Home › #Blogging › WILL WORK FOR FOOD

WILL WORK FOR FOOD

By on • ( 30 )

There is a rumor, perpetuated by television shows, that bloggers earn a living. By blogging. Someone in Hollywood seriously thinks people like me make money doing this. I am depressed to admit it, but not one cent have I ever made from this site — not counting the occasional free book for review.

I don’t advertise on this site. In fact, I pay WordPress to not put their advertisements here. My dream is not to monetize my site, but be such an incredible writer that the world will shower me with money — just because I’m me. I won’t have to ask, and I will owe nothing to anybody. And I could pay the bills! Yes!

Money for nothing. It brings tears to my eyes.

Somewhere, some blogger must be making money on his or her site, but I don’t know them. I’ve been around the world, blog-wise. I have yet to see a single blogger bringing in the big bucks. A few people have tried to at least keep even by putting advertisements on their sites, but the amount of money this earns them wouldn’t add up to a good meal in a mediocre restaurant. Moreover, advertising annoys readers. Sites with spammy ads and weird pop-ups make me want to go somewhere else.

Since the Internet remains one of the last, free places on earth, that’s what I do. I go elsewhere.

I don’t do this for money. I don’t even do it in the hopes that someday it might make money.

I don’t run advertisements, have no connections to any organization who will pay me for anything. I get offers for free applications for an “honest review,” but between the lines I read “positive, glowing review.”

I turn them down. “Money for nothing” is a delightful dream and that is all it is.

If for some obscure reason, you want to buy me off? You’ll have to do a lot better than any offer I’ve gotten. I’m sure everyone has a price, so I probably have one too, but no one has come close to meeting it.

Please, feel free to keep trying!

Meanwhile, there will be no succumbing on this blog. Not without one humongous payoff.

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Categories: #Blogging, #Photography, #Writing, Economics, Humor, Money, Music

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30 replies

  1. judyt54
    10/15/2017 • 09:29

    Only place I ever made slow but respectable money online was as a survey taker. Over time I managed to garner nearly 800 bucks, before they sent me one set of bad checks and never refunded the mistake or the money. It was a slow, daily process, but the small amount I did make went into a little online account to fund my WoW jones and my Lego jones. So it evened out.
    And I did enjoy the surveys, but really don’t want to start that up again.

    Sort of selling the ads themselves, though, I can’t see another way to make money online/blogging unless you’re actually selling a product.

    Like

  2. lwbut
    10/15/2017 • 05:18

    I think there are serious professional bloggers (probably mostly ex-journalists made redundant ) who do earn money by blogging. people who generally get more than 200 comments per post and have more than 10,000 followers!

    Then there are the wannabe professional bloggers who just try to drag in as many followers as possible and think that’s how they can make money -they put the money ahead of the content and generally don’t much care for their followers as anything but a potential click income stream – all such are to be avoided at all costs! 😉

    And then there are those of us who blog because we have something we want to share with others that we think has some value – although mostly that value is never translated into a monetary one. 😦

    There are legit ways and advice on how to increase blog traffic though and that increases your net presence and chances of getting ‘syndicated’ by someone who will actually pay you! 🙂

    But the chances are probably about the same as moving to Hollywood to make it BIG in movies. 😉

    love

    Like

  3. Rebel Girl
    10/14/2017 • 22:46

    I have never clicked an ad on a site or met anyone who made money from blogging…unless they were selling something. I blog because it is nice to have input and conversation with like-minded people. Most nights I am too tired to go out and socialize, here I can talk, or not in my pajamas. Sometimes I nod off with my computer on my lap 🙂

    Like

  4. Embeecee
    10/14/2017 • 16:01

    Apparently, and this is probably a huge scam, there are places you can ‘work’ by blogging and earn a wage. Doesn’t say it’s a decent wage though. Me? Like you, I do it for the simple pleasure and the hope that maybe someone will recognize my ‘genius’ and shower me gratis with money. But I’m not holding my breath. In the meanwhile, spreading the word that blogging is a way of self expression and is not lucrative is the best information going IMHO.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/14/2017 • 16:50

      ALL of those ads about earning huge money from your computer are scams. ALL of them. You will end up paying them for “information” about how to do it … and there IS no “how to do it.” Scamorama!

