Pro Blogging for the Not So Rich and Famous
Last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal Paygrade column profiled the career of blogging. Here’s what they said about the pay and hours:
THE PAY: Most self-employed bloggers take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales, says Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds.com, a Web advertising concern based in Carrboro, N.C. The few that have huge audiences make significantly more, he adds. During election time, for example, a political blogger can bring in $20,000 to $30,000 a month, says Ken Layne, West Coast bureau chief for Wonkette.com, a political gossip blog owned by Gawker Media. Some bloggers are employed by companies, but they are often part of the marketing department, and blogging is usually only a small part of their duties.
THE HOURS: Self-employed bloggers set their own schedules. Writers of breaking-news blogs say 40- to 60-hour workweeks are the norm. To scoop his competitors, Mario Lavandeira, author of the celebrity-gossip blog PerezHilton.com, says he averages 19-hour workdays that start at 5:15 a.m.
$10,000 a month sounds pretty good–but that’s for more than a full-time job. Want to earn a bit of cash and renown without the 19-hour workdays? Try a blog network like GigaOM, which includes Web Worker Daily, NewTeeVee, and GigaGamez. Though we’ve hired a couple great new bloggers for WWD–welcome to Mike Gunderloy and Matthew Reinbold–we are still looking for web workers who write well to occasionally review software, services, and gear.
If you are interested, post a review on your own blog showing how you can smartly critique any of the tools–software, hardware, or otherwise–that make virtual work fun and profitable. For extra credit, include tips and tricks for boosting productivity using those tools. Add a short bio at the end so we can see how you’re putting your own twist on the web worker life. Link back to this post and we’ll be sure to see it.
Questions? Ask them in the comments.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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How to Earn a Six Figure Income from Blogging in Two Easy Steps
(couldn’t resist :) )
‘Cause I don’t trust trackbacks and your contact form doesn’t work for me…
Hey Rob, you don’t need to trackback. Just link to this post. I’ll search for posts linking to it.
Hey, my whole blog is about remote work!
http://www.nsharp.org/09/vista-tips-and-tricks-1/
http://www.nsharp.org/04/ubuntu-tips-and-tricks-1/
Lots more reviews on my site. Do drop by and let me know what you think
thanks
Blogging in and of itself is just an extention of the trade of journalism, INHO. I believe that the reason it has become so “hip” is that it is more closely tied into the 24/7/365 media stream. When something breaks within the news cycle, the blogoshpere is abuzz almost immediately, whereas the more traditional wire and print services are just spooling up to handle the “info-crisis”. The blogosphere is also able to include so much more than your regular news services. You get broader interpritations of events, both the trivial and the earth-shattering.
I don’t know if it is a good career though? Is anybody really bringing home the “manteca” this way, aside from those in the article? What is the job like? I am curious? Maybe this is a good way to put my English degree to practical use?
Dave – I don’t know, those figures they threw out sounded awfully high to me. But I’ve never run ads on my own blog and also never put in the kind of time they’re talking about.
Is it a good career? I find it a good way of supplementing my income and also building my professional reputation. I personally wouldn’t want to solely blog for my work–but I think it suits many people well.
Anne;
Do you spend a lot of time at it? Or, would you consider it more like a hobby that occasionally pays for itself? With two kids, one who is special needs, and the other in private school, a job that could be done from a laptop in a waiting room would be a good idea.
The other thing is; how do you select topics to write about, and what do you do to keep it fresh?
What they don’t mention is that most advertising-supported blogs bring in less than fifty dollars a month; those people may dream of living off their blogs, but until their big breakthrough (“Techmeme sez: UNMISSABLE!!!” etc) they still have to flip burgers or process paperwork.
Dave: I spend quite a lot of time blogging because it’s at the center of my career as an industry analyst and web technologist. I also enjoy it. It’s not a hobby to me, it really is professional work. Doesn’t pay as well as other things I could do.
I think you could probably do it from a laptop in a waiting room. I find it hard to do it while I have other things going on, but different people are more or less distractible.
On picking topics and keeping it fresh: that’s not the hard part. I have tons of ideas for things I want to write on. The hard part is that for me, writing is hard and gathering good content is hard. If I’m going to write about–for example–taxes, I want to have good accurate information. It takes time to gather and confirm it. If I’m going to write about Ajax start pages, I don’t want to write about them superficially–I want to try them out and understand the landscape of that category.
But like I said, I find it very enjoyable. I’d do it even if I didn’t get paid–and I did for two years before ever getting paid.