a peek inside the fishbowl

1 | Hellcat13

April 1st, 2011 at 9:31 am

I don’t think it’s anyone’s business what you earn on the blog. You wouldn’t ask my salary, so why should I ask yours? I find value in your writing and in the companies you accept ads from, and that keeps me coming back. If readers don’t like the direction you’ve taken, they don’t have to read, right?

2 | Josée

April 1st, 2011 at 10:20 am

I just skimmed through the third article you link to, the one on Her Bad Mother. One line jumped out at me:

“There are, I think, a million reasons why we don’t talk about it in these spaces – for me, these include fear of being attacked for what some might think is my undeserved success…”

Wow. It’s really sad that this aspect of the financial discussion has to be taken into account at all. I find it shocking that anyone could fault someone for making money (be it a little or a lot) off something they obviously love and work very hard at! Isn’t everyone’s dream to get paid to do something they love? It’s a harsh world if someone gets attacked for accomplishing just that.

3 | karinny

April 1st, 2011 at 11:02 am

Do not disclose. It is nobody’s business. But do say if it is a motivation, if you feel valued and if made your family’s life a little easier! I think you deserve a free reno :)

4 | Hilary

April 1st, 2011 at 11:14 am

The really nosy person would be FASCINATED to know what you earn through the blog. But sadly, I agree that it’s none of our business ;)

I would be interested in how long it took you to start monetizing your blog, what in your experience are the most successful income streams for bloggers, etc. You don’t need to talk hard figures that way.

5 | Liisa

April 1st, 2011 at 1:22 pm

I agree with above commenters; I would never expect you to disclose how much you make (unless you decide to take your blog business public ;)). You could give percentages, estimated average hourly rate, etc, but hard numbers, definitely not!

6 | Lynn

April 1st, 2011 at 1:52 pm

I agree I don’t need to know the number. But it would be nice to know what category it fits into - does it give you coffee once a week? Play for the annual hosting? Or is it funding your house renovation? What I’m really interested in is the payoff versus work involved…obviously you blog because you love it, but do you feel the work of getting and keeping sponsors is worth the payoff?

7 | alison p-h

April 1st, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Do not disclose. What you earn is made up of a multitude of factors. Experience, professional background, time put into the blog, the age of your blog, your networking abilities, YOUR CONTENT!, frequency of posts, your engagement with the audience, just to name a few. Unless you are going to take it all into account, what you earn is will be misinterpreted. My two cents.

8 | coffee with julie

April 2nd, 2011 at 5:44 pm

I commented on the blog monetization thing on your post above … so I’ll skip that and go right to: I can’t wait to hear all about the prelim sketches! I am really interested in this whole process and love that you are blogging it!