You're (Probably) Not Going To Be a Pro Blogger 120
ThousandStars writes "Contrary to what the specious Wall Street Journal article Early Transition to Blog Pro says, You're Not Going to be a Professional Blogger argues that not that many people can make money through web advertising. The WSJ article 'doesn't discuss how people actually use their blogs to make money, which is by selling ancillary services.'"
Um, news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting paid to blog is like getting paid to write. You don't just produce stuff and get paid (unless you're a novelist... good luck!), you produce stuff and get hired to MAKE SOMETHING LIKE IT.
It points out (correctly) that if you wanna make money blogging, you sell something that isn't just your content. Even if you're only a writer, you can still sell frickin' e-books at a few bucks a pop instead of always giving it away. (of course, holding ALL your work behind the golden door doesn't work either. You've got to strike a balance, even if the balance usually leans towards "give away most of it".
It's stunning how few people realize this.
More to the point, who wants to do so? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure many people want to be professional bloggers. I have a blog that has a small number of readers and having more readers is always nice, but blogging to me and to most bloggers is a hobby or a side element. Blogging professionally would involve a tremendous amount of stress as if every post isn't just perfect, readership, and hence profit, will suffer. Blogging would cease to be a relaxing activity. In fact, many so called professional bloggers such as say most of the bloggers at http://scienceblogs.com/ [scienceblogs.com] aren't professionals in the sense that they get large income streams but rather that is a convenience to have a small income stream in addition to their day jobs.
Also, apparently Firefox includes the word "blog" in its default spellchecker and "blogger" but not "bloggers" although "blogs" is included. Weird.
Re:Wake me up when.. (Score:1, Interesting)
There's too may ups and downs and the sentence construction is too crap for me to even guess what you're trying to say.
Building a website takes time (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like any business, it takes hard work and time before you see any revenues. I have a blog at http://blog.magicode.org/ [magicode.org] (http://mirror.magicode.org/ [magicode.org] if it goes down, as it's hosted on my server in my home office) and I can tell you this, I'm not making a living on the ad revenues. ;)
I code for a living. Having a good, professional blog is a way of showing people what you can do, and it inspires confidence, unless you put up pictures of yourself partying down, or post derogatory comments abour your ex-boss (or ex-wife, which is mostly the same thing, hehehe).
2 cents (Score:1, Interesting)
1. Including /. and (now) the blog cited here (and the WP article that it refers to), I've been "told" by at least 4 media outlets about how boingboing is one of the most popular blogs in the universe, yet I've never visited it and have no plans to do so at any time in the future. So the blogger could be right--the author is not making very much money--or maybe the WP article is right--he's cleaning up.
Either way I'm still not going to visit.
2. It seems like it would be a good thing if blogging is no longer undertaken as a way to get-rich-quick. That would seem to mean that the ones who are still doing it are doing it for some reason other than money: i.e. for free. If it weren't for people who did things for free (or at least on spec) there'd be no personal computers, no Linux, no US Constitution and no Holy Bible.
Look at this way, maybe some blogger will come up with an open source religion, like "Jezux: Put the fun back in prayer."
"Hinduxism", with a six-winged penguin-god.
Re:Do it out of love first (Score:2, Interesting)
Absolutely seconded.
I've blogged mostly about gaming -- tabletop D&D a few years back, and old-but-awesome PC games this year. It's a lot of hard work to do it, and I only put out a new show once a month. If that.
If I were depending on the blog for money, I'd he hanging by my necktie off the balcony rails of my cheap-ass apartment right now. I probably have, like, twelve people in the world I can count as an audience. I don't have any swag to sell and I'm not on the speaking tour circuit.
I keep coming back to it because I love what I'm blogging about. Those twelve people give me the little doses of feedback that my ego craves, too, so I feel lots of loyalty to doing them right. (Wanna be lucky #13? Follow the link in my sig.)
That being said, I was floored when I got an affiliate's notice that I had earned $3.50 last month on sales from click-throughs. It's honestly more than I ever expected.
Blogs never could make money (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure why people ever thought blogs could make money.
I've been writing a blog for years but I was never so deluded to assume that millions of people would want to read my rantings and sponsors would want to shower me with money. I just do it because I like it. There may be some people who enjoy what I write, but not nearly enough to warrant an advertiser spending $2000/mo on me.
