Home › #Blogging › I WILL WORK FOR FOOD BUT NOT PIZZA – Marilyn Armstrong

I WILL WORK FOR FOOD BUT NOT PIZZA – Marilyn Armstrong

By on • ( 55 )

I’ve had enough pizza. I like it, mind you, but I’ve had an awful lot of it. Especially since we discovered frozen pizza we can throw in the counter oven. DiGiorno’s sausage made with marinara sauce is my favorite. It tastes pretty good. The dogs appreciate the crusts, too.

There is a rumor, perpetuated by television shows, that bloggers earn a living. Someone in Hollywood 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 yet 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 big money coming from this blog. Not without a humongous payoff. That life of luxury? Waiting in the wings.

‹
›

Categories: #Blogging, #Writing, Humor, Marilyn Armstrong, Money, Music

Tags: , , , , , ,

55 replies

  1. evilsquirrel13
    05/14/2019 • 10:20

    I ditched a follower once whose blog became so loaded with ads that my browser would crash each time I tried to load his page. I mean, I literally COULDN’T read their blog anymore. When you don’t have to see the ads yourself, I guess you don’t realize just how ugly your blog looks…

    The moneymaking “blogs” are all on YouTube now. YouTube is full of regular people who made themselves into celebrities… even a few who now have products they sell in stores like the one I work at. I doubt many regular bloggers ever got that big…and so, it remains just a pursuit of happiness rather than a fount of riches…

    Like

  2. Melanie B Cee
    05/13/2019 • 14:04

    I’ve long held a weird little theory. In some other life or for some cosmic reason to which we’re not privy (yet), some of us aren’t meant to be wealthy nor even comfortable. Maybe it’s a lesson we’re supposed to learn, maybe we were wealthy in some other life and were absolutely nasty, maybe… and I’m not saying that you have to buy that idea, it’s just something I toss around, mentally, when the month is long and the money ran out on the 2nd day.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      05/13/2019 • 15:46

      Or maybe we lack ambition — at least financially. I don’t need to be rich. I would just like to have enough money to make it through the month and have some left over so I could get someone to clean the house! And afford enough birdseed for all the ravenous squirrels.

      Like

  3. draliman
    05/13/2019 • 14:03

    I don’t think I could ever eat too much pizza.
    I too have decided not to become a “WordPress Influencer”. I could, mind you. I choose not to 🙂

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      05/13/2019 • 15:44

      I have never gotten a WordPress offer, but I’ve gotten a lot of offers from people who sell clothing, makeup, books, or some kind of service. If I actually knew them and that their services were worthwhile, maybe … but I don’t know who these people are and I don’t want them in my blog. There’s also that “intrusion” factor. This place is MINE. You only get to be here if I invite you 😀

      Liked by 2 people

  4. swo8
    05/13/2019 • 11:43

    I don’t pay for my blog site so there will be, most likely, adds there. I have a YouTube channel and at first I tried monetizing it and the amount they pay you amounts to ZERO unless you bring in thousands of viewers and then you would only get $ .014325 of a cent per view. They won’t forward the money unless you’ve made at least $10.00. So I decided that I wouldn’t monetize it because I couldn’t stand the advertising that they put on the front of the videos and there is so little in for me, that why put anyone who cares to listen and view my videos through that nonsense. They take the opposite approach to WP. WP puts advertising if you don’t pay and YouTube puts advertising if you do monetize it. The whole financial system is out of whack. Some people make enormous amounts of money for doing “B-gger” all and other people get zip and they work terrifically hard. The economy is a house of cards and not only is it unfair, it will eventually bring the whole system down.
    Leslie

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Kiki
    05/13/2019 • 05:22

    I SO agree with you. But I’m also in a relatively good position here in France & Switzerland that I don’t get too many of those moving and obstructing PR stunts…. If they become too annoying, I move on and leave the blog. I would however gladly ‘suffer’ ads on YOUR blog if I knew you’d make some money of it. That’s how much I love your writing!!!!!

