The Joyful Truth has brought me on such a journey of growth over the last year. This blog been a refuge of thought that would bring me out of all the “little things” in life that can overwhelm and has helped me focus on the Big Truths and the Big Picture. It has helped me focus on God and His perspective when I could have been wrapped up in my own. I’ve hoped that it would be a blessing to many people, but honestly, first and foremost, it has been a blessing to me.

That said as I’ve worked to become a competent blogger I’ve seen so much more that I would like to do with The Joyful Truth. I’m hoping to make some big changes in the coming months and I thought that before I dive in, I’d better share with my readers what might just be coming down the pipeline. I should note that I’m not completely positive when all this will be happening, and I’ll try to keep you, my readers, informed as I know more.

The changes that are going to happen could probably best be divided into three groups: Design, Monetization, and Networking.

Design:

Making the switch to wordpress.org:

Currently The Joyful Truth is built and set up through wordpress.com and uses a free wordpress theme. I’ve appreciated the ability to grow a blog and prove to myself my own writing skills with the freedom from a financial commitment, but as with any free service there are limitations in customization and use. Therefore the very first change that you will be seeing happening is a switch to wordpress.org and paid hosting. We’ll still be thejoyfultruth.com, one of the perks of having invested in purchasing a domain a few months ago. I anticipate moving to self-hosting within the next few weeks.

Revamping the Design with a New Theme:

In order to grow The Joyful Truth even more I’m going to also eventually be moving to a more professional theme that will hopefully have more customization options and the flexibility I need to truly help the site shine! The navigation will probably change, the look will change, but hopefully the heart will always remain the same.

Revamping Photographs:

Also when looking at Design you will probably find that most of the images in past posts will most likely change. The reason for this is simple. Up until this point I have been finding images through simple bing searches for images that are “free to customize and use commercially” this has been all I’ve really known how to do in hopes to not infringe on copyrights, however it simply isn’t enough if I want to move forward. I am going to be going back through all images and making sure that not only they are free to use, but credited properly. If I can’t find a way to make sure of this they will be replaced with images that I know without doubt I can use.

Monetization:

I hope you don’t feel that the idea of monetizing my blog is in any way underhanded. The truth is I’m a stay-at-home mom that wishes to help out my family with our grocery bills. Someday I’d like to even help put something into our savings account. I don’t know if The Joyful Truth would ever become a full money making machine, but I’m not really looking for it to be. I’m not trying to get rich. That said here are a few options I’ve been looking into for monetization of this blog.

Ads and Affiliate Marketing Programs:

There are multiple types of advertising one can use in blogging. Current ads that are on my site are ads placed by wordpress.com for their own profit. This is how they are able to be a free service and there is nothing wrong with it, but in moving to owning my site myself I will have more control of the ads placed on The Joyful Truth and might be able to earn from them. I will probably be experimenting a little with ads for awhile after moving to self-hosting to find what works best for The Joyful Truth.

E-book and Book Sales:

This one will probably be quite a bit before you see it, but I have several ideas for e-books and books that I would like to write. When they are available I would like to have a page directly on my site where, if you wish, you may purchase them.

Café Press Gift Shop:

There have been times over the years that I would write a poem and it had a very strong image in my mind that went with it. I’ve thought in the past of the idea of being able to incorporate my words on products for sale. Recently I discovered Cafe Press Shops and am excited at the idea of maybe moving forward with that vision.

Networking:

If there is anything I’ve learned about the blogging world it is that its a community. And the best way to work in this community is to connect to it. For this purpose I’m going to explore more seriously how to connect to other bloggers out there in the world. I wish to connect to bloggers with similar vision in helping people grow closer to Christ. I’d like to see if those bloggers with a faithful audience would like to have me guest post on their blogs, and be open to finding people to guest post on The Joyful Truth as well. I also want to build a robust community here, on the Joyful Truth. I want to find ways to encourage you, my readers, to interact. I want to familiarize myself better with different social media avenues and grow connection between myself and my readers.

As you can see a lot of change is headed our way, and I hope you stay with me to see it. I’ll try to keep the changes from being abrupt and jarring and I’ll keep you informed of them as best I can. It should be noted that while the main site is in design transition I might not be able to post as often as I work to get things running smoothly as fast as possible.

I am so grateful to you, my readers, for joining me in my journey on The Joyful Truth. You are important to me, and I hope that the changes that are implemented become positives for you when you come to visit me as we explore God’s mysteries together!

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Under Construction Grunge Sign  by Nicolas Raymond  (CC BY 3.0)