I used to write this monthly progress series on Medium—until I got banned. People seemed to like it, and I used it to track my progress and stay motivated in pursuing my goals. So, I’ve decided to bring it back on my own blog.
Over time, I’ll expand it and add updates on the various projects I’m working on. Whether any of them will actually grow, I don’t know.
For example, I once ran a fitness website in my native language, German. It grew steadily just because I wrote new articles almost daily. I doubt that’s still possible today, with Google being much more protective of what is promoted to the top of search results and AI increasingly replacing content-based websites.
Just yesterday, I created a nutrition plan for myself and worked out the micronutrient breakdown. Instead of manually researching everything on food database sites, I simply used ChatGPT to handle it. The result was great—and I saved a lot of time.
This is happening across every topic people used to write about ten years ago. AI is making much of that content obsolete.
The only real reason to blog now is to maintain a personal blog—a kind of diary that people follow because they’re interested in you, not just a topic. That’s what I’m trying to build here… but am I interesting enough as a person to make that work? I don’t know.
What will grow—guaranteed—is my book portfolio. So at the very least, I can use this space to report on my writing each month and give you some updates on my journey to becoming an author.
So let’s start with that.
Website
I relaunched the site in April as a daily blog. “Daily” is a loose term for me—I’ll definitely miss a few days here and there—but I plan to update it multiple times per week.
Pageviews and users are up about 20% compared to last month. I even had my first spammers trying to leave Binance referral links in the comments and sending weird emails via the contact form.
I guess that’s a good sign: If scammers think there’s something to gain here, maybe the real audience will too.
Books
I’ve set a release schedule for myself:
- March
- June
- September
- December
That’s four releases per year. Writing the books isn’t the problem—I need a solid system for editing them. I’m currently exploring some AI tools to help catch the typos and minor spelling mistakes I always seem to miss. Expect reviews of these tools once I’ve tested them thoroughly.
The first release is already written and through its first round of editing. I’m now using ChatGPT for a second pass, though I don’t feel like it’s quite enough. Still, it should be ready for the September release.
My December release is in the final editing phase. It’s the first installment in my 17 book series.
- Book 1: Forever | September release | 2nd editing round
- Book 2: 17 Series – Part 1 | December release | Final editing round
For 2026 I’ll have my system set up to meet the other two release dates as well.
YouTube
My tutorial channel hit 10,000 subscribers in April—a small victory.
I’m currently working on a GIMP 3.0 course. It’ll be a 12-hour video (the maximum length allowed on YouTube). I’m also producing a 365-day Photoshop playlist with daily short tutorials that I’ve planned to complete this year.
In addition, I’m considering launching a new channel for book (and maybe movie) reviews—just for fun and to help promote my own writing. I could also use it to explore AI projects and stay up to date with new developments. Seems like a good side project.
Substack
I might mirror my content on Substack again. Something to think about for May…
To Conclude
Book promotion will be my biggest challenge. I honestly have no idea how to do it. It took me six years to grow my YouTube channel to 10K subscribers—which tells you how little I understand about promotion. I’m good at creating content, but promoting it isn’t exactly my strength.
That’s part of why I relaunched my website. Maybe it will attract a few readers, and I can use it to test and document some marketing strategies recommended by people who are much better at this.
Until next month,
Michael Brig
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