Crossing the Rubicon! 10,000 Followers on Instagram and the New Golden Era of Guitar Pedal X

The first big news here is that Guitar Pedal X is going Pro! As of my reaching 10,000 followers on Instagram GPX will now be my main job and my main earner. Up until now it has not had any commercial dimension to it - not contributed a penny of revenues - while now I need to start making money through the site and my services - and so some changes are inevitable - while everything you're currently accustomed to will remain open and freely available to all, and I still won't be charging for any of my current features and reviews - while some other services will arise in parallel.

A lot of you have been asking how you can support GPX and keep it going - if this commercial experiment doesn't work I may have to fold the operation and move onto something else like Bud Ross did back in the day. While I really believe in what I do, and hope that enough people believe in me and want to keep on being part of this experience which some have described as the 'Which?' of pedals. I of course think it is and can be a lot more! TPS is around the 125K followers mark on Insta  - so that will be the lofty target we aim for - of course we need to scale a few more mountains first before we tackle Everest!

So we've got a new and evolved website going live very soon (September) - most of what you see in the above and below screen-grabs is already fully fledged and active in testing - while we're consulting with you dear readers and followers on what to do in some of those areas.

You will note that we've slightly modernised the logo - but it's still clearly identifiable as what it was, we've added in some further brand markers, some further hints to what lies beneath, and of course the 3 new Advertising Banners are immediately and obviously visible - hopefully without being overly and overtly intrusive - and I certainly won't be allowing any screen-takeover stuff we see on many sites nowadays.

Another new feature will be Favourites / Bookmarks - which will allow you to bookmark your favourite content on the site for easier reference.

This essentially means that I will be managing the Advertising inventory onsite - validating the Advertisers and their Banners - which have to bear some relevance to Pedals or Guitar Gear generally - I will not be accepting advertising from unrelated sectors - it should be wholly complementary to the content on the site - and all banners should be of high quality - and largely static in nature - flickering, rapidly colour-changing eyesores and the like will not be permitted. I've yet to finalise the rate card - but work is in progress.

Currently there are 2 placeholder campaigns in place - rotating mostly on a 20 second timer. The first visual shows the 'Iconic' campaign banners - highlighting some of the types of content found on the site. The second visual shows the 'Elemental' / 'Advertise Here!' Banners - covering Fire, Ice and Water Elements.

There will be 4 AD Banner Formats, across 6 placements :

• 1 x Full Banner Header @ 970 x 90 pix
• 3 x Side Bar MPU Banners @ 300 x 250 pix
• 1 x Supporters Side Bar Banners @ 318 x 80 pix
• 1 x Pop-up Meerkat Base Banner @ 720 x 90 pix

The Full Banner and MPU Banners will rotate in place on a 20 second timer
The Supporters Banners will be stacked - therefore all constantly visible
The Pop-up / Meerkat Banner changes on screen refresh, not on the 20 second timer

You can buy individual Banner Inventory - or combinations of several slots - which to start with will be largely upon negotiation - over time a more fixed rate card will evolve - where minimum terms will apply, and duration of at least one month, but typically 6 months or a year.

This is a nigh identical service to what you can already see on the Noticeboard Channel of the Travel Trade Gazette (running on the same Affino platform). It's essentially a self-service short-hand press release submission / posting utility - where users of the service can post up summary versions of their new product launch press releases.

I will have final say as to what is suitable (moderation) - there will be a framework of some simple rules - and as long as you comply with those - your short-hand press release should appear very rapidly indeed!

People need to apply to use this service - and each account needs to be set up manually by me - a fairly straightforward process - where all of this will be free of charge, but will require your registering on the site - with further validation.

Until we have some proper content in place - please refer to the TTG Media Noticeboard Channel / Page pictured above and below, and inked within this text.

You click on the individual items to open up the details as in the examples provided here! :

We know how much many of you love Gear Forums - and we will have one of our very own on Guitar Pedal X on the new website.

I'm reaching out to you to see which Discussion Topics you would like to see on there from the start - we can always add more.

And then we can all get even more  involved in discussing the minutiae and merits of whichever pedal, brand, or related activity.

It has yet to be decided - but Gear Talk may be a perk of Membership - which we will jointly decide upon before it goes live - to keep the lunatic fringes at bay and all that!

