Jane Chin’s Reality Check on Blogging for Money or “Problogging”
Copyright 2008 by Jane Chin, All Rights Reserved.
Here’s our blog-based revenues from January 2007 through September 2007: $13,871.69.
This earning includes revenues from:
I’m not discounting this earning. When we first started allowing text ads on our websites and blogs, our ambition was to earn at least $500 per month to cover the utility bill and basic domain registration/hosting fees. We’ve met this goal. Our new aim is to cover the mortgage. Considering that we live in Southern California and bought our house during a seller’s market, you can guess that the mortgage is not insignificant.
From Utility Bills to the Mortgage
In light of our new aim, my blogging strategy needs to change. I’m still figuring out what my strategy needs to be to meet the trends I observed from our own websites. Based on the general trends of blogging for money over this past year, I think many of you bloggers out there may want to remain vigilant on your blogging revenue and blogging strategy.
Unless you are one of the group of known bloggers who have already gained an audience or you are already famous and blogging is just a way to sell your books or speaking engagements - you have way more competition than ever before.
You are competing with people who are willing to earn the minimum wage, where they spend up to an hour writing a review for less than $10. (i.e. Pay Per View or ReviewMe or LoudLaunch)
You are competing with people whose tactic is earn-by-volume, and they can buy 100 domain names pre-populated with ad templates and stock articles. (i.e. splogs or fake blogs)
Why Blogging Revenues Are Hard to Make
When a website format or category appears successful, it becomes saturated very quickly. People start copying the website idea with similar content articles and even similar blog appearance. Separating wheat from chaff is not difficult, but it drains time. I find myself tuning into how I “feel” about a website content within seconds of looking at the material, and assess whether there is an original thought behind the writing. Blog readers have learned this, as well. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a blogger cares very much about the writing itself, only that it needed to be written so that the blog smells fresh. Other times a blogger has taken an idea seen elsewhere and duplicated it, with a paraphrase here or a new example there.
It is in this vein that I’m examining why I blog, and if blogging is part of your long term revenue strategy, you will want to periodically reassess why you blog.
I have given enough time in this blogging experiment to know where my preferences are, including how I want to earn money. Truthfully, blogging can only be a minuscule supplement to my household income, for what feels like a heck of a lot of work.
I think blogging as self expression is a great idea, and one I’ve come to love and will continue to use for years to come. I also would rather have too many blogs to choose from than not enough blogs to wade through. For the time being, I’ve got many other interests (comedy improv, public speaking, integral philosophy, art) in addition to my businesses competing for my time, and I prefer to spend my time experiencing and enjoying life - not blogging for blogging’s sake.
October 6th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Interesting article, and some great advice there to new bloggers. I am one such new blogger because I am trying to turn my blog from a regular blog into one that is monetized.
October 6th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
sound good.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Jack, good luck monetizing your regular blog. It looks like you’re already starting with Amazon affiliate programs; let me know how those work for you. So far Amazon hasn’t performed very well for me, but I may not be optimizing its use.
Bob, thanks for your themes