Blogging, the ultimate freedom. It conjures images of sitting in front of a MacBook air with a decaf chai latte at the local Peets coffee house sharing stories of your morning adventures to adoring fans. No more office politics, no more working with the supervisor with the tiny penis and large chip about it, just freedom to express yourself as you see fit. Casting away the rat race of the corporate world, you are the lone ranger, walking to the beat of a different drum, you are an entrepreneur!
Sounds fabulous doesn’t it? But watch out for the big, evil trap that is just waiting to get you…money!
The trick here is that you wanted to blog to express yourself free from the bullshit of the corporate world, but either because you bailed on the job too soon and have bills to pay, or are just plain greedy – you allow affiliate revenue to drive content.
Yesterday, I took great pleasure in writing about the Barclaycard Arrival+ it was pleasurable because I wrote about something from the heart, I tried to show the tricks that were being deployed to make the card more attractive, and how card companies can prey on your weaknesses.
As I hit publish I laughed. I thought, heck this is career suicide right here – you can’t bite the hand that feeds you! Well, screw that. I didn’t start a blog to write for credit card companies. I write the content, and yes, I’ll take revenue sources from affiliates, but I won’t let them rule me.
Last month Credit Karma told me that we weren’t converting enough customers for them. And if we didn’t change our content they would drop us. I found that hilarious, but I could react like that because I don’t rely on the revenue. If it were different I would likely have panicked and I might be inclined to fall into that ‘trap’. For those of you that don’t understand, Credit Karma negotiates with credit card companies to sell cards via blogs. They take about half the money from each sale, and they are getting a bit ahead of themselves (well, that is because the bloggers are stupid and scared of them) you see, Credit Karma (and any affiliate program) is all hot air.
They approach large corporate sales and promise to ‘deliver’ conversions, but they need the content to do so. If they don’t see conversions happening they threaten the bloggers by cutting off their ‘supply’ – but if they keep doing that (and bloggers aren’t stupid) they have nothing and can’t sell anything!
The tail that wags the dog? When Credit Karma came to me, they did so with an attitude of ‘you need to write with more links, because we need more money from your account’. Seriously? My reply was that I wrote the content, and if they wanted to make some money from me then take what they get, and if not, they could leave.
Just think, if I had to wake up every morning and find a way to ‘sell’ for Credit Karma? Well I’d be working for some arsehole boss again (and not to be snooty but heck, one way below my paygrade) and I’d be scared at any moment that they would cut off the sugar supply.
If you start allowing revenue to rule you and start adjusting content to fulfill the quarterly targets of a parasitic company you’ll end up hating your job all over again, and be trapped in the cycle all over again. The only way to succeed as a blogger is to be true to yourself, and true to your readers. There can be money to be made, but I can assure you as one of the more established blogs now (well compared to the 50 that pop up daily) it will likely take Saverocity another 2-3 years to even come close to being an income replacement, if at all. Don’t quit your day job and start working for a bunch of parasites; that Chai will start tasting stale pretty soon.
I have never made a penny from anything I have written
You should join our network, we can cover that wage with ease.
tsk tsk. no poaching please
I have made money from my writing but calculated on an hourly basis, I would have been better off as a minimum wage worker at Safeway. For me it has always been a labor of love.
I have spoken to several people at the recent mile point meet ups and it seems some readers of the blogs will never click on a link because they think things have gotten to pushy out there. I don’t feel the same way especially for blogs that do a great job. The money is so great that many bloggers cannot post certain things. it’s rare to see a negative story about a card company or program. Chase especially comes to mind.
Yeah, kind of a sad state of affairs really, but we have what we have… hopefully some people will think twice about quitting and going full time, but I doubt it.
I think this is a good point. I don’t currently have any affiliate offers on my blog, but I can understand the pressure from bloggers who are doing this as their full-time job. And I definitely agree that there are some bloggers that are over the top.
I think I’d agree with your take, but maybe that’s because I (and I think you?) sit from the comforts of having a “real” job that actually pays the bills 🙂
The thing that I do like to support is when I sign up for a card, I do like to go through the links of bloggers whose content that I enjoy – I think of it as a kind of “tip jar”
Well it’s a chicken and egg thing- few people are unemployed when they think that they will turn pro blogger- so I would say most had a job or could have a job, but bail out too soon, and end up in their own personal hell again…
I only apply for cards through links off of blogs that respect and have the readers’ best interest in mind. I have no problem with a blogger making a few bucks here and there as long as it’s not pushy and gross, and blatantly selfish. But if it doesn’t feel right to you, then bravo for standing up to them.
I think Matt was definitely imbibing last night. He tore off some saucy posts.
I’m fine with people making money too, I just think it is a crappy place to be if you are beholden to an affiliate company – many people talk of being credit card pimps, but really the nuance is that it is the affiliate folk like Credit Karma here that are pushing the product onto weak pimps in a MLM system.
And hell yeah I was imbibing! It was the 4th of July and I gotta raise a glass to all that Tea you guys wasted back in Boston 🙂
🙂 So, you’re on our side now?
No, I am the enemy, I raise a glass at our loss, not your win! 🙂
I really appreciate how you let us peek behind the curtain (think Wizard of Oz) to see what drives some bloggers and to learn more about how the affiliate system works. I make a point of clicking on links of the bloggers whom I respect and whose content has helped me; my way of “paying” for the tips I get from them. I also make an effort to leave comments as a way to say “I was here and liked it” and hopefully to add to the ongoing conversation.
I was surprised when a blogger told me at #CharlotteDO that he/she cared little about comments; that there are enough stats available to know about blog traffic. I see that as pretty short-sighted because blogs prosper when communities grow up around them.
Hey Elaine,
Yeah that’s really weird- Id take 10 genuine comments over 10000 views any day
Double and triple thumbs up on this post. I’m loving Saverocity for its honesty and realistic perspective on this game.
Another conversation (blog post idea? ;-)) that needs to come from this is how to make money at this without sacrificing your editorial voice. If not credit card affiliate links, what?
(1) Ads? Your readership has to get pretty big to break even there. And as someone who reads a lot of mommy blogs and sees how a lot of those blogs do “sponsored posts,” I think those blogs sacrifice their editorial voice often more than the miles and points blogs that pump credit cards. At least the credit card posts are relevant to the goals of the blog and fit into content that would be written anyway. The mommy blog sponsorships sometimes seem so random.
(2) Authorship? I’m guessing book deals fund a lot of bloggers, because everyone I read who gets slightly big suddenly writes a book. Always funny to me to see new media go old school, but I guess there are still some big bucks there. And barrier to entry is low now with e-books.
(3) Subscription model? I think that is pretty much dead. If I won’t pay for the NY Times, then I’m not going to pay for some random blog to access content. There are too many good choices out there in the world for free.
(4) Blog as an ad for another (related) business? The miles and points bloggers still do this as many of them have award booking services. And writing good content likely drives customers to that service, so they make money in a back door kind of fashion off the blog. But you aren’t really making a living blogging if you are working another job too.
Curious what other readers think. Been thinking about this a lot lately as I’m considering moving my own blog over to self-hosting (rather than free WordPress), and I’d like to try to break even on hosting fees. But I’ve been hesitating for months because I really don’t want to risk selling out, even if I try my hardest not to let the need to make even a nominal amount of money affect even 1% of what I write.
Great points- yep another post worthy for sure!