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      05/13/2019 • 15:37

      I don’t think most bloggers really want this to BE a business. There are business blogs — and most authors have blogs — but this is for me. I like to write and it’s nice to have an audience to read stuff. For that matter, it’s nice to have someone besides me and Garry see my photos!

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Lwbut
    05/13/2019 • 04:46

    I did a quick search for bloggers making money – they do exist! One blogger even blogged about them!: https://blossomthemes.com/top-earning-blogs/

    Like

  8. Lwbut
    05/13/2019 • 04:36

    I think bloggers will only make money if they are promoting something ‘commercially marketable’… you could have a very popular blog with a hundred thousand followers and a million likes a day but that ain’t gonna bring in da rent money, honey! 🙂

    However, i have seen a few ads lately suggesting that You-tube channels are where the big bucks lie.

    You do videos (or animations) explaining how to do something you are passionate about and create a You-tube channel showing people how to do what you do and make regular updates. The money is made from selling merchandise relating to your channel/topic and also from branding – using a short segment on your vidlog promoting some associated brand. The big names pay big bucks for personal recommendations on popular channels.

    Have a look at just how amateur some of the people look on these channels but who could be raking in $10,000 a month just by filming themselves talking about stuff they love doing for free.

    Y’never know??

    Like

  9. OG
    05/13/2019 • 02:09

    I never see any ads here or on Facebook. I have the free plan. Maybe I have them blocked somehow.

    Don’t eat much pizza anymore.
    In my twenties some eons ago going out for pizza and beer on draft was my ideal thing to do . What happened to gnoses days?

    I take Prozac and have been since about 1990. Alcohol on top of Prozac gives me a headache. No other side effects that I am aware of.

    Like

  10. Fandango
    05/13/2019 • 01:52

    I never have thought of blogging as a money-making scheme and I haven’t ever tried to monetize my blog. I’m retired, blogging is a hobby, and I do it use my imagination, hone my creativity, and exercise my brain in the hope of staving off dementia as long as possible.

    Like

  11. Sadje
    05/13/2019 • 01:43

    Making money, at least enough to pay for the cheapest plan they have on WP, was my idea when I had the word ads on my blog. So far I have made around $20! Not much but I don’t have to do anything for this.

    Like

  12. Taswegian1957
    05/13/2019 • 01:34

    I use Word Ads on the doll blog because I figure if WordPress is going to make money off me I might as well get something out of it too. It took about four years to earn $100, paid for the extra storage space on the blog. However, I blog for fun. I like writing and taking pictures. I like sharing information. That’s why I do it. Lately, WordPress has been sending me emails about deals as if I were a business and I get my share of emails, probably computer generated, from people who obviously think that I am a business.
    Would I like to make money blogging? Sure, who doesn’t want to get rich doing something fun; but I don’t want to turn our blogs into a commercial venture if it means we can’t be ourselves. However, if anyone wants to send me some free dolls to review I’m up for that.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      05/13/2019 • 02:15

      I get money making offers a lot too, but I just say no. I don’t want other people writing on my blog for money and I don’t want to run ads, either. Sometimes it is a trade: we’ll give you our product free if you will let us advertise. Grammarly did that when they first came out and I held it against them for years.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. angloswiss
    05/13/2019 • 00:26

    I never even thought about making money with my blog. I write because I enjoy writing and for contact with others and have made good online friends here. I have been asked now and again from newbies for advice on getting people to read their blog. They are the messages I delete and ignore.

    Like

  14. lifelessons
    05/13/2019 • 00:17

    Funny that people complain about the ads, but I never see ads on anyone else’s blog. Is this because mine is a paid site? Does that mean that in addition to my blog not having ads that
    they cut out ads so I don’t have to see them on other sites?

    Liked by 1 person

Trackbacks

  1. IN THE SPIRIT OF DOING WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING … Marilyn Armstrong | Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth