Last weekend I read this post from Mrs. Micah about how starting a blog won't make you rich. I wanted to put in my two cents on the subject. Money and Such has been around for about a year and three months. Last month the blog generated $9.78 in ad revenue. This is about enough to buy lunch in a fast food restaurant, and also about the average ad revenue generated on this site every month.
Frankly, I don't really care, because I am not in it for the money. For me, this is not a business, it's a hobby. I enjoy writing about personal finance and reading my readers' comments (of which there are way too few, by the way). I also don't run Money and Such as a business. Over the past year, I have received several requests from companies interested in advertising on this blog - I have turned them all down, because taking paid advertisements just seemed too much of a hassle (from a tax perspective among other things).
I also don't bother much with trading links with other blogs or trying smart ways to generate more traffic, such as joining a blog network. It's not that I am intentionally avoiding this, it's simply that the primary goal of this blog was never to become a massively popular website. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy looking at Sitemeter to see the number of my daily visitors. I do this practically every day. When the number of my RSS subscribers surpassed 200 a few weeks ago, I let out a little w00t of joy. However, mostly I write for the sake of writing and the idea that a few of my posts are actually useful to folks. I would probably continue writing even if I thought that my posts were of no use to anyone.
For the vast majority of bloggers, blogging is a hobby and will always remain one. The benefit of this hobby is that if you are lucky you will actually make some money rather than spend money on it.
As is the case with all hobbies, you should only practice blogging as long as its fun or serves some other purpose. Last week, one of my favorite personal finance bloggers, Lazy Man, wrote a post about blogging fatigue and how he was thinking about throwing in the towel on his blog. Ultimately he decided to stick with it for now. I guess he's just having fun. So am I. But if you are thinking of starting a blog to make money, you should probably just get a part time job instead.
5 comments:
I agree. A part time job would be a lot less work and more money, especially up front. I blog because I love it and I make money with it so I'll have more time to blog. :) But it's not easy.
I think that a lot of people start up a blog expecting to get rich - and lose sight of the fact that it's a long and treacherous road to the five figure yearly income touted by some. Hobby is definitely the way to go. By the way, as one of the 200 readers, I like your entries so keep on at it!
It depends on how you want to "monetize" your blog. I bet Mrs. Micah can show you how to increase your revenue from $10 a month to $100 a month with very little effort. Whether $100 a month is enough for you to do something is another question. You decided to leave money on the table, which is totally fine. But that doesn't mean your blog can't earn more.
I like your blog because you are not trying too hard. Keep it up!
Anonymous, Bob,
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for reading my blog.
Bob,
For sure, I have made a decision to leave money on the table. Even if this blog were to generate $100 a month, it would not be worth the hassle that this would create (including the possible tax implications). Now, if we were talking thousands a month, I'd probably reconsider - but the work to get there is not worth it for me. My time is split between my career and my family and I am content with the money my day job generates.
Couldn't agree with you more, Shadox. Blogging has to fit into the rest of my life, not the other way around. If people enjoy reading and get value out of it, that's great. If not, I'm quite content to keep on babbling at myself.
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