      But on the upside, blogging is fun 😀

      Like

  5. Rich Paschall
    10/14/2017 • 11:15

    There is a joy to being read that is hard to explain. Even the comments by those who disagree are good, unless they are abusive and have to be shown the internet door. We write because it is one of the things we do. I guess I could be watching a show with little plot or sweeping the floors, but writing seems a better pastime.

    Like

  6. evilsquirrel13
    10/14/2017 • 10:06

    There was a blogger who used to follow me a couple years ago who had started blogging when he got laid off from his job. A great guy who was a good writer (he’d been a reporter), but it was almost comical the extremes he was going to just to make a buck. I can’t count how many times my browser crashed while trying to visit his blog due to the amalgamation of ads he had on it. Maybe if I’d have had an ad blocker program back then, I’d still be following him, but it just got to be more trouble than it was worth. And I really doubt the people who were regularly reading his blog ever clicked on any of the ads either… and no clicks, no revenue.

    If somebody paid me a SIGNIFICANT amount of money to sell out my blog to something…… yeah, I’d probably do it. Who wouldn’t? But for potential pennies? Nah. My voice may be a bit weird and unusual, but at least it’s mine…

    Like

    • Rich Paschall
      10/14/2017 • 11:09

      I think I probably know this blogger. I followed one like that too, maybe the same, but after a while it was hard to find the content for all the ads and self promotion. I stopped following.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/14/2017 • 12:38

      So many of the “ads” we are supposed to put up are just spam and very dubious, too. I strongly doubt any of them pay anything worth cashing at the bank. I have tried following a couple of people who are obviously desperate to make a buck, but they have these popups you can’t get rid of. Ads that seem to cling like little virtual leeches. Overall? I’ll just stay poor … and leave the leeches to others.

      Like

  7. dcmontreal
    10/14/2017 • 09:56

    I have found that the blogs that claim to make money are those that offer advice on how to make your blog pay!!

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Taswegian1957
    10/14/2017 • 04:41

    I have noticed that since my doll blog has become a bit more popular I get a lot of the spam messages and emails inviting me to improve my “business”. They go straight to the spam box so don’t bother me. I just looki in there once in a whle to make sure nothing I wanted went in there by mistake.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/14/2017 • 12:34

      I used to read them, but mine have gotten really salacious and nasty. Obviously, whoever writes these things I’m a man with twisted appetites. I also look to make sure no real person has gotten mixed in. Lately, these spammy (and probably viral) ads have been sneaking in as “trash” rather than “spam” … so I have to spam them and THEN delete them. These aren’t just spam anymore. They are pretty vicious.

      Liked by 1 person

  9. Fandango
    10/14/2017 • 02:01

    I was once offered a penny a word to write product reviews for a promotional blog. Even a wordy writer like me couldn’t figure out how to make a living off of a penny a word.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/14/2017 • 12:31

      That is usually a paid position, part of what is humorously known as “assistant editor” at a tech magazine. That’s what you do. You write promos that are called “product reviews.” It’s a whole section of the paper. No one could make money at a penny a word. That was low pay 50 years ago.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. angloswiss
    10/14/2017 • 00:38

    Same here, I just pay for the pleasure of blogging. I have read ads telling me I can earn money for my blogging, but they usually appear on the spam list, of which I have at least 20 entries daily that are sent to the garbage. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I think I would have to pay them to pay me.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/14/2017 • 00:56

      I haven’t met anyone who has made their blog pay anything more than a few pennies here and there. On TV, bloggers make tons of money from their blogs. I wonder how they do it? I wish they’d tell ME! I think it’s a Hollywood rumor.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. slmret
    10/14/2017 • 00:37

    It never would have occurred to me to try to earn money by blogging!

    Like

  12. omniclassic
    10/14/2017 • 00:23

    Chicks for free, etc, etc

    Liked by 1 person