I'm Probably a Scammer [Hate Mail Inside!]

This weekend wasn’t all romantic plots and schemes. It was also one of those fun weekends where the hate mail fairy brings random angry internet denizens to my door. This time, in the form of some angry blog comments on headway101.

I didn’t actually have to publish them (he hasn’t commented before) but then I thought eehhhh why not? This is the “uncensored” view of the internet life, and sometimes that includes hate mail.

This one is from a blog post called “10 Frequent WordPress Mistakes That All New Bloggers Make.”

(people give you 3 grand a month for this? this is blogging 101 that has been around for years.)

This one is from a showcase post I wrote called 12 Stunning Headway Theme Designs.

(I find your site appalling. The fact that you are charging innocent people that do not know any better for info that you should just be freely blogging about is a slap in the face to the design community. Your [sic] not showing any one how to do any thing that you came up with on your own at all. Nothing here is original at all, and if the “newbies” you are taking advantage of knew any better they would realize that with a little hard work and persistence: they would figure this out on their own. Not to mention the great reward that comes with that.

I find you to be a slap in the face to all of us who develop and design and “FREELY” share our findings with the rest of the community. You should be ashamed of yourself. Not to mention that you blog and brag about your finances off this site as well! are you serious? Your [sic] a hacked site waiting to happen!)

Ow.

I wrote actual responses in the comments section on HW101 but its’ been a few days so I’m going to take a new approach here. First, yes, Jimmy hurt my feelings. Just because my fight or flight default is set to “burn everything down” doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. I probably have far too many.

But I also have a dog to pay medical bills for, a rent to deliver, and a girlfriend who cries a lot and has thus doubled my “tissues and face cream” budget. (Love you, babe.)

If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that I tried doing everything for free once. It didn’t work out so well. So when I came back to the “Headway Themes” market, I wanted to figure out a way to support the community and be able to afford my rent. You probably read about that too.

Here’s how I dealt with this specific commentary on my business model…

Nobody is Paying Me a Giant Lump Sum

I don’t charge $3,000 for my training site. It’s just $19 per month, and if you don’t like the content, you can cancel anytime. You don’t need my help or approval to do so. Login to the dashboard, click “delete account” and go off into the night with a better resource or no resource at all. It’s just that the people decided they like my stuff and they’ll pay for it.

I learned programming from books. And breaking numerous websites. I cried. I built WordPress themes from scratch. I built an entire social network from scratch (and never launched it). My customers don’t want to cry. They want to just, you know, put up a website and move on. They’re not programmers, and I’m not selling them on that.

Plus I’m specialized. If you don’t use Headway, you don’t need me. The market decides. But it’s twofold. They decide to pay me, and I give them the best stuff I can, and if they decide not to pay me, I go broke and lose my apartment and my internet connection and me and the dog hang out on the corner all winter begging for food. I don’t get paid to run the site by Headway Themes, and people could be using the official stuff.

And, half of my income has nothing to do with the membership fees. It’s all freelance work and packaged product sales. And some of those products are free stuff, but I need the money, bro.

How’s a girl supposed to buy food, yo?

I’m Not “Bragging” About My Finances

I mean, the finances are cool, but the income reports were never meant to be a brag. If you have a normal job you probably make more than me. At the start, it was always about trying to track my finances like an adult and see if I’m actually getting anywhere with this whole “professional blogging” thing.

And I am. Woohoo!

The income reports just had the side effect of making other hopefuls feel like it’s possible, and want to learn, and think I might be able to help them. So I’ll try to help them out too.

I never lose sight of the fact that this would be impossible without each and every member on my website. I tweeted about my income once and lost a client. It happens. I also donated some money to a clinic in El Salvador to cover a random stranger’s medical costs and I stand up for gay rights in person and I rescue dogs from junkyards. I give back as much as I can, is what I’m saying.

I’m Still Probably a Scammer

True, nothing I make can be held in your hands, or will work without an internet connection. If Media Temple closes its doors and my computer bursts into flames and then I go brain-dead, a lot of people would be entitled to refunds. If Headway Themes closes its accounts tomorrow, I’m out of business. If WordPress gets taken over by the government and becomes a subsidized, highly regulated market, I’m probably out of a job.

And there was once a mysterious note on my iphone that just said “scamming millions.” That’s not even a joke.

But so far I’ve managed not to upsell $5,000 MLM jobs to old ladies, so I think I’m doing okay in terms of degree of scamming. Only time will tell.

#EndofHateMail