Category Archive

Author of three editions of the Offbeat Bride book and From Shitshow To Afterglow, Ariel Meadow Stallings acts as the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire websites.

Disclaimer for sponsored posts and other monetized content

My strategy for much of the advertising on the Empire has always been that it doesn’t FEEL like advertising. I do this not because I’m trying to trick anyone, but because I find disruptive advertising annoying and bothersome… so therefore, rather than have sponsored posts written by some random advertising client, all our sponsored posts are written by us, in the same voice that the rest of the posts are written in.

I’ve invested significant design and developer time/money into trying to be as transparent as possible about my monetized content, but there’s still confusion sometimes.

The upside of being a hard boss

Of course my immediate goal as a manager is to get good results out of people, but my secondary goal is to give my staff bad-ass job skills that hopefully advances their careers in directions they want to go. Both these goals necessitate not dancing around it when someone’s failing. Not only do I do my own business a disservice when I put up with poor performance, but I see it as doing the staffer’s career development a disservice.

Walking the line between self-revelation vs. self-indulgence

I was talking this morning with Cat Rocketship (editor of Offbeat Home), about the delicate balance that many of the Empire sites walk between first-person writing and, well, self-indulgence.

How I deal with flouncing

Ah, the the flounce. The term refers to the almost-comical way that frustrated online community members will stand up and yell, “I’M LEAVING! No really, don’t try to stop me! I AM LEAVING. I’m done here. I’m going! I’m never coming back! Did you hear me? I am done with this community! Are you listening? DONE!” Here’s how we deal with them on the Empire.