Friday, January 18, 2008, 10:55pm
Blogging is a Bad Way to Make Money (Directly)
There I said it. Someone has to agree with me, right? While blogging can do wonders for building your personal brand and securing freelancing gigs, by itself it isn’t a very lucrative profession.
Yes, bloggers have found the occasional niche and profited very nicely, but overall the grass is more brown than green, and the median income for a blogger is probably not far from $0. Here’s a very quick analysis of why I feel blogging strictly for money is not an effective use of your time.
Let’s say I spend one hour a day writing 1-2 posts. I think that’s a pretty realistic time commitment and I challenge anyone to write a quality post in less than 30 minutes. So over the course of a month you’re looking at around 30 hours.
If you were a plumber, 30 hours per month would generate roughly $1,950 in gross income. If you were a copywriter and paid per post, you’d probably make between $600-$1200 unless you were an absolute expert in your field, which would mean a bit more. Finally, if you worked in a fast food restaurant, 30 hours would still earn you around $300 per month.
So, how many bloggers make $300 in their first month of blogging? I’d guess less than 0.01%. How many bloggers are making $300/month after a full year of blogging? The percentage still has to be less than 1%, especially considering that most will have given up by then.
Now in no way am I trying to discourage you from starting a blog. I’m just trying to put things in perspective. While blogging can open up an infinite number of doors for your career and your reputation, it generally won’t pad your wallet by itself.
Once you get out of the mindset of just blogging for dollars, you’ll usually find many other opportunities come your way.
Pictures by cambodia4kidsorg and marirs.
