As of late June 2025, almost two years after Google’s Helpful Content Update nuked my site (and thousands of other small and mid-sized ones), decimating our traffic by around 90%, they’ve finally given me back about a quarter of my traffic. In that time, Google treated Reddit and Quora like the authorities on all things Japanese. But now, apparently, I’m back as an authority on Japanese food and culture.
Here’s the part that matters: I have not changed any of my content. The only thing that has changed is Google. It does not matter how much quality content you produce (hey, I can pretend my stuff is quality) because Google controls it all. The rules they laid out didn’t matter; they changed them whenever it felt convenient.
I heard somewhere that you have to do tough things, otherwise your brain won’t consider you a PIC (partner in crime). Since I need my brain, I tested that out by doing something I never thought I would: I wrote a manuscript.
Thanks brain.
For about six of those months, I had no clue what I would pivot to. I only started blogging after my food pop-up, which I launched in August 2019, got shut down in February 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. I didn’t even monetize the blog for years; it wasn’t until the pandemic traffic spike that I finally turned the ads on. But that wasn’t the primary reason for the blog. The main reason I started it was because the bulk of restaurants presenting or talking about Japanese food and culture had no eff’n clue. If Google is going to gatekeep me, that doesn’t stop the mission. I needed to find a way to keep going because I give a chit. Yeah, I do.
So I just completed a manuscript, and I’m currently querying for a literary agent.
I don’t know how this all came about, but it happened because of all of you: the small gestures of donations and, most importantly, the kind messages. I mentioned my blog to friends on a Facebook account I’m almost never on, and a couple of them said they read it. One friend said their daughter ended up reading the whole thing once she’d heard about it. That sort of feedback pushed me into a long-form format: writing a manuscript. It’s structured as a memoir, but it’s really narrative nonfiction and cultural criticism. It covers thirty years split between Colorado, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles, and applies my insights as a Marketing Director building top automotive aftermarket brands to the food and restaurant industry.
Looking back, when you’re in a field like the automotive aftermarket or motorsports, you get asked a lot, “How did you get this job?” My answer was always, “Hmmm, I just did what I wanted to do” (of course I didn’t get to be a lot of things, like being a male model or an industrial designer). After I closed my first business, my sole criterion was not to go out of business again, so I made it my life’s journey to help other automotive businesses stay alive. Then, wanting to be in food, I made it my entire mission to help shape our food culture and to support the businesses that are in it. That’s how simple my drives are. I want to turn my own failures into whatever contribution I can make so other people’s businesses don’t fail.
I even started a Substack account, so please give me a follow even if I haven’t written anything yet.
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