In 2022, after a year of mental health issues spurred by a life-threatening pulmonary embolism, I decided to sell the augustafreepress.com domain to a UK marketing company – to basically cash in, in the event that something would happen to me, the hope being, at least my partner in life and in business, Crystal Abbe Graham, would at least be taken care of.
ICYMI
As of March 17, augustafreepress.com is 100 percent back in our hands.
And, yes, as you can guess, there’s a lot of work and expense involved in such an undertaking.
Gotta say, the marketing company that bought the site in 2022 was great to work with from Day 1 all the way through.
We negotiated, as part of the sale, that I would maintain full editorial control over AFP, and they honored that provision to a tee.
And because of their work on the back end of the site, we were able to grow readership on the site by leaps and bounds – from 1 million page views in the 365 days leading up to the transfer of the site in May 2022 to 7.7 million page views in calendar year 2025.
Meaning: the site that we’re getting back from the folks in the UK has many times more reach than the one we sold them.
As you might guess, we’ve been going through some re-growing pains since we began the process of getting the site back under our umbrella.
That process started for us in December, and we’ve had a lot of work to do to get the many ducks in a row – from the front-end stuff that goes into the transfer of a massive website, which has more than 115,000 articles in the archives, dating back to our initial launch in 2002, to just keeping things moving full-steam ahead as much as possible in terms of content.
You’ve probably noticed that the masthead has been a bit light of late – we had to make the call internally to put our freelancers on hiatus for a couple of months, to keep the burn rate down as much as possible, as we ramp back up our efforts at getting money flowing again from advertisers and voluntary subscriptions.
This has meant more work for Crystal and I, to try to keep up with the news, on top of doing the behind-the-scenes stuff, while keeping the bills up to date.
I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel in that respect; I’m hoping we can start bringing the freelancers back into the fold in the coming weeks, and my goal is that we can build up the advertiser and subscriber bases to the point that we can add to the numbers of contributors as 2026 rolls on.
I mean, you, no doubt, get tired of seeing my name in the bylines every time you click on a story.
Like, seriously, Chris, dude, we know you have a lot on your mind, but give somebody else a chance every once in a while, you know?
This is an awesome time for AFP.
The best news, for me, selfishly, is that nothing bad happened for me health-wise as a result of the fallout from the pulmonary embolism.
Those things, needless to say, are scary – my advice: listen to your body better than I did.
ICYMI
I took for granted that I am a distance runner with a resting heart rate in the 40s, and that whatever it was, it couldn’t have been anything to worry about.
Blood clots don’t care how many marathons you’ve run, or not run.
Also make sure to pay attention to your mental health needs. My mental health got wrecked for a good 18 months after the PE, but in the end, the experience is going to make me a better person, because I’m more in touch with that side of me than I ever was before.
Don’t be afraid to seek out help, is my best advice.
ICYMI
- Chris Graham: I feel like if I’m not worrying, I’m letting something happen
- Chris Graham: Inside my lifelong battle with mental illness
- Chris Graham: Stress, anxiety, and how you can worry yourself sick
I did a couple of rounds of talk therapy, and god bless my therapist for listening to me drone on for hours on end.
If you think reading me or listening to one of my podcasts is interesting, well, let’s just say, I’m glad she’s ethically bound not to share anything, right?
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