Big Changes at My Investing for Beginners Site
Although it may seem like I haven’t been around much lately, reality is far different. I’ve been quietly publishing more than I have in years, it’s just hidden. Kind of.
As part of the upgrades to the Investing for Beginners site that are happening, I’ve been putting my focus there in the midst of everything else going on, often releasing 10,000+ words per month in new and updated content. The problem with the updated content: Some of it has no major notification anywhere because I’m still moving pieces around in the administrative section and I haven’t, yet, gotten around to reflecting this in the working draft directory I published of my content over at About.com. I’m going back to old pieces and transforming them into much better versions of their former iterations.
An example is an older article I wrote called How a Family Limited Partnership Can Lower Gift Taxes and Estate Taxes. It was originally 876 words and offered a brief introduction to the topic. On February 28th, I sat down and tore it apart, expanded it, moved pieces around, and ultimately turned it into a 2,948 word essay that dives much more in-depth into the use of of things such as the applicable Federal rate for intra-family loans, gift tax exemptions, and liquidity discounts. Then, on March 1st, a new feature was rolled out on the site that allows the system to intelligently figure out related pieces and let the reader scroll through them, one picking up right after the other as you make your way down the page. There’s largely been no notice of those kinds of changes anywhere, even though they are now showing up on the live site.
I’m even working on overhauling introductory pieces. For example, I’ve recently started diving into more rudimentary articles such as What Is a Bond?. It was originally 508 words but now is much more comprehensive, better organized, and expanded to 1,799 words with links to related content for those who want to study specific sub-areas of bond investing.
All in all, I published four new pieces and updated twenty five old ones in the past thirty days. So far this year, I’ve completed more than 50 updates and published 8 new pieces.
If everything goes according to plan, the whole thing should take 12 to 36 months (and is one of the reasons the update and design on this blog have fallen behind schedule as I have to prioritize my contractual commitments before my hobbies), but when it’s done, I hope – to the extent I can control things, which is much more limited than it was in the earlier days – to have a much better organized, structured, and easy-to-navigate treasure trove of the content I’ve penned in the fifteen years between 2001 and 2016. The process is definitely exhausting, and sometimes messy, but I think, in the end, it will be worth it.
If you have anything you’d like to see me cover, specifically, in 2016 and beyond, either here on this blog or at the About site, let me know and I’ll consider adding it to my future schedules. Do you want me to spend more focus on things like 529 college plans? Derivative techniques? Understanding the minutia in index fund prospectus disclosures? Tax strategies? General life and business philosophy about how we run our own operations? Whatever it is, feel free to leave a comment letting me know.
Update: After nearly 17 years, I have decided to resign from About.com. My resignation is effective November 8, 2017. You can read more about my decision here. I am not sure how much longer my content will be available, or be available in its original format without future edits by non-related parties, on About.com or its successor, TheBalance.com.
