Blog ’til you drop?
By Kathleen Bolton | April 9, 2008 |
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
The NYT article outlines the grim reality of writers who make their living from blogging: traffic generates ad revenue.
Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.
There are growing legions of online chroniclers, reporting on and reflecting about sports, politics, business, celebrities and every other conceivable niche. Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers — as employees or as contractors — or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind.
One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes.
I’ve noticed this trend not only in technology blogs, but political blogs, gossip blogs, and fashion blogs…among others. The pressure to load fresh content on an hour-by-hour basis can literally kill bloggers. I don’t know how Perez Hilton does it by himself.
Getting paid to write whether it be on a blog or a magazine or newspaper is one and the same to me, and good blogs rely on good writing. Therese and I take pride in Writer Unboxed, and the posts we and our contributers write. We hope we add something useful to the public discourse about genre fiction.
But you might notice something about us that’s different from other blogs: we don’t have ads.
Oh, every so often we kick it around. We certainly generate enough traffic to make it worthwhile. But we like the look of our ad-free blog. We also don’t want to have the added pressure of generating click-throughs and page loads to keep the revenue flowing, chained to our computers feverishly surfing the ‘Net for fresh tidbits.
In short, we are only beholden to ourselves and our readers.
We might change our minds in the future. But we’d rather blog because we want to, not because we need to.
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
Hear, hear.
I’d like to know if bloggers who have ads on their sites feel any pressure because of them.
Thanks for the post, Kath.
Hi Therese,
I have ads on my blog and I have placed them tastefully so as not to bombard the reader. I’ve read that I should put banner ads on the top and ads inside the copy, but I refuse.
Do I feel pressure to blog? No, I post only when I have something with substance and meaning. Do I make money on the ads? No. After a year, I made 41 cents on the ads so now I’m thinking I may take them off. Google is also rethinking its business model regarding pay per click and may now pay only if the reader clicks through and buys the product advertised.
The only pressure I feel to blog is a nagging sense of guilt when I don’t meet my self-imposed two posts per week goal. If I don’t have anything to say–and there may be folks who think that’s most of the time–I don’t blog. If there’s something worthwhile, I do.
The only “ad” on my blog is a link for people who want to learn about my book and possibly purchase a copy. Other than that, I keep it “free and clear.” Thanks to you all for doing the same.
I wondered about the usefulness of blogads, Anthony. 41 cents is literally pennies. I never click through an ad either, and I suspect I’m not alone. Some are downright annoying to look at, and bloggers don’t have a say in what the ad is once the contract is signed.
I’ve never made any money from ads, the few times I tried them. The people I know who do make money from ads have over 200K readers, and their site is designed in a clever (read: devious) way so that accidentally clicking is par for the course.
As for feeling obligated to blog… I’ve felt the pressure lately because I went quiet for a whole month while I was busy writing. Sometimes when I’m working, I don’t have a lot to say.
I’m back though. :)
I maintain my blog because I like sharing writing tips; I write for me, not advertisers. I have to be honest and say that I just don’t like the look of those cluttered-with-advertising blogs/websites.
On the topic of blog-for-pay writers, I think it’s fine as long as one is paid a reasonable amount. What steams me is the ridiculously low pay I’m seeing for bloggers. And the excessive content they’re expected to produce for what, twenty bucks? Newbie freelance writers are getting sucked into this blogging vortex/scam thinking they’re building credentials when all they’re getting is burned out.
And maybe ruining their health…sitting all day, blogging, may have contributed to those writers untimely deaths!
I blog for purely selfish reasons – because I want to. I don’t want to get paid for it (although it would be nice, but really, it’s just sort of a hobby) and I have made numerous friends through blogging. I don’t know that I’d like the pressure of having more than 200k readers. I’m satisfied with my small little corner of the world.
For the record, I like that you don’t have any ads now, though I understand if there might be a need in the future. :)
I just wanted to say THANK YOU for your ad-free blog!
We don’t do this for the money either, and if Anthony’s experience is any indication of how much people make through ads, it doesn’t seem worth it.
As writers know, it’s important to take breaks away from the computer, get outside, see other humans like family members every so often. It’s a sad day when blogging becomes sweatshop labor.
ETA: Welcome back, Eric.
I thank you for maintaining an Ad-free site as I find the Ads quite annoying. Keep up the good work for as long as you can.
I have no problem with a blogger having ads. If they have good enough content that incites me to visit every week or every day, then I feel they have good enough content to warrant making money from their work.
I don’t mind ads as long as they are tasteful. If they’re disruptive, I probably won’t visit the site much. But if the content is good, cool.
They deserve to get paid for their time and effort just as much as the next guy.
I prefer not to have adds on blogs – it’s not like keeping a website running costs that much, especially one that’s mostly text.