Subscribe, or whatever.
