I appreciate your occasional updates posted here. They're always interesting.

> "This year I didn't have as much to blog about ... The posts tend to send a lot of high-quality traffic, so the impact was bigger than you might expect. I haven't figured out how to invent posts from thin air when I simply have nothing new to share."

This obviously seems like a lost opportunity. If you want to sustain the business, you simply have to write more posts, as a start. I visit Japan for two weeks every year and find the culture endlessly fascinating. Searching here for mentions of Japan [1], the most popular is yours, but not a business update, rather your post on the Japanese writing system [2]. Ignore the news stories and look at all those other posts about Japan posted by others. These are Japan topics that this community found interesting (I hope you promote to other communities). You could write posts about coffee culture, beer culture, Izakaya's, ex-pat life, other one-person businesses, life in Japan, J-pop even k-pop, heck even the McDonald's menu in Japan vs elsewhere etc etc. Of course the link to candy is tangential but a blog on entrepreneurial life / life in Japan would attract Japanophiles who I expect would be interested in regular candy packs from Japan. But why just focus on candy as the income. Why not become a go-to guy for Japanese culture through the eyes of a Westerner? You wouldn't be the first but you have a unique viewpoint. What about adding a podcast. Building an audience, listing on Patreon. Just some thoughts.

I also have some comments about your website vs your competitor, presumably [3].

* On Safari, when I type in "candy japan", the Siri suggestion is your competitor's, despite the search term basically being your domain name. You have work to do on SEO.

* Your competitor's photos of their offerings are front and center. Personally that draws me in immediately. Your photo is at the bottom of your page. You are literally burying the lede

* Your competitor has a time-limited call to action at the top of their page "Free Shipping even to United States! Next box subscription closes in: You have 4 Days left to get the next box!"

* Your competitor has great testimonials. Do you have social media contests? Promote use of a hashtag / instagram posting so you can easily cultivate for your page?

* This is probably an error, but when I click on your home page link "Past Boxes", I expected to see great photos of your past boxes. Social media pics and videos from happy users etc. Instead the very first text on the Past Boxes page is the post linked above with the text "This was another tough year for Candy Japan, with many factors combining to a sharp decline in subscriber numbers." I wanted to check out photos of amazing Japanese candy I can order but now I'm just bummed out.

* There are so many things your competitor is doing that you are not. Check out how easy he makes it for reviewers to get a free copy. Check out the reviews on his website. Being copied sucks but fight back. Take their ideas and improve upon them. Stay one step ahead.

* We're just through the holiday season in the West. How many parents were hunting for last minute gifts for kids (or adults). This would have been amazing gift and yet I see nothing on your front page that's marketing to "last minute gifts", "last minute xmas gifts for children" etc. A number of magazine newsletters I subscribed to had features on "last minute gifts", most of which were ticket, voucher or coupon based. How much outreach did you do?

I'm not being critical. You've done a lot to get here and are now facing challenges. Meet them head on. There is so much more you can do. Not everything will work, but some will.

As it happens, I have a relation whose birthday it is in January. I'm going to prove my own point and buy her a subscription from your site. I enjoy your updates and salute your success to date. I wish you the very best going forward.

[1] - https://hn.algolia.com/?query=japan&sort=byPopularity&prefix...
[2] - https://www.candyjapan.com/口
[3] - http://www.japancandybox.com