Startup Sunday
I've followed with interest the ongoing debate in the blogosphere over whether bloggers deserve to be paid. Most recently, a PR executive blogging as Sarah at Mom Blog Magazine wrote a snarky piece that summed up the situation with the comment: "No matter how amazing your blog is, if the client doesn't have the budget to pay bloggers, you're not getting any money. Period."
While I certainly take issue with the column's tone and reduction of mommy bloggers to women typing on laptops in our bunny slippers (well rebutted by Deb Ng at Kommein) the post does have a grain of truth that is important for anyone trying to make a living online. The truth is that no blogger deserves to be paid. Just framing the issue that way creates the misapprehension that if you slave over a blog and devote yourself to your craft, eventually you will land a book deal or become a paid evangelist for your favorite brand or otherwise strike it big financially -- because you are deserving and because there is justice in the world.
There's no justice in Corporate America. Any financial compensation you receive has to be wrested from the powers that be through well-informed negotiation, demonstrating the value you provide and turning down the multiple offers you will inevitably receive to be underpaid and exploited. A longtime professional journalist, I started blogging and writing for online publishers three years ago to expand my universe of publishing venues -- and to better understand the space.
To me, there are several ways for a blogger to be paid:
- Blog for a publisher or company that agrees to pay a set rate per post.
- Generate enough blog traffic and a loyal community on your own blog to create substantial advertising, sponsorship and product revenue.
- Demonstrate writing talent, knowledge, social media savvy or other unique skills that make your services valuable -- separate from the act of writing blog posts.
But regardless of how the sector develops, there will always be companies and brands trying to tap your valuable expertise and access to audience without paying you. Just as there will always be lazy PR people pitching you off-topic products and asking for your time for free, as my About.com colleague Christy Matte points out in a follow-up Mom Blog Magazine column challenging Sarah's original post.
Instead of being insulted by PR pitches that seek to exploit your time and expertise for free, view them as the bottom rung on the ladder to success. Most importantly, start to understand the market for your services -- a concept that many bloggers who want to be paid often neglect to consider when they focus on the time and effort that went into writing a blog post.
Take me. As a full-time freelance writer, I write for publications ranging from About.com to MSN.com and the Washington Post Magazine. In the past year, I wrote a piece for Slate on fatherhood that took the better part of a week and earned me a few hundred dollars -- and I wrote an article for a financial trade publication that took one day and paid $1,200. Does that mean that the piece for Slate was inferior quality? Not at all. In fact, I would argue that the writing was better and of wider interest. But the market for articles on financial policy pays better that the one for parenting pieces -- not to mention the supply of financial writers is tiny compared with the number of writers who could crank out 1,000 words on parenting.
If there is a limited market for the services or work product you want to provide, you're unlikely to make a successful living. The sweet spot to aim for is the intersection of market demand, your skills and your interests. I don't write exclusively about financial policy, because it's only one of my interests. But I certainly view it as a mainstay of my freelance writing practice, to help pay my bills and subsidize the less-well-paying articles. To understand the market I operate in, I constantly compare my rates and marketing strategies with other freelancers and those editors I'm close with -- something any ambitious blogger should do as well, in conversations with other bloggers and PR/marketing contacts.
Now, let's return to the troublesome concept of deserving to be paid. I typically receive $1 to $2 per word for the articles I write. Does that mean I deserve to be paid that much, and other writers don't? That's not how I view the situation. To me, my freelance writing rate shows the work I've done to demonstrate to my current and future editors that I am a professional, reliable, smart writer who will turn in assignments on time and is easy to work with. It also reflects the number of times I've turned down poorly paying writing assignments – in the last month alone I've rejected offers that would've paid 10, 35 and 50 cents per word.
I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do. When your plate is empty and your bank account headed that direction, it is tempting to accept an exploitative offer of work in hopes that it will lead to something better. It rarely does -- and more importantly, that work eats up the time you could have spent developing a better-paying project. I have had to learn this the hard way, after taking on marginal projects that turned out to be less money than my time is worth. Now, I trust the gut feeling I get when I discuss an assignment with an editor. If in doubt about whether to accept, I say no.
So my message for bloggers hoping to break into the big time is: don't think that you deserve to be paid and wait to be rewarded. Instead, make it happen. Consider every conversation with a fellow blogger, marketing executive or PR contact a chance to understand the opportunities in your field and where your skills and interests connect with the market demand. (A good place to start is Kelby Carr's thorough explanation of her rates.) And when you encounter someone like Sarah, the pseudonymous PR executive who doesn't feel you deserve financial compensation, smile and move on.
Photo credit: jsogo via Flickr
I'm a single mom of 2 and I find your site very interesting. Let me take a tour on your other post. I hope I have much time each day to drop by and check your site for recent post.
Posted by: single mom | Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 08:33 PM
Great post and I'm glad you didn't respond to the post with your own snark. This is a useful, informative article that supports bloggers who want to take their blogging or social media presence to the next level. Great links, too.
We should set up that virtual coffee date soon!
Posted by: kim/hormone-colored days | Monday, December 13, 2010 at 12:46 AM
Bottomline: If anyone is blogging for the money, they are wasting their time and energies unless they are a rare and very talented person with a unique angle.
If women bloggers (moms and others) blog to build a personal brand, use it as a launch pad for a business or idea or thought leadership, they're more likely to succeed.
The Technorati study of blogging found very few people made money. There are not many rich female bloggers like Dooce.
The rest of us do it because we enjoy it, we want to have another avenue to vent or express, or we are hoping to fill out our resumes. As someone who's been a professional journalist, and who can command more than a dollar a word for freelance reporting and who works full time as a reporter during the day, I am reluctant to write guest posts for others for free. I keep my free stuff for my blog!
Re PR pitches? My feeling. You get to say yeah or nay.
I will write about those that interest me or have some value but will nix the rest. It is my time, my energy and my money ... I am blogging when I could be racking up extra paid work or spending more time with my family and friends.
It is a very rare person who lands a book deal from blogging. The rest? Their blogs may generate some business opportunities such as being asked to speak at conferences. Others will reap benefits like new friends.
But don't pin your hopes of riches on blogging ...
Katherine's right, There is no justice in corporate America and there are hundreds of thousands of very deserving bloggers out there who are yet to be discovered.
Just maybe you are one of them. But hey, I wouldn't hold your breath.
Posted by: julie | Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 09:55 AM
Nice writeup. As much as Sarah's post annoyed me I am also faced with the "deserved" attitude from bloggers - for events, media trips and items. Trust me, I get asked for this from fellow bloggers a lot. While we may not be getting our worth it is not the best attitude to carry out that the world owes us. If we want everyone to treat us professionally then we better start acting professionally - all of us!
Posted by: Niri | Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 09:11 PM
Since when does "What you deserve to be paid" sync with pay? Do hedge fund managers "Deserve" to make millions of dollars? Do professional Basketball players deserve to be paid a 50 million dollar contract? and on and on... Nice article noting the major business models associated with blogging. The notion that market rate for an electronic piece is in some way " worth less" than an on paper publication is ridiculous, as the recent Huffpost acquisition accentuates.
Natalie Hodge MD FAAP
www.personalmedicine.com
Posted by: Natalie Hodge MD FAAP | Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 11:52 PM