I launched this blog 16 days ago, wondering like millions of others if I could make money on my own. Two dozen posts later, I still have no idea, but know it won’t be easy. As a newsman and columnist for three and half decades, I understand the content part of it. Now I have to build a following and learn the business side.
That I have a couple thousand page views is accomplishment enough for now. The blog has gotten the word out about my budding freelance writing/editing/blogging enterprise. And I am learning more than I ever did in my previous job. Best of all, traffic is growing.
The idea that scads of page views means riches is a myth, according to Newsweek columnist, blogger and reporter Dan Lyons. You might remember him as the hilarious Fake Steve Jobs. Dan, also a friend and former colleague, has earned a reputation for being brutally frank. Brutally.
Fake Steve Jobs generated huge traffic….500,ooo pages views on its best day in 2007. That earned him a mere $100. He has written an insightful column about wh0 and who isn’t making money on blogs. A few are raking it in while many more earn chump change.
I have also fallen prey to the 24×7 blogging treadmill. If I don’t post at least once a day, I have failed (freelance is my day job.). Dan used to blog up to 20 times a day and in his column mentions several prominent tech bloggers who like him have burned out . Most of my posts have ranged between 500-100o words. The topics are well-considered and covered in depth. Then you have to do all the SEO stuff. It’s a lot of work.
Don’t get me wrong. I like blogging and its plays to my news mentality and background. But the blog beckons every second of the day. It’s a beast that needs to be fed – constantly.
How do I know? It’s 8 p.m. and I’m sitting in front of the TV, pecking away on my new netbook purchased expressly for blogging and feeding other beasts like Twitter. And god knows what else coming down the pike…..
3 comments On Feeding the Blog Beast, Burn-Out and Blog-onomics
John, You have a great start and a fantastic attitude, The writing part I always have the problem with. We are into site promotion. actually we kind of went about the whole thing backwards. We learned the seo, promotion, and traffic stuff before we had a product. We had done a ton of testing on different components over the past year and kind of figured out if we put all the components together we have a product. We are on a slow build right now striving for quality before inviting just anyone.
We are actually looking for a product right now to do better than real well with. and our Blog Co-Op system we will keep low cost, kind of our way of giving back, Not everyone can afford $800.00 a month to belong to stompernet.
Glad I saw your tweet, there are allot of people out there just like you. This is the year to really consider team work.
Great site
Brad West ~ onomoney
Hey Brad,
Thanks for the comment. It’s folks like you I am trying to attract…people with ideas and who I can learn from. My attitude has been good and I have a few irons in the fire. I like blogging a lot but still go about it in journalistic way…in other words, my posts tend to longish and thought out. I have to get over that and start micro-blogging! I am doing my best to make sure my tweets point to something offbeat and insightful. I have a deadline today, but when I come up for air, I will check out stompernet…probably 10 o’clock Saturday night. Such is the life of a blogger…
John,
You’re a content guru with connections to the most important sources in IT. You’ll thrive in Web 2.0. And don’t believe the misleading info stating you can’t make a living as a blogger. You just need to think differently.
1. Don’t launch a blog, launch a brand
2. Don’t build a blog, build a media business
3. Don’t surrender to ad networks. Control your brand and your business by thinking like a publisher for the Web 2.0 age.
No doubt, you’ll thrive because you’ve been one of my favorite reads for nearly 2 decades.
All the best,
-jp
Joe Panettieri
Editorial Director
Nine Lives Media Inc.
http://www.NineLivesMediaInc.com