Blogging for Money

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Blogging for Money

September 12, 2010 by Chelsea Black

I honestly don’t know a ton of people out in the world who really believe that blogging is something that makes you lots of money. I know I have a lot of friends in the blogging world who don’t expect to make any money off of it, and when they do it’s generally a fund-raising event they’re raising money for, rather than themselves. Which, y’know, is awesome. I, personally, don’t blog for money. I blog because I have shit to say and I want to share it with people. Also because I have to write or say a certain amount of words every day or my head explodes (the quantity varies per day, obviously). But that’s beside the point. The point is, unless you’re kind of an idiot, you don’t get into blogging to make mad money (mad notoriety, maybe, but not money)

Now, if you’re, say, Allie Brosh, you are obviously awesome enough to make some money off your blog, because people adore the way you make them squirt milk out their nose in riotous fits of uncontrollable laughter (come on, I can’t be the only one), and who doesn’t want to reward that kind of awesomeness? But sadly, there is only one Allie Brosh in the world, so we cannot all be her (besides, wearing someone else’s skin gets itchy after about a day). For the rest of us, the best we can generally hope for is a couple dollars thrown our way every once in a while, or perhaps some ad revenue if we have a really popular site. And me, I’m lazy. I don’t market this blog a whole lot, mostly because while I think it’s cool, I also find it extremely annoying when other people post comments that are basically “oh yea ur cool come check out my blog 2 lolololol”. Not that I would ever actually type that (barring some kind of altered state), but even if it’s a respectful comment it can be annoying. I like sites that let you put the link in your username, I tend to get a couple clicks from those, but I don’t comment that often on other blogs, largely because most of my comments would be along the lines of “yeah, I agree with this whole post, and most of the stuff people said in comments, especially this one comment”. And, yeah, it’s nice, as a blogger, to get some recognition, but when you’ve already gotten 30 comments of substance, do you really need 25 more just saying “yea, this”? I pretty much assume that for every one comment I get, there are at least four or five other people who nodded and said “hmm, I like this post” and a few who said “eh, not my cup of tea” and so on. Unless they have a violent reaction one way or the other, or want to call me out on something, people don’t tend to post comments. Which, as both a blogger and sometime commenter, I totally get.

Anywho, back to the issue of money. XD I’ve had a donation button on this blog for almost as long as the blog has been up. I did it because I, personally, like to have the option to donate to people whose work I like. I’ve run across people on the internet who have extreme issues with donation buttons, mostly because they don’t think they’re “worthy” of them (and I’m not gonna get into why I disagree so strongly with that right now). Now, I don’t actually expect many, if any, people to donate. That’s totally fine. It’s there if anyone wants it, otherwise it is just a cute little picture my best friend drew me (and I love it when people draw me cute little pictures, whether I requested them or not). I’m not gonna make this a “pay to read” blog, because then no one would read it. XD

Speaking of which, I had an idea a few months ago that’s been percolating in my mind for a while. It sort of came from a contemplation of the future of the internet (the internet being a fascinating construct to contemplate, in my opinion) and specifically of blogging. Yeah, blogging is kind of awesome. But it seems like 90% of the advertising for blogs is word of mouth. Which, yeah, is cool, because mostly my friends will only recommend blogs I like, and then those blogs link to other blogs, and it’s fun. But part of me wonders if there could be a better way to do it. I was just thinking about various things for a character of mine in a sci-fi setting, and I came up with this idea for a thing I called the Accredited Blogger’s Association. The idea behind it is to create a network of “accredited bloggers” who had a certain quality of writing and content on their blogs (the blogs could have any subject as their focus, but had to be somewhat interesting to people interested in that subject). These bloggers would get a little certificate to put on their blog’s “about” page, and they would be paid a certain amount of money per post. The amount of money would be determined by two factors: a) how many people subscribed to their blog and b) how many posts they made per set period of time (month, quarter, year, whatever). So, if you had, say, 100 subscribers but only made two posts, you’d only get perhaps $0.05 per post per subscriber, meaning a whopping $5 for that period. Bloggers would get 100% of the subscriber money, but have to pay dues periodically to remain accredited. There’d also be things like “Free Blogging Day” where all posts on all blogs would be viewable to everybody, and people could read around and decide if they wanted to add a blog to their subscription. The subscriptions would be quite cheap, too, you’d pay a set fee (perhaps $5 a quarter) based on the expectation of how many substantial (not two sentences) posts the blogger would make that period, and if they didn’t make enough posts you’d get a refund for that money. Bloggers could also pay for ad space on various sites as well, including other blogs.

I’m not a businessperson, by any means, and this is just an idea I had for a sci-fi setting that’s quite far in the future (at least 150 years, I’d say, since there’s reliable space travel in it). I don’t know if it could actually work or not, and I’m sure it probably couldn’t work as things are currently, but it’s interesting to think about.

Not that I think I would necessarily get to be an Accredited Blogger. ;D I’m probably not that good yet. Speaking of which, here’s some pictures of my cat! And me, of course.