After running this website for over 15 years, I still get so much out of finding new music, writing about it and helping others discover new music. 2023 once again saw a new record for the number of visitors to the website, just beating out 2022 on literally the last day of the year. A huge thank you from me to anyone who read, subscribed, shared, liked or did anything with Higher Plain Music and its content. There are a few people who support the costs of running the site via Patreon and those get an extra special thank you. I am always so grateful that people take the time to visit this quiet and often hard-to-find corner of the internet.
End of 2023 lull explained
Towards the end of 2023, I had to slow down publishing content and I wanted to explain why. Unfortunately, my already very poorly dad had a fall. He has had a bleed on the brain and has been in hospital since the latter half of October. Obviously, this has been a huge strain. Life demands you work to get money to keep food on the table and a roof over your head. However, I run Higher Plain Music in my spare time as part of a wider collection of websites I run. The project as a whole usually breaks even each year, but it certainly isn’t viable for a full-time career. Not in its current guise anyway and I refuse to cram this website full of ads. With most evenings now crammed full of dad-related things as we work out what the prognosis and rehabilitation look like (it’s slow going) and all the impacts that full-time care or care homes bring, I was usually getting to maintaining websites and posting things at weird times of the night and I chose to put this on the backburner so I could sleep, think and plan.
What does this mean for (early) 2024?
Firstly, I’m not going anyway. I’ve been running the site for over a decade and a half and have no intentions of leaving or slowing down. I’ve spent time on New Year’s Day working out how to rearrange some things to get back to meaningful posting again and I think I’ve cracked it. I just won’t be able to guarantee the usual 10-12 posts a week I aim to cover for the early part of the year while I take care of my parents in this difficult time. I had a fair few plans I wanted to tackle in 2023 that didn’t come to fruition because of my dad’s declining health before the fall and initially, I was hoping to kick those off early in 2024 but they’ll be likely to follow later this year.
It’s not all doom and gloom though
When things are more stable, I absolutely plan to get things back on track again. This includes properly launching a netlabel and looking at new ways to support smaller niche artists. I’m also looking at a potential ground-up site redesign to help visitors discover new musicians more easily. Currently, it’s all down to genre tags and that’s fine but I feel like there are more innovative and personable ways to do it.
The aim is to start making that transition from passionate hobbyist to small business. That will take time and it is time I won’t fully have until my family situation improves.
So thank you so much for yet another record-breaking year for the website. I love running the site and look forward to hopefully another year of growth and musical fun ahead.
Si
Support Higher Plain Music
Higher Plain Music is part of the Higher Plain Network – a one-man indie media project. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. In return, you’ll receive additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and free downloads. You can also donate using PayPal. Sharing the website helps too or using the affiliate buy now links on reviews. I receive a few pence per Amazon sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. I’d love to make this a full-time media network and your support can make that happen. Thank you.
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