Over the course of the weekend, I had some interesting discussions with people, especially Titus Ferguson, who was nice enough to let me car pool with him and share a hotel room, making my personal expenses regarding attending PodCamp Michigan much less than they otherwise would have been.

The conclusion that we came to is that there are many bloggers out there only in it to make money and pay their bills, and just like every other industry that is both understandable, but in many ways negative and a bit depressing. One of the things that many online publishers thought would remain sacred is the power and semi-prestige of online publishing, and that there are many grey areas between spam blogs and useful online publications.

I had recently had a back and forth with someone else who thought that there were things about how certain bloggers were handling themselves that he didn’t like, and of course with anything like blogging, there will always be disagreements, but it seemed to come back to a lack of understanding with regards to the business of blogging.

Bloggers only get paid money for the work that they do thanks to sales of products, services or whatnot. You are fooling yourself to think that it doesn’t come back to that somewhere. Money is always exchanged for something, no matter on who or what you are writing for if your goal is to make money.

So many people aren’t thinking straight if they think that they can write about what they enjoy and make a living off of it forever without worrying about the business aspect of blogging.

I have written numerous times about things I know little about because it is a good paying job and I enjoy researching and writing. If I could write about science fiction and make more money today than I do writing about other things, I would, but there is a long process that is required to get to that point that I can’t take due to other circumstances, so I focus on filling a need that allows me to live the way that I most enjoy.

That’s the key with regards to blogging for money: fill a need. If you can write for pennies for a year, and the writing you do is just a hobby that you want to eventually turn into a career because you are working full time at something else, then that’s great, but if you want to get full time pay, for full time work today, you’ll end up working for someone else, and following their topics, their rules, and finding your own enjoyment in what you do.

So while many bloggers have gotten a lot further in their careers than I, and might be making more money today, I started day one in being able to make a full time living and supporting myself and my wife. Not a bad deal in my book.

Sorry if this post is all over the place but this is sort of an emotional topic for me

Originally posted on April 20, 2011 @ 1:36 pm