some scary serious news

Andy here with some scary serious news..

1st… sorry for the length of this post

(this is a web ready version of the big-ass email I sent to all my lists in an attempt not to hide from the MonSter)

I have been putting this post off for a couple of months

I don’t want you to get scared!

it’s not HUGE but it is BIG news, the not-so-great kind

not-so-great for me that is.

but, you? well, you should be fine!
(disclaimer: if you were fine already)

and there is a way through this, it’ll just take some readjustment and as you’ll see, it will affect CommentLuv (see below)

“what!?
get on with it!”

the big, not-so-great news is

on 8th December I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis

oh, I thought that was going to be harder…

in case you didn’t know, it’s an incurable disease that means I grow 2 heads…

well, that’s the reaction I get from some people when I tell them I’ve got Multiple Sclerosis.

the truth is, it’s not the end of the world (for me or you as a customer)

(and I wont get 2 heads)

there’s drugs, support, help and all sorts of nice things available to me to keep me coding.

it’s actually a condition that is caused (among other things) when white cells attack! (great title for a TV series right?)

here’s a pretty picture that looks scary (to some) that shows what Multiple Sclerosis does to your nerves

That’s basically saying my nerves are getting damaged which affects how I feel and function.

if you can imagine losing some insulation on the wires behind your car dashboard so there are bare wires touching each other…

lights wouldn’t work sometimes or switching the heating on also puts the screen wipers on or the windows are slow to go down..

sometimes it’s ok, the wires don’t touch each other or only a bit,

when that happens, it’s a good day.

but, sometimes it seems like all the wires are touching,

when that happens, it’s not such a good day..

.. and it feels like you’re going round a corner when in fact you’re going straight.

woo! keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times!…

How does it affect me?

Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms change depending on the person, what time of day it is, how tired I am, how hot it is and more

• Tiredness (fatigue)
• Heat intolerance (no Jamaica holidays any more)
• Numbness (yes, even numbnuts)
• Phantom Sensations
• blurred/double vision
• balance problems
• vertigo (that’s dizziness to you and me)
• emotional imbalance (haha, that’s me!..boohoo)
• … and a whole host of wonderful and interesting things

luckily, not all at the same time! oh how fun that would be…

I am getting treatment..
it appears to help. even if it didn’t, I think I’d be fine to type this. (I’d just see 2 of everything)

How will it affect you?

apart from knowing it, it really shouldn’t affect you.

you might have to wait a little longer for support responses or email replies but, generally you wont notice.

I hope so anyway. So far, so good.

if you want to contact me then it’s best to use the support ticket system rather than emailing direct so I can keep a track of the thread of conversation.

you can get to it here >> commentluv.zendesk.com

What am I going to do?

Multiple Sclerosis To Do List

I’ve had to reduce the amount of geekery I do every day

simply because my body and brain is not so good with too much intense work (haha, no change there then!)

seriously though, I’ve had to drop all projects apart from CommentLuv

which means, I will actually have more time for CommentLuv when I get in to my new office..

I was supposed to have the new payment system in place by now…

that wasn’t possible. It will still happen but I have other things to do in the meantime..(and there’s a new system in town that might make this a much easier thing to do, with instant payments – for affiliates, I’ll let you know about this nearer the time)

like moving house.. oh deary, I was in the middle of this when I got diagnosed!

bring on the stress related symptoms! .. so I went the route of paying for the work to be done rather than try to do it myself.

when I’m all moved in to my shiny new office (cat5 points in every room!) I can move on with the new payment model and other site changes.

like add a new place for members to get (free) goodies

and the CommentLuv user directory (more on that below)

and lots of other stuff which I’ll tell you about next time

How will it affect CommentLuv Premium Customers?

well, I’ve got a whole bunch of things to do for the plugin and site..

now that I can focus just on CommentLuv and not chase after shiny buttons to keep me amused like I used to, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised..

• All my lists on Aweber are going to be combined in house 

  I’ve got a new system in place to handle all email subscriptions that I’ll be continuing to communicate with.I can’t justify the $159 per month fees if I’m not going to be doing the sort of email promotions that I used to.

  It’s not the money really, I just want to start using my own system that uses Amazon SeS and it makes more sense to pay $1 to send 10,000 emails than spending $159 which I’m doing now with Aweber.

  I will send another broadcast about this in the coming weeks..plus how to do it yourself and save a bazillion in email service provider fees

• No IonCube (for now) 

  After some bad experience with incompatible code encryption in a plugin I recently bought, I’ve decided against doing this for now.

