I spent three years or so writing for two big, A-list political/feminist blogs. So I know a thing or two about blogging, and what to expect from it. And more importantly, what NOT to expect from it.
And what you can NOT expect from blogging is that readers pay you for the content you put out there for free.
Not that you can’t make some money from a blog. But it’s important to understand just what it is that makes the money. See, it’s not your content. It’s your audience. Because where you make your money on a blog is from advertising, and the rates for advertising are dependent on your audience, both its size and its perceived interests. If your blog has a large audience of the kind of people who advertisers think will spend money on their products (such as food blogs or Apartment Therapy), you can charge them to access your audience via paid advertising. If you don’t have much of an audience (or your audience is not perceived as the type to spend money*), you won’t be able to charge much. You attract the audience via content or widgets or what have you, but don’t kid yourself that it’s your writing that pays the bills.
Newspapers, magazines, radio and TV work the same way — I did a few years in journalism back in the day as well, and I can tell you that the size of the paper is not determined by how much news there is, but by how much advertising was sold for the day.** Indeed, when the paper goes to layout, the number of pages is determined by the number, size and placement of the ads, with the total ad space over a certain percentage of the available space. What is left is called the “news hole.” So when your editor wants 12 column-inches on a story, that means that that’s all the space you have available to you for your content, even if what you have is really a 16-inch story. Your content, in a way, is immaterial to the business side of the operation (and there is a division, traditionally, between editorial and business), except inasmuch as it brings in readers, increases circulation, and makes it easier for them to sell advertising at good rates. Your content, in other words, is a delivery vehicle for the ads, which is the profit-generating part of the business. This holds true even if you’re a blogger for a traditional-media outlet and get paid for your content. As Roy Edroso said in response to Dan Collins’ asking him about what kind of welfare the Village Voice gave him:
Keep this under your hat, but the Voice sells ads and uses the money to pay us. That’s capitalism, comrade, and as much as you and I dislike it, it’s the deal we’re stuck with.
Dan, you may or may not know, writes for Protein Wisdom, which was one of the right-wing blogs supported by Pajamas Media (he took offense to Roy’s characterization of the Pajamas Media arrangement as “welfare” and decided to hurl it back, without understanding that there is more than one model out there). At least until Roger Simon and the boys pulled the plug on the financial support they were giving the blogs, in favor of putting money into PJTV, which is a subscription-model podcasty sort of thing. Mostly, it seems to involve stilted videos by Dr. Helen supporting the patriarchy. And Joe the Plumber.
Mind you, unlike blogs, newspapers have separate advertising reps, whose entire job it is to sell advertising space and thus generate revenue. Blogs generally rely on ad networks to sell ad space, with varying results. Another problem is that advertisers underpay (or bypass) blogs due to faulty perceptions. But if you’re going to make money at blogging as a blog owner,*** you have to devote a certain percentage of your time and brainspace to the business side of things. Continue reading ‘What you can, and can’t, expect from blogging’
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