Year 1: 2020 Year-End Review
Image: Gratitude by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)

Image: Gratitude by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)

 

Synopsis: In 2020, I launched my Kung Fu Psychiatry blog, published 43 articles and 31 book reviews and spent more money than my blog earned. This article addresses the highs, the lows and the lessons learned from my first year blogging on KungFuPsychiatry.com.

BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 12.29.20; No. 44 / 6 min read

Disclaimer: Yes, I am a physician, but I’m not your doctor and this article does not create a doctor-patient relationship. This article is for educational purposes and should not be seen as medical advice. You should consult with your physician before you rely on this information. This post also contains affiliate links. Please click this LINK for the full disclaimer.

What was I expecting?

I started thinking about creating a mental health website about 3 years before launching Kung Fu Psychiatry on January 1, 2020. I liked the idea that, in the process of writing, I would improve my own knowledge base (to help my patients) and make helpful information accessible to a large population of regular people. My hopes in writing included decreasing stigma, preventing suicide and helping others to thrive in life and not let mental illness get between them and their goals. I wanted to share ideas that, while powerful, were not mainstream knowledge and that people could use immediately in their lives.

I had a few other secret hopes. One was to make some money from the content I produced (I’ll talk about this below). Another secret hope was to find my own voice in writing and see if I had any original ideas. The final secret hope was to possibly open up a future professional transition point. I love my job and I’ve been in private practice for close to 6 years. However, one of the things that many people don’t know about a medical private practice is that there is moderate-to-high inherent risk in running it and that there is a fragility to such small clinics. One major personal life event or change in federal law could potentially result in having to close the clinic. In thinking about the future and what I will do when I someday transition away from private practice, I wondered if writing might open doors to new opportunities.

In 2020, what does Kung Fu Psychiatry have to show for itself?

I’m not exactly sure how a person could compare their blog to others and say that they are successful or not. I can share that I feel like the website is successful and that is good enough for me. While our articles and book reviews are ranking well on Google’s search engine, the website has not been “discovered” by social or traditional media and no articles have gone viral. I am happy to share a few metrics with you, but that is all they are - simply rankings and numbers, not signs of value or success.

Oh, yeah, the financials…

The financial picture for Kung Fu Psychiatry was my main low in this endeavor. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that I would make some type of reasonable hourly wage from writing, however, I did hope that revenue from the website would help to cover the costs of running it and publishing the articles. Well, I was wrong in a big way. There are different ways to generate money from the content you generate on your website. You can have banner ads, pop-up ads, retargeting ads, sponsors, memberships, affiliate marketing or you can sell your own products, such as books and webinars.

I could not bring myself at any point in 2020 to put a bunch of advertisements on the website, which I believed would interfere with accessing the articles or ultimately cheapen the entire experience. When I search the internet on specific topics, I hate landing on websites that are so junked up with flashing ads/videos that it is almost as if the ideas themselves are being held hostage by all the advertisements.

To generate revenue, I settled on using affiliate marketing starting in January. Soon afterward, COVID hit the world and I was disturbed that large companies like Amazon were further dominating small businesses. I ended my contract as an Amazon affiliate, having made a total of $6.40, and instead became an affiliate at Bookshop, which supports small bookstores. Even though I am signed up as a Bookshop affiliate, I have currently set up my links to Bookshop to benefit a local, independently-owned bookstore rather than personally earn money from any clicks at the Kung Fu Psychiatry website. While I’m sure some people can turn their websites into little virtual ATMs, that is not the path I plan to walk.

I have no intention of sharing the expenses for setting up and running the website. Some costs are one-time and some are recurring. Examples of the costs include my time spent researching/writing/marketing (750-1,000 hours), graphic design, website hosting, website troubleshooting, consulting fees, computer and other electronic equipment and software, logo trademarking fees, tax preparation, editing staff, email hosting, email marketing/CRM, social media software and purchasing books to review. You might be wondering if there may have been less expensive approaches, such as simply starting a blog on Medium. However, I am convinced that, for my current and future goals, controlling my own website and its contents is the only way to go.

Fun surprises and lessons learned

My biggest highlight in the first year of Kung Fu Psychiatry occurred in the last week. I was able to archive an article, “ERISA – the Enemy of Mental Health Parity,” and update it with a new article, “The Strengthening Behavioral Health Parity Act (SBHPA): An Enormous Step Forward in Mental Health Parity,” due to the passage of the 2020 SBHPA this month. I appreciated being able to interact with state legislators and federal legislative staffers about the problems of ERISA after some of them read my original article. Seeing real action taken at the federal level on an issue that will help tens of thousands of Montanans and tens of millions of Americans was highly encouraging and gratifying.

In fact, I have had several surprises in developing the website, writing articles and book reviews and marketing the content.

Fun Surprises

  • I enjoy writing and believe I have my own voice as a writer.

  • I have something to say and some original ideas to share.

  • I learned that my passion for writing currently is not on narrow psychiatry topics, such as psychiatric medications, but instead on things I’m already telling my own patients, but do not have enough time in a visit to share as much as I would like. I’ve been pleased to be able to refer some of my patients to articles I’ve written and thrilled to learn that many of them have actually read and benefitted from them.

  • I have loved working with my daughter, who is my first-pass editor, and wife, Krista, who is my second-pass editor.

  • I have received positive feedback from friends (even when they are pointing out a mistake) and recommendations that helped me avoid pitfalls.

  • While I started the book reviews out of obligation to ensure that I was recommending good books to readers, I discovered that the book reviews have helped me to see the quality of each book with a more critical eye as I have re-read the books.

  • Squarespace has been a good platform from which to launch the blog and it has good SEO.

  • Google Analytics has revealed that, while 75% of my readers are from the US and Canada, the articles are also being read around the world.

  • The website is already having a positive impact on advocating for mental health as I have received feedback from state and federal elected officials that they are reading the advocacy articles and taking notes.

Lessons Learned

  • Social media is not very helpful for my purposes. In 2020, I completely abandoned Twitter and Pinterest and decided to use YouTube only on an episodic basis. My use of Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram will continue in the same rudimentary way. What I don’t like about social media is that to gain a large following, you have to devote yourself to the process like a new religion. Likes are ephemeral. I would rather spend my time creating useful, lasting content and have people discover it naturally than force-feed it through a social media app.

  • Affiliate marketing is a poor fit to generate revenue for the type of website I have and the content I create.

  • The newsletter subscribership has grown more slowly than I expected.

Summary and ideas for 2021

In all, I’m glad that I started Kung Fu Psychiatry and I plan to continue it in 2021 - not out of a sense of obligation, but because I enjoy it and it is in alignment with my values. I love learning more about myself, others and the world and I find that the process of writing fuels and helps me express my passions. Things I’m considering for 2021 include writing a book on depression, adding a store to the website and developing a Kung Fu Psychiatry app. It will be interesting to see what developments occur over the next 12 months when I write my year-end review next December. I hope that your 2021 is better than your 2020 and that you have found (and continue to find) something useful on Kung Fu Psychiatry for yourself, your loved ones and the people you serve. Have a happy new year!

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AdvocacyLen Lantz, MDThe Psychiatry ResourceMental Health, Wellness, Positive, Advocacy, Justice, Psychiatry, Stigma, Fun, Helping, Gratitude, Review2 Comments