Duncan challenges a statement made by Adam L. Penenberg in an article in Wired News that ‘no one has gotten rich off blogs in the West’. I tend to agree with Duncan on this one and wonder if Adam really thought through this statement before sending his article off for publishing. It seems to me to be a bit of a throwaway line at the end of an article – but is something I know not to be true.
I was speaking this morning with a blogger via IM who in a year has built a quality single blog from scratch that now is on track for a $200,000+ year in 2005. This blogger (who wants to remain anonymous for fear of his niche being flooded) is still in his late teens and I’m guessing feels very ‘rich’ right now.
This is a story that I’m hearing more and more regularly. The figures vary ($200,000 is the most I’ve heard for a year from a single blog run by a single blogger) but the sentiment is the same – people feeling very ‘rich’ – not just financially but in so many other ways.
Of course Adam is probably looking for blogging millionaires – something no one has really gone public about achieving yet. I guess its early days for ProBlogging – however if someone hasn’t already quietly achieved the 7 figure income I suspect it won’t be that far off.
PS – having said all that – Adam’s article is actually worth a read – its about a young Hong Kong blogger who is building his own network of blogs in the model of Gawker Media.
