Money-Making Methods for Bloggers
March 16, 2006
ProBlogger Darren Rowse has made a list of 8 (direct) ways bloggers can earn money. Here’s a summary:
1. Advertising
There are many ad options: Contextual Ads, Other CPC Advertising, Impression-based Ads, Blog Ads, Text Ads, RSS Ads, and more.
2. Sponsorship
The key if you’re going to take this approach is to target advertisers in your niche that have products that closely relate to what you’re writing about.
3. Affiliate Programs (Amazon, Linkshare, Commission Junction, Clickbank…)
Affiliate programs take some work if you want to get the most out of them (perhaps more work than advertising) but can be lucrative if you match the right program with the right blog/topic.
4. Selling/Flipping Blogs
…in reality [this] is not something that is overly common…yet
5. Donations and Tip Jars
Most bloggers just don’t have the critical mass or the cult following to make [this] work.
6. Merchandise
[This] will probably only work if you either have a brilliantly designed merchandise range and/or you have a cult-like status as a blogger with some fanatical readers who are a little obsessive about your blog
7. Selling Subscriptions
To make it succeed you would need to have some sort of premium/exclusive content and/or real expertise on a topic.
8. Blog Networks
You can start a network and contract bloggers to write for you or secondly you might like to join a blog network as a writer.
Pajamas Media Redux, Weblog Network Revenue Models Compared
October 27, 2005
Darren Rowse of Problogger points to a wired article on the new Coalition of the Willing in Political Blogs. 
From the Wired article:
Pajamas Media has signed up 70 bloggers including Instapundit.com’s Glenn Reynolds, CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow and Pamela from Atlas Shrugs. The site, which will officially launch Nov. 16 under a different name, will highlight different blogs each day alongside top news headlines.
While they were founded by some big names in the political blogging arena, they also some members in the non-political spectrum, such as Monolo the Shoeblogger.
It would seem that there are three basic models for Weblog Networks (examples follow each type):
1. Centrally Owned Content Network - i.e. more of a traditional media network that could in theory be acquired in part or whole by another entity.
Weblogs Inc. (obviously this worked pretty well, to the tune of $30 Million or so on revenues of ~ $1-3M yearly), Gawker, and Niner Niner.
2. Network Ad Brokering Model - wherein each site is owned by its respected creators and the “federated” ad network sits in the middle, taking a slice of the ad revenue.
Federated Media Publishing - which has the fabulous Boing Boing and 43 Folders in its network.
With backers like John Battelle (co-founder of Wired) and Omidyar Network, I don’t think they’ll have any troubling taking off in a major way.
3. Glorified Link Exchange Model
Huffington Post, 9rules, etc.
As Jeremy Wright commented on the Problogger link:
Just sounds like one big-assed blog aggregator. Not sure how it’s a “network” or even a “new network” in any way…
But, with the names behind it they’ll undoubtedly “succeed” - just not in a way that’ll help average bloggers whatsoever.
Of course, the kicker is… your readers don’t care.
They just want great content.
PJ Media
April 29, 2005
Roger Simon, Charles Johnson, and Marc Danziger “have been sneaking around over the last few months, trying to turn blogs into a business.” At least, that’s what Simon said in April 28, 2005: An Open Letter to All Bloggers He continues, “We are working on another model that will sell ads en masse, not blog-by-blog. We expect this model to go live within a few weeks.”
They call it “PJ Media” or pajamasmedia.com. You can email them at join@pajamasmedia.com to receive three attached documents outlining their plan to monetize blogs, an NDA, and an agreement that doesn’t really say much except express your interest in getting in on the ground floor of receiving advertising and having your material used.
Sounds like one to watch.
Weblogs Inc vs Gawker vs. Niner Niner Models
April 13, 2005
Work Boxers has a great piece on the Weblogs Inc. vs Gawker models:
Here we have two successful blog network, with two different methods of building their network. Which one is best for anyone else looking to go this route? Let’s discuss.
On the Gawker Model:
Gawker doesn’t release a million sites like Weblogs Inc., but instead takes its time to find what niche they want to tackle and also who they want to write for that site. Currently they are up to 12 sites (11 blogs since Kinja isn’t a blog, but a RSS aggregator), but don’t let the smaller number of blogs fool you. These sites make some money.
On the Weblogs Inc Model:
This is the model that most blog networks will tackle, because to me it’s just a safer route to take due to its diversity of content. Weblogs, Inc. (WIN) now has 75 blogs covering a range of topics. Some are really successful (Engdaget), while others aren’t even on the radar, but with so many sites it doesn’t matter since every little bit counts in the stat charts. The reason for this is because WIN tries to sell advertising across the whole network so having 10 blogs with 100,000 pageviews per month is going to be harder to sell than 75 blogs with 500,000 pageviews per month (made up numbers).
Hey Scrivs - what about the Niner Niner model? J/k
A few of the comments on the thread mentioned the Long Tail… Heh.
My response:
Long tail… that’s our business model all the way. (niner niner)
As a tiny upstart, we could never compete with Engadget, etc.
That’s why we’re starting off with High Heels and Medical Privacy. Just random Long Tail niches.
So far, we’re doing alright. It just takes time.