Putting some Google Ads on your blog always struck me as sort of desperate looking, like you were imagining yourself as the next Ann Landers or something. And face it, you're not. Even if you are a great writer, part of the problem is there are so many blogs available. Even if we assume only a million of them are properly active and not shit, who in their right mind would think that the world (or in my case, the English speaking world) could possibly support a million little magazines with advertising? Multiply $2000/month by one million and the number that pops out is 24 billion dollars a year. A pretty big price tag for citizen journalism and obviously the advertising market isn't going to pay it.
Re:Yep (Score:4, Interesting)
"Secret Money Machine"? He writes a book on how to make money, sells it, and makes money? Is his book only one page with the following typed on it: "Write and sell a book describing how people can make lots of money."
I realise you're making a joke, but it's interesting to note that the only reason that this doesn't work exactly as described is that people realise they're being fooled straight away.
You don't walk up to someone you want to cheat and say "Hey can I cheat you" and expect it to work. Likewise the one page book won't work. Instead what has really worked is to draw this one page out into about 200 pages and convince people that there are deep insights. By the time they've worked out what's happening (if in fact they ever do) they'll have recommended the book to friends and family and be talking about those deep and life altering insights, which in turn drives sales of the book.
The only real problem is that creating such a vibe is very hit and miss and you're much more likely to have a book that flops before you can achieve the critical mass through word of mouth. Fashion is fickle. However many self help books that have happened to succeed and make their author rich are exactly what I've described.
Blogging for a living is hard to do (Score:4, Interesting)
at best the web ads would help pay the ISP bill, but doubtful they will make someone a millionaire. Remember that most ISPs that host web sites charge per bandwidth. That means the more people that visit your web site blog, the more bandwidth they will eat up. You have to figure out a formula or use accounting software to figure out if your web ads are bringing in a profit.
Basically if you are going to blog professionally you have to have a blog about something interesting enough to get a majority of people to visit it, and deliver content on a daily basis that is original and entertaining or interesting enough to keep people coming back to it. Not only that but you have to try and avoid offending people so that you don't lose your audience. Plus it has to be something legal or else your blog can be shut down and you face criminal or civil charges.
The blogs that have been successful have used affiliate adds that advertise to sell a product from say Amazon.com or Barnes and Nobel or some other company that you link to a book or product that has something to do with what you are blogging on and they pay you back a fraction of the purchase. That means your loyal readers will have to keep purchasing the products you advertise on your blogs in order for you to earn money. Some readers will be annoyed that you have web advertisement and some will use adblock plus on Firefox or adblock pro on Internet Explorer to block out your web ads and you don't earn anything from them.
Some people claim that the free web is over, and that professional blogs only show most recent blogs and then charge a fee for membership access to look at the archive of blogs. Many newspapers are starting to do this, while others are going with eBook readers like Kindle to sell electronic versions of their newspapers. Basically a professional blog is like a newspaper, because you expect the writer to be more of a journalist that checks facts and cites sources and is more professional than the armature bloggers out there who don't always check facts and cite sources.
Some professional blogs blog by serving up audio and video files of themselves talking instead of writing text and then insert advertising into the file in order to pay for it. Others only serve up those audio and video files by membership fees.
Since the problem of people not wanting to pay for a membership or only want access to a few blogs or files, some professional blogs take micropayments in that it costs $1 to $5 per article or file to download it to your computer.
But the problem comes in that when blogs and other web sites go to membership only, how do you cite a link to their material when only members can access it and you cannot share your account? Sure you cite and link to the web site, but then people who cannot afford membership will refuse to believe you or ask you to cite a "free" web site that says the same thing.
Re:Um, news? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Blogging for a living is hard to do (Score:3, Interesting)
Even those don't make much. Joel Spolsky has said that referrals from Joel on Software make ~$100 a month. Megan McArdle of The Atlantic [theatlantic.com] says she gets about enough to fund her book habit too. Both are very well-known, highly trafficked sites. If they can't make it, who can? Almost no one: and that's the point. People read articles like the one from the WSJ and think they can make it, causing me to shake my head at the level delusion said articles not only show but propagate to others.
Re:Um, news? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the FREE aspect that's killing newspapers, even if people had to pay for Reuters feeds, it wouldn't help newspapers. What's killing the newspapers is DUPLICATION of content. There's simply not enough room in the (even worldwide) market for lots of newspapers which offer 90% identical information.
The only way they might be able to survive is if they offer substantially different original content. But that costs money to produce, paying journalists to investigate local news instead of cutting and pasting press releases implies unacceptable cuts into shareholder profits, especially if the newspaper belongs to a media empire. Moreover, a focus on local news also implies foregoing the bigger national and international markets in favour of a smaller market.
hard work (Score:2, Interesting)