Comments on a comment

Max from The Millions left this comment the other day:

People are probably going to hate what I have to say about this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love Maud’s blog and her article on blogging and its addictive qualities is right on the money, but I don’t understand why someone like Maud, who treats blogging like it’s her job and does it well enough that it should be, doesn’t try to *make it her job.* Or at least a part time job to stave off the guilt of spending so much time on it. There are a lot of great bloggers out there, and a lot of them are worried about selling out and concerned about promoting a certain behemoth internet book store, but the fact is that since thousands of people visit Maud’s blog every day, there are ways, unobtrusive ways, for her to make a little money off of that blog. And since when is it so bad to get paid for writing? We live in a world where associations with big, somewhat unsavory companies are a regular part of daily life, so would anybody really hold it against Maud, or any other blogger who delivers such outstanding daily nourishment, if he or she had an opportunistic relationship with the big A or laid a few unassuming text ads on us? I should hope not. Thoughts?

I agree with the sentiment that people like Maud provide a valuable service not to mention the entertainment. I wish she could get paid. I do this while at work as a lark. I don’t know how much my employers would appreciate the hours I spend trolling the internet, reading various blogs. Probably not much. But it does take a lot of time, posting and so forth even with such a small blog like mine. Maud’s is huge—she has an enormous amount of readers and tons of posts everyday. I wouldn’t mind a few ads or so. Most sites have them anyway. And I don’t think it would make her blog any less ‘real’ if she got some sort of financial reward for her work. Does anyone else have an opinon?

7 thoughts on “Comments on a comment”

  2. Max's avatarMax

    Thanks for posting this, Ms. Dwarf, I’m flattered. Just to clarify, while there is certainly pocket change to be made, there’s more at stake here than that, both financially and philosophically. By blogging, we are saying “hey mainstream media, we regular folk can add to the discourse,” and there is a certain power in that. For some people, blogging is just a hobby, but if blogging becomes what you like to do most, why not devote some of the time spent on it to making the blog self-sufficient. Making our blogs financially worthwhile makes the whole blogging movement more powerful. It enables us to reach more people and to write more. And if the only thing keeping bloggers from doing that is a reluctance to associate with corporate entities, I think that’s silly. Plus, the more heavily visited a blog, the more the blogger is able to dictate the nature of those associations.

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  4. booksquare's avatarbooksquare

    I added Google ads to my site, figuring if I came close to making back hosting fees, the world wouldn’t be so bad. Luckily, I do not depend on ad dollars for paying said fees, because they ain’t much. It remains somewhere along the lines of a noble experiment. While blogging is nowhere near a full-time activity, I do see it as part of my (writing) job — you know, the job that doesn’t necessarily pay anyway.

    I don’t know Maud personally (though we’ve linked back and forth with each other…that’s almost the same, right ?), I would suggest she try such an endeavor. If it doesn’t work or feels wrong, that’s okay. But if it somehow does and the dreary day job can disappear, that’s not so bad.

    Of course, there is a risk: I posted a fun rant on self-publishing (advising caution before leaping and all that). All the Google ads invited my readers to “self-publish your work”…it felt a bit like a contradiction!

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  6. bookdwarf's avatarbookdwarf

    Uhm, no, I don’t think so. I guess I should email her and tell her about how much we like her blog and so forth. I’m sure she gets all sorts of adulatory emails, but what’s one more?

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  7. Dan Wickett's avatarDan Wickett

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen Maud’s opinion on this – I do know that Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation has commented a few times in both posts and interviews.

    In this latest, a question from the Book Babes and his answer:

    How does a site like yours remain economically feasible?

    It doesn’t. It’s operated at my own expense and is a labor of love. And that, frankly, contributes to the credibility of ALL literary blogs. No one can accuse us of trolling for publishers’ ad dollars. We’re an independent bunch

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