The Recession Isn't What's Wrong With Blogging

I read this post yesterday and feel like I'm living in some kind of parallel universe since them. There are scads of comments but not one person seems to be concerned with the following passage:

"I still remember that in 2008, I got a really incredible contract via my ad service company (I have a company that takes care of selling ads on my blog) with a large pharmaceutical company to write six posts for them to try educating readers on the benefits of their product. The deal was to net me $8,000 for those six articles and the only thing I had to do was to get the copy reviewed by the pharmaceutical company to ensure that I wasn’t using any medical words in the wrong way."

Am I the only one who finds this totally alarming? How can people argue the FTC shouldn't be regulating bloggers when there are pharmaceutical companies out there paying bloggers $8,000 to write about medical products?

Then, I was curious about what kind of disclosing she's doing, so I checked out the disclaimer page on her blog. It includes this statement:

"Do you get paid to talk about the products that are featured on the site? That would be great, but we don’t. We do our research and find the latest and the greatest products dealing with aging well and we share them with you."

I'm confused: I thought the whole point of her post was to complain that it's getting harder to get paid review gigs. Not to point fingers or anything, but wouldn't that then make this statement totally untrue?

Why Are There Ads On My Blog After I Dissed People Who Blog For Profit?

No, you're not imagining things--there is a great big ad on my blog now. And yes, you're right, I'm officially a sell out after equating blogging for money to charging your husband for sex.

So why'd I do it? I'll tell you why: curiosity. Seriously, that's it. I have no illusions I'll be making more than a few bucks a month--if that. I think BlogHer pays $5 or $10 for 1,000 page impressions; if you refer to my stats you'll see I have yet to hit 1,000 visits in a month's time. I have 64 subscribers. I get about 35 page views a day. Basically there's a zero percent chance I'll be quitting my day job anytime soon based on my earning potential from blogging.

So, there you have it--and sorry for the annoyingness of the one ad that creeps across the page--in the end I may take down the ads just to get rid of that one.

Where's The Line Between Blogging and Splogging?

First go read/watch this "review" then come back here.

Now, what was that--Chris Brogan and his daughter having a spontaneous love-fest about a $329 messenger bag or Chris Brogan doing a paid endorsement for the bag? While he does offer a "very special thanks" to someone for "connecting" him with the company that makes the bag, he does not come out and say, "I got this bag for free in exchange for blogging about it." In the comment section he says:

"Well, please understand that this isn't an ad as such. I wasn't paid to talk about the back[sic]. I was sent one for review. I guess one could say that might count as a payment, but I don't see it that way."

The question is, does the FTC see it that way? Is giving a blogger with a huge following a free bag to review ethical? Is accepting it and blogging about it without fully disclosing that you got it for free ethical? While you're thinking about it, go back to Chris Brogan's post and scroll down to the plug for the Thesis Theme for WordPress. Now, is that an ad? Or is it just him again expressing free love for a product? Does it even matter?

I personally happen to think it does matter. I used to read Chris Brogan's blog because I valued the content of his posts. Now I look at each post and/or badge on the page and have to wonder "wait, is this an ad?" It's like those spreads in magazines that look like articles or testimonials, but when you look at the top of the page you see "Paid Advertisement"--and ignore those pages.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything; after all, I've blogged about this before....but this bag review post really stuck in my craw.

Here is some more food for thought about sponsored posts. Here are some great links/resources from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

Blogging For A Living...Or Not

For whatever reason, I've come across a lot of posts lately about blogging for money--either for it or against it. I already expressed my thoughts about it; namely that for me, personally, blogging is about my passion for writing. Well, that and being able to share my strong opinions about things that I find fascinating but most people I know couldn't care less about and therefore aren't interested in hearing me talk about.

But I digress. Today, in the course of just a few minutes, I came across two more articles about blogging for money--each the polar opposite of the other. The first was a Wall Street Journal article America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire. The WSJ article starts off "In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers." As you can guess, the article goes on to call blogging "America's Newest Profession."

Then I jumped to Penelope Trunk's blog post for today, Reality check: You're not going to make money from your blog. Obviously there's no guess-work involved in figuring out what her take on the blogging for profit issue is.

The bottom line is that the whole debate may soon become a much more moot point, as the Federal Trade Commission is currently evaluating whether bloggers for hire are violating advertising laws. For all anyone knows, a blogger who is making a living off "America's Newest Profession" today may be having to shell out money for a lawyer tomorrow.

As attractive an idea getting free stuff in exchange for blogging about it is, it's definitely not worth going to jail over.

Blogging For Profit?

This morning I was flipping through Website Magazine, intrigued by the cover story "Blog: Carving Out A Plan For Profit" (page 26). I get to the story and the first sentence stopped me in my tracks:

"Web professionals should be using blogs for one purpose--to make money."

Excuse me?

The article goes on to instruct the reader: "And throughout this article, when you see the term "readers," think "customers. Because really, they are one and the same."

Am I the only one who finds this absolutely distasteful? As in, disgusting? Depressing? Crazy? Or am I the stupid one because I am losing out because I'm not properly monetizing my blog?

In the past I did actually try some of the things the article suggests: Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. The problem is that, in order to make money with those things, you actually have to have more than 2 digits worth of readers. I don't. You also have to see blogging as one big advertisement cleverly disguised as prose. I don't.

The article highlights a "successful" blogger: Shreve Stockton, author of DailyCoyote.net. She doesn't say how much income she earns from the blog, but I'm assuming it has to be some relatively decent amount or they wouldn't be featuring her as the poster child for making money blogging. No offense to Shreve Stockton, but I have a hard time referring to DailyCoyote as a blog; it's actually a photo gallery updated daily...but a "five month lag behind real-time." If you want to receive the photos in real-time, you can pay $5 a month to have current and "never-before-seen" photographs delivered to your inbox daily. You can also buy prints, calendars and T-shirts.

Oh, and she also has a book deal. I will grant you that I'm jealous of the book deal part--book deal is, in my mind, the holy grail of accidental success. Granted, when I hear the words "book deal" I take it to mean a six-figure advance to just do what you're already doing for free. My romanticized book deal concept looks like Diane Keaton's house and life in Something's Go to Give. Namely, being rich and being able to spend your days writing what you want to write about.

But I digress...back to my original point. The idea of blogging just for the sake of making money is kind of like charging your husband to have sex with you. As in, if you're just in it for the money that's kind of depressing--not to mention just weird. Not to be a hater or anything, of course--if that's your thing that's your business. I guess the reason I use that particular analogy is because to me, blogging is about pleasure--I blog because I love writing. If people read it, fine; if not, whatever--I'm still doing it.