This week I’ve agreed to move this blog over to Asian Correspondent on a full-time basis.

I’ve had a content sharing arrangement with Asian Correspondent since early this year, but whereas before a snippet of each post would be published with a link to the full content post on jonathan-russell.com the whole blog will move over to Asian Correspondent’s site.

All posts and links will migrate over and remain workable while RSS feeds should be redirected so (any) regular readers should experience little to no inconvenience at all, though please do shout if things don’t work as they should.

It is also important to note that I alone will remain in charge of my postings. Asian Correspondent does not edit, sway or direct its bloggers in any way, so from a content standpoint it will remain business as usual.

So, why am I making this move?

This hasn’t been an easy decision, but here are some arguments, good and bad, I’ve weighed up.

As a freelance writer this move – which is a paid gig – will provide another regular income stream for me. Monetising my blogging allows me to devote more time to it, no longer just a past time, and I will look to extend the focus from just Thailand to Southeast Asia and Asia as a whole.

Beyond the money, however, is the opportunity. Using the growing reputation of Asian Correspondent (which recently hit the milestone of a million hits in a month) I feel I will have greater access and potential to write more professional content, whether that be interviews, mini-features, etc, in addition to the regular types of posts here.

The move represents a great opportunity for me given most of those affiliated with Asian Correspondent, bloggers like Bangkok Pundit, Tonyo Cruz, Korea Beat and others, have spent years building up visibility, readership and influence before being spotted…yet my opportunity comes within 6 months of starting out.

But

On the negative side I will lose the website I’ve worked hard on prettying using my limited, but steadily growing, skills as it will switch to the standard AC template – though perhaps not a bad thing as this template is hardly unique, used by a lot of other bloggers.

More importantly is trade-off on personal branding which comes from losing my personal domain on the web. This blog has, at times, been like a living CV generating interviews, work and leads for me, however I believe that my greater involvement with Asian Correspondent counters this by increasing my visibility and opening the blog to new audiences.

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The move is set to take place early next week so, until the blog migration is complete, I’ll be taking a break for a few days.

Catch you over the other side, I hope.