The Problem With Blogging and Blog Networks
If you haven’t figured out by now, I like writing. However, if you asked me when I started blogging if I thought I could write 20-30 posts a week, while still having a full-time job, I’d think you were smoking something. Clearly I’ve figured out how to do it. Some days, it’s easier than others. I’m going through one of those times where it’s hard.
When I realized that people might actually pay me to write, and I got into a situation where extra money would be very helpful, I started blogging for
Creative Weblogging. I had to change a few things I did to fulfill the contractual obligations. Some of those changes rolled into what I do here on phoneboy.com also. The two major changes I made:
- Keeping a regular posting schedule, which means writing posts ahead of time
- Posting pictures/videos with most every post
However, I realized that by doing my deal with CW, I’ve given up a few things as well:
- Rights to my own work. CW owns the work I do for them. Not that I’m going to make boatloads of money or anything, but maintaining my rights does mean something to me.
- Control over the system used to blog. CW uses a heavily customized version of Movable Type. It has issues.
- Time to build my own brand on phoneboy.com, or explore other projects.
I’ve thought about how I want to address these issues and still make decent money. It boils down to two basic questions: build someone else’s brand or build my own?
To ad a new twist, I ran across an ad for WebbleYou, which is a little different than most of the blog networks I’ve looked at:
- They use WordPress!
- You don’t get paid per-post, or for a set number of posts, but you get 70% of the ad revenue. Ads are a mix of Google Adsense, Text Link Ads, and in-house sold ads–basically the way the advertising works on phoneboy.com.
- You still own your work at the end of the day, WebbleYou gets non-exclusive rights to the work.
But, of course, the downside is since you’re not getting paid-per-post, there is no such thing as guaranteed revenue, which is one reason I was willing to do the deal with the devil in the first place. CW either pays me per-post or for a set number of posts a month.
It still comes back to the basic question: do I build someone else’s brand, or my own? It looks like if I were to write for WebbleYou, I’d be able to do both, and make some momey at it. But maybe there’s something else I’m missing here?