• Global Blacklist (for Premium customers) 

  because I’m not going to use an encryption system like IonCube I’m going to add a blacklisting service to CommentLuv Premiumthis will really help some of you who are getting targeted…I wont go in to detail but, it’ll work by downloading a list of

  URLs that will get comments that use them automatically spammed.of course, there’ll be ways to report spammers (and get unspammed if you’ve be wrongly added)and of course, anyone doing anything pirate like with the plugin gets added so no luv on any commentluv sites.. ah arrrr..
• Official CommentLuv Directory 

  This will finally be started!I already collect data and I’ve got records of 10’s of thousands of sites.it’s just a case of taking the data and displaying it in a fancy waysounds simple right?

• Featured CommentLuv Premium Sites 

  This is something I will outsource.I’ve already got a few people interested in doing the reviews.

  if you get chosen to be a featured site, you’ll appear on the front page of ComLuv.com with dofollow links to your site.This WILL get you traffic and comments.

• …. more 

  I could list all the things here but this email is already way too longI’ll let you know nearer the time

What happens next?

First thing I need to do is transfer my lists over to my new system..

there’s a lot of people on my lists!

I will be dropping some lists completely and merging others together

a fresh start, for spring, with a big old list

a complete nightmare if I was planning to continue to do the promotions that I used to do but, I can’t do that any more…so no point lamenting lost lists (ooh, that could be a book title)

(some lists will stay with Aweber like the tasty Tuesday opt in and other automated funnel type lists that are compatible with your affiliate links)

I’ll still be emailing, just not the same way as before..

you’ll probably hear from me soon as I start to get lists combined and merged.

if you have subscribed to more than one of my lists with more than one email address (probably you have) then you might get a few duplicate emails..

please do not hesitate to unsubscribe if you don’t want to hear from me

What will I be saying?

The subjects and content of the emails I will be sending in the future will partly be to do with CommentLuv Premium, it’s progress and how I will be promoting it..

don’t worry! they all wont be as long as this monster email..

it should be exclusive too. I’m not 100% certain I’ll keep all the info in the emails, maybe I’ll allude to it and write the whole thing on a blog post..

..maybe I’ll keep the exclusive stuff on the emails..

I haven’t really decided what format will work best yet, I do hope you can bear with me while I find out what works…

I’ve been studying hard this last year, big old courses on PPC, PPV, TLB and other three letter acronym type things

and when I get funny days where I can’t type properly because my hand is numb or I accidentally put on someone elses legs when I get up in the morning, I’ll study some more..

I am hoping that you’ll find what I learn useful..

things like facebook advertising

paid traffic (<– this is actually fun to do if you get it right)

funnels.. not just sales funnels, but opt-in funnels and others

media buying

solo lists (<- not learned about this yet)

PPC (and how to use it to promote products)

PPV (banner ads and how to use them)

I’ll do the buying and spending and experimenting so you don’t have to

plus, because I wont be charging for this information and there’ll be full disclosure (even the failures) you could copy the successes and apply it to your own products, services or affiliate products.

it wont be all promotional methods though, that would be way too boring

I’ll also include some featured CommentLuv bloggers and what they’re doing right

blogging tips that work ( maybe a guest email now and then from experts)

and if it doesn’t freak too many people out, the progress of my condition and what I’m doing to make it better and to overcome any difficulties it brings up

is that ok?

are you ok to be part of this? don’t worry, you can unsubscribe any time and if you’ve got CommentLuv you’ll still get notified of important plugin updates

any thoughts on what you’d like to see? just let me know (via the support ticket system if you can)

How to get more information on my Multiple Sclerosis progress

I know that this is not for everyone and some people are a bit put off by pictures of medical things…

like this, the human juice box. I was so freaked out that if I knocked the cap off, all my juice would spill out!

I’ve been keeping a video diary and publishing it online.

well, what else did you expect Andy Bailey to do?

it’s been super helpful in giving me something to rant to (the MS nurses are supposed to do this but they’re 20 miles away by car)

apparently, they’re helpful to others too. I hope so.

I started them just a few minutes after getting my diagnosis and I’ve been making them regularly..

you can see my facebook page here >> MSVideoDiary

the first video is here -> 10 Minutes after diagnosis

feel free to come and watch a few. I try to keep them short so they’re not boring (I hope)

How you can help

these emails that I’ll be sending, they wont all be expert-tells-you-how type emails

in some, I’ll ask YOU if you have a way of doing things

in others, I’ll ask YOU what you think is best, and then I’ll try it … and report the results

and in others, I’ll ask you to visit a site or give a thumbs up to a worthy cause or blog

I hope you can stay on my list, there’ll be lots of information to be learned and I’ll throw in a freebie now and again too.

I really don’t want to cram up your inbox with useless crap or insincere hype about plugins I don’t use..

be sure to let me know if you see stuff like that…

have fun! and speak to you soon….

your friend,

Andy Bailey

www.commentluv.com

facebook.com/MSVideoDiary

P..S.. I’d love it if you could like my MS Video Diary page and raise awareness of this condition