Duncan writes an excellent piece in response to the criticism of Weblogs Inc’s $4 per post pay rate that was revealed last week. I’ve similarly had quite a few comments here at Problogger on the issue in the past few days – many of them critical at Weblogs Inc. I’ve been trying to work out how to respond to the criticism myself (although I’m not in the habit of defending Jason – he’s a big boy). I think Duncan says it well:
‘You see, if I’d been asked by Jason Calacanis to write for Weblogs Inc 12-18 months ago for a gaureenteed $500 USD starting rate per month I’d be writing for Weblogs Inc., today and I probably wouldn’t be writing the Blog Herald. Sure, if he asked me today I’d be wanting more money because I’m now making more.
But it took me a very, very long time to get to $500 USD per month.
And the reality is that most bloggers will never get to see this sort of money, even if you don’t think its a lot of money.’
$4 per post or $500 per month doesn’t seem like a lot of money – but as Duncan says – it’s more than the majority of bloggers don’t earn this much from their blogging.
You might remember I ran a poll on Adsense earnings a few months back – it found that only 23% of those who responded to the question of how much they earned from Adsense earned more than $500.
I talk to bloggers every day who tell me their blog earnings – many of who are lucky to get more than one Adsense cheque per year let alone each month.
This week I also had email from four Weblogs Inc authors in response to the issue. None wanted to go on public record but all expressed their appreciation for Weblogs Inc as it has given them an income stream that they acknowledged they’d never have without it. Two of them told me how much they earn from Weblogs Inc and highlighted that the $4 per post figure might be true for some bloggers in the network but that its not the case for all. It seems that there are multiple factors in determining the pay rate at WIN including the topic, whether the topic is established, the profile and experience of the blogger, how many bloggers are working on the blog and probably how desperate they are to find an author.
I am not arguing that Weblogs Inc is for everyone. But I can think of quite a few bloggers who would do well to accept any offer they might get from them if it ever happened.
