Is Blogging Devaluing the ‘typed’ word? Part II
The first question that needs to be addressed – when looking at devaluation of the written word – is whether blogging generates a direct income. From this perspective, I can confidently suggest that blogging, even when done to the fullest extent possible, will provide you with at maximum – a token income. To take the example of Don Charisma[1]: his interview gained me 75 ‘Likes’ on WordPress within a 24 hour period and he perceives the essence of blogging to be self-promotion. Therefore, he’s the perfect candidate for testing this hypothesis.
Don stated that his blog ‘pays around 1/4 of [his] electricity bill per month or a meal in an inexpensive restaurant for two people’. He informed me that to gain any kind of reasonable income from blogging you would need to have ‘100,000…impressions [advert views] per month’ (See An Interview With Don Charisma). This is a ludicrously high and unrealistic figure for any writer to achieve.
My research further compounded this judgment as 100% of the people that I surveyed stated that they gain no income from their blogs. Therefore, it can be stated that though it is not impossible to gain a reasonable income from one’s blog, it is extremely improbable and arguably more difficult than getting oneself published!
If a blog doesn’t produce a direct monetary income then from where does its appeal arise? It’s not as black and white as your blog’s financial price tag. If it were that simple then blogs would cease to have professional writers. Therefore, one must dig deeper in order to fully understand the effect blogging is having on the monetary value of writer’s work.
[1] Avid blogger and self-promoter.
Available At: https://acoleary.com/2014/04/23/179/
Scribblings and Broken Glass 