17 comments

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  Benjamin Golub

  1 year ago

  Nice photo; is that the second time I've been featured in one of your blog posts? Maybe I should give up development and start modeling?
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  Yep, second time. As long as your pictures keep coming up on compfight and fit the subject matter, I'll keep using them. It's a happy coincidence that you have your creative commons set and I use compfight for source images. Well, and that we know each other via the internet.
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  felix

  1 year ago

  You need to charge royalties, Benjamin!! ;)
  
  Nice post, definitely keep your day job. Blog for fun, fame and fortune will come if it's going to come, but till then you gotta do it for the love! And besides, there's other ways to arrange life so you work from home that aren't blogging. :)
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  CyndyA

  1 year ago

  Oh, you poor thing! Don't get me wrong; I love my job, but I don't plan on doing this forever. Unless you are working at McDonald's, odds are your day job is ultimately better and pays more than problogging. I hear rumors about people who make the big money, like Valleywag, but the reality is that I made way more money as a developer 10 years ago than I make now.
  
  I love writing, and I think it's something I'm reasonably good at, and it lets me stay home with my kids while still bringing in an income. With four kids, daycare cancels out just about anything I could go back to doing without going back to school. There are downsides to every job, but the dream that probloggers sit around in sweats at their local Starbucks sipping lattes while pulling down a six-figure income and glorious praise is just that... a dream.
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  Do you know why I have a Google Adword ad on my site? It certainly isn't for income, because I think I've gotten a grand total of a dollar from that ad slot since I started running it.
  
  No, I debated having no ads, but I decided, people who are used to visiting blogs expect an ad, their eyes are blind to it, or they have a blocking plugin. The ad is there mostly as a "this space reserved", in case someone wants to discuss an affiliate spot or my wife wants to advertise her business there.
  
  In the mean time, it gives me a hearty laugh and a dose of realism when I go to my adwords campain stats and see that, most days, I get a single cent or less on an ad that serves thousands of impressions.
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  Ginger Makela

  1 year ago

  I'll follow up with words from John Wayne to Barbara Walters: "Don't let the bastards get you down." There have always been bullies and cranky "critics" and people fueled by general meanness and depression and personal frustration, and the internet just makes it easier for those people to speak up. Most of them are just noise, so don't listen. I like Warren Buffett's response to people who try to tell him what to do: "'I love painting my own painting. I come down to the office, I get on my back, and I start painting. And I think I'm in the Sistine Chapel. It's my painting. Now, if somebody says, 'Use more red paint instead of blue. Paint a seascape instead of a landscape,' I would hand them the brush in five seconds and I'd say - I'd say a few other things, too - but I'd say, 'Do your own painting. I'll go paint what I want to paint.'": http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news/companies/...
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  Man, it's too bad Warren Buffett is gone. He was a die-hard realist and amazing salt-of-the-earth sort of character even when he was worth billions. And then, he shrugged and gave those billions to good causes.
  
  More respect I could not have for a single individual.
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  Louis Gray

  1 year ago

  Part of getting more visible is being more visible to those people who like you and also those who don't. It's part of the landscape. How you handle, respond to, or ignore, criticism or name calling is important, especially if you can remember why it is you blog in the first place, for you and your readers.
  
  Part of the reason blogging for a living sounds like this perfect situation is because just about all of us would love to get paid for what's really a hobby. I drew a lot of flack for saying in April that most bloggers *don't deserve any* ad revenue, and while my stance was undeniably at the edge, I was trying to reset expectations about what it is to add value, and what they can expect to bring in.
  
  If somebody paid me enough to go watch baseball games all day, I'd do it. If somebody paid me enough to play Wii all day, I'd probably do it. But until there's a major economic shift where the world needs more people watching baseball, or more people blogging, and they're willing to pay for it, I imagine my situation won't change.
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  As always your advice is undeniable. Thanks.
• 

  BlueCockatoo

  1 year ago

  I completely empathize with your frustration here. I read an article recently in a fashion magazine, no less, (while waiting for a haircut... I don't partake otherwise) that pointed out the real "rich" people now are not those with the most money or stuff, but those who have the most _free time_ because they don't have to waste it doing drudgery to pay the bills. Maybe it's not so much that you want to blog "working from home" for a living, you just want to blog and not worry about where the mortgage payment is coming from.
  
  I think you (and I both) need to take a serious clue from the "4 Hour Work Week". The only way to make money doing what you love is to do what you love and have the money make itself. Wish it were that easy!
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  I read the 4-Hour Work Week. I think it's brilliant. I also know I am completely unsuited to do the necessary things that Tim Ellis did to get to where he is. Oh, it's a great dream, but I am, perhaps genetically, a nose-to-the-grindstone sort of guy.
  
  I know many people who work hard to be lazy though. And I actually admire their ability to be that way.
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  Anthony Farrior

  1 year ago

  You have to want to help people to be successful in blogging. I don't read blogs for entertainment, I read to learn. If you are teaching someone or giving us something you just learned, an audience of loyal readers will form quickly. Of course the business side comes with time. This is not a get rich scheme as Louis said. Plus you have to have a Background in what you write about. When you add up all these things, I do believe oppurtunity can knock on your door in the form of blogging. Just keep you door open :)
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  CyndyA

  1 year ago

  I'm not sure I agree. I wonder sometimes if the days of paid bloggers aren't numbered. There is a clamor for free content growing louder and louder, and the advertising model of revenue can't support everything out there. If musicians have a hard time getting money because people believe that content should be free, what will happen to those of us who make money blogging?
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  The money is there, even from the younger set we thing grew up with a lot of stuff being free. Take a look at open source -- the OS is free, but support isn't. A browser is free, but if you want it customized for your company, be prepared to pay.
  
  This sideband monetization can be applied to a lot of different industries, actually, and it really frustrates me that the big record labels haven't figured it out yet. They should understand that the days of buying music or movies on hard media, and only allowing revokable or viewing rights are coming to and end. Why not take the market by surprise, say, "OK, it's all free, enjoy!" and then be ready when that same audience wants collectors editions of albums, artwork, concert tours, T-shirts, exclusive web community access.. bla bla bla.
  
  Anyway, business will go on, IMO. Just not in the way it is now. And I think this has always been true.
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  Great advice! That's basically why I started this blog.. I wanted to try to make the insane machinations of the social media community more understandable to a more casual or more busy internet-savvy audience. I actually have to remind myself when I write a review article to not get carried away with buzzwords and jargon that really means nothing to the average Joe.
  
  That reminds me, I need to write more review posts.
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  Daniel Ha

  1 year ago

  Sorry about not getting you the shirt yet. We still have a ton of shirts to send out and I'll have to dedicate a Saturday afternoon soon to getting that taken care of.
  
  I think we're having a second line of shirts coming from our friends at StartupSchwag.com so I'll see if I can send two your way.
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  Phil Glockner

  1 year ago

  I was mostly kidding, Daniel! True, I was envious of Ben Golub and his stylin' shirt, but still. Very cool!
  
  Please let me know if you need my mailing address, and thanks!