Some readers struggle to find some of the more historic and iconic content - so we've grouped together some of the cream of that into 7 Topic Landing Pages, namely (alphabetically too) :

• 12 Degrees of Saturation
• Best in Class
• Builder Profiles
• Guitar Pedal 101
• Iconic Gear
• Pedal Chain
• Pedal Planet

Those 7 are live at launch - more will be added as needed / requested

UPDATE! - actually I've added another one already - there may be even more at launch!

The Affino Platform this site runs on has some very advanced capabilities - particularly in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Data Capture and Interrogation.

We will be developing various AI Services around getting the most out of the intelligence that's embedded in all of this content.

Members will be able to avail themselves of various Deep Dive tools to seek out all manner of recommendations from the depths of GuitarPedalX.com. You should be able to retrieve / extract every nugget of valuable information that this site holds.

This will form part of the consultation of what people expect out of Guitar Pedal X, and what Perks of Membership they would hope for. This will for sure be a Member service and not available to all!

A lot of YouTube and various Social Media Channels allow their viewers to sponsor certain topics - i.e. have content generated upon request - within reason of course - via suggested Themes or Categories. Is this something I should be doing? And if so what is a fair fee for writing an article on a particular subject. Of course editorial and ethical standards will need to be met - and labels will need to be put in place.

Since I'm going Pro now - I will be referencing the relevant articles as to whether the pedals in question were supplied / gifted (PdG), acquired at a discount (Pd%), or acquired at full price (Pd£). As I will be relying on GPX to generate my income - it's likely that more of those review pedals will be Supplied / Gifted - as I won't at least initially be in a position to buy pedals quite so freely as I've done in the past.

I'm already the Chronicler of Record for several brands - and get supplied directly for those pedals - while a lot of my time involves negotiating and haggling for pedals - frequently to no avail!

I'm going to have to be more opportunistic going forward - but never at the expense of quality, authenticity or independence - the highest quality standard will be maintained alongside a fiercely independent streak - and this will still be an entirely curated process - decided upon mostly by me and my soon to be - advisory / steering committee/s.

The aim is to evolve to proper GPX Workshops and a GPX Fest / Summit over time - while we will start with some smaller and more casual local area meetups in and around central London - some Pub or drinking den with a back room or similar - open to suggestions really!

I'm also thinking I will do at least a Monthly Gear Talk Zoom or similar - kind of in the mould of Phillip McKnight's 'Know Your Gear' Series - obviously 99% focused on Pedals of course.

I'm looking for partners here to get involved and help coordinate to make this a reality - and so look forward to hearing from some of you real soon!

I will be gradually dipping my toes into Podcasts and YouTube - starting off with various collaborations and wholly on other people's channels - until I figure out a worthy format for GPX - should be a fairly organic process - with no time pressures - it's more about doing the right thing - when the timing is right and all the stars are aligned!

I have had some collaboration offers already - will be interesting to see how that evolves.

I'm not going to leap into any of these types of content without having a unique and worthy format and really decent partners.

I'm keen on doing the ensemble / sidekick kind of thing - where I feel the dynamics are far more interesting with two personalities or more involved in the discussions - kind of like a Howard Stern Show for Pedals!

I have a number of Studio and Workshop visits lined up - where I will be spending time with some of those Pedal heroes - Makers and Players, even some Dealers and related Luminaries.

I need to find a videographer really to accompany me on those visits - while for the first few of those they will be solo ventures and photo-journalistic in my usual style.

I also have a mind to allow certain onsite visits to the bunker here in certain special circumstance - for people to have a go on my 'mothership' / 'spice rack' pedal-chain. And to try some pedals from the archives. Of course needs a lot of personal validation and vetting first - need to figure out how that would best work - open to suggestions of course!

I'm all about quality - and so the limited merchandising that will appear for sale here will all be of the highest quality - embroidered and engraved for instance rather than surface printed.

To start off with I'm looking at Guitar Picks, Adjustable Caps, and T-Shirts.

This will be a case of testing the waters too - in terms of pricing, numbers of items, sizing etc. I'm not going to be using one of those print farms - so there will be some sort of batch mechanic in place.

I'm not going to fill my house with inventory either - it needs to be done sensibly - the Caps and Picks will be easy, T-shirts more complex. Again - any advice on maximum coverage via least number of variants - would be gratefully received.

This is genuinely an open consultation where I want to get a good idea of where you want to see GPX going - and whether there are any areas I've overlooked that would be of interest to you.

Currently I am but one man - already somewhat overworked - so finding the right partners to achieve some of these elements will be essential.

Do let me know how all of this sits with you - and if I'm vaguely along the right lines here - or whether there are parts we need to revisit, refine and pivot off in different directions!