August Manifesto

Tomorrow the calendar flips to August and while it’s still Summer in reality, most clothing retailers already have one eye turned towards Fall. Soon it will be both eyes. Fall is my favorite shopping season (I adore layers!) and ahead of this I want to back up a bit and share where my mind is headed for this next shopping season.

As this Effortlessly with Roxy blog continues to blossom I’m in a period of experimenting and discovering what feels good to post on, both for myself and for this lovely community. I’ve slowed down posting this Summer to just a couple times a week (mostly necessitated by a promotion in my day job) and begun working on some long-form features and series that will be ready for publication in the Fall. It’s easy for me to forget that this blog represents one small slice of my life, a slice I love dearly but one that must be a side dish rather than my main course to be properly enjoyed and invigorating.

I’ve watched the blogging world around me change quite a bit in the nearly nine years since I began this blog. I’ve seen it grow from personal style journals to legitimate business to burgeoning industry spewing over with more bloggers than there are hours in the day. As I watch each batch of cream rise to the top I learn something new, and sometimes I learn what not to do.

When I think to define my own blog I’m not quite sure where I land on the business spectrum right now. My blog was at one point a hobby, then I tried it out as a full-time business (which crashed and burned royally!) and now I’d say something close to a passion hobby that I am more relaxed around, but with a business element to it too. I don’t depend on my blog for income but I do very much enjoy making a healthy side income from it.

As the blogging industry matures I see opportunities to continue improving and opening up this blog. One area I want to become clearer in is transparency. One reason fashion blogs began was as an alternative to the elitist fashion media, where ads are cleverly concealed as content and body-shaming is de rigueur. These days we bloggers are treading into the same murky territory where it’s unclear what’s sponsored and what’s not, what we get paid for and what we do not, and so on.

Certainly I can’t control what others do but for my part I’ve made it one of my quarterly goals to improve transparency regarding content, affiliate programs, sponsorship and gifting on this blog. To that end, this afternoon I will be publishing a disclosure post on how affiliate programs are implemented on this blog, how I participate in sponsorships and gifting, and what your part is in all of this as a reader.

 

 

For now in this post I want to talk about the next quarter of programming here. As we enter Fall my shopping and hunting instincts ramp up and I find myself perusing shopping websites and retail brick & mortar stores more than any other part of the year. As a result, I often have more to post about this time of the year than any other time.

Here is what you as a reader can expect for the next quarter:
– more frequent posts (up to 3x a day when I’m really feeling motivated and time allows!), interspersed with long breaks between content when I have deadlines at work
– posts focusing on wardrobe building, new stuff to buy, how to complete outfits, and outfit ideas
– the return of OOTDs (in September)
– 2-3 long-form features
– lots and lots of affiliate links
– up to 1x/week sponsored posts, either here on the blog or on my social channels
– continued experimenting with posts in new verticals, such as side hustle, travel, active and beauty
– continued less focus on Anthropologie, though they will have a home here so long as I continue to be at least somewhat intrigued (and massively frustrated)

What I really want to drive home here is that although this blog is not a business, it is an income source for me and so the content is nearly always going to be targeted towards encouraging you to click on product links and hopefully buy some stuff too.

 

 

As always, if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed by the shopping possibilities on this or any blog then while I very much enjoy having you here, the healthiest thing you can do for yourself and your wallet is to stop visiting this blog. Maybe it’s a short break, maybe it’s a long break, maybe it’s a forever break.

Likewise, if you are turned off by the content I write or how my posts are formulated, then this probably isn’t the community for you.

I write about what I love and I love shopping! That’s what this blog is mainly about. No politics here. No open forum to discuss the world’s problems or ills. It’s my mostly upbeat escape from the doldrums of the day-to-day.

Come back this afternoon for the affiliate, sponsorship and gifting disclosure post.


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