While some goes a bragging on how much they make with their blogs wrtitng tons of reviews hoping they will be idolised by their earning prowess or rather writing prowess, I feel there is noting to brag about if you earn your blog’s keeps through writing reviews. Now I might step on a few toes again, so let me clarify that the bulk of my blog income also comes from writing reviews which is a perfect way to make money for bloggers like me who has zero exposure internationally and minimum popularity locally.
The reason why there is nothing to brag about or be proud about when you make your money from writing reviews, no matter how much you make, is simply because every Tom Dick and Harry can do that as long as they have blogs that qualifies. You don’t even need to have a perfect command of English to start earning some quick bucks. The only difference is how many hours you are willing to pour in everyday. So even if you earn a 5 digit income from writing reviews, the most you can brag about is your endurance level. Anyone who can endure writing hundreds of posts each day can and will make that money. So I don’t deem a blogger that makes money totally from writing paid reviews a “successful bloogger”. If a blog is successful, the blogger won’t have to go through that kind of torture to earn that kind of money.
Of course some real braggers says they enjoy that sadistic journey of non stop blogging for hours to come. Believe what you want, but you find me putting myself through it. In my humble opinion, a successfull blog is a blog like Techcrunch. When it comes to making money from blogs, John Chow can’t even smell the fart of Techcrunch and Michael Arrington don’t write a single paid post.
For your information, I quote part of an article from The San Francisco Chronicles:
In August, 1.25 million people visited TechCrunch or its affiliated blogs at least once, according to comScore Inc. It brings in $240,000 per month in advertising, according to Arrington, and pulls in additional revenue from conferences and parties.
Of course, Micheal Arrington is no more the blogger like you and me or when he was 2 years ago when he started Techcrunch. He has turned his blog into a business venture with a full time CEO to handle the day to day affairs and a team of full time staff, so I guess we can’t compare John Chow dot com, which is a one man show, with Techcrunch.
Out of curiousity I checked out their Advertise page. The 125 x 125 banner Ads goes for, I know you won’t believe it, $10,000 per month.
Pricing for each sponsorship unit is currently $10,000 per month, which translates to a very low effective CPM (less than $3 based on over 3.5 million page views / month.) There is a minimum term of two months, followed by a month-to-month plan where either party may terminate the relationship on 30 days notice.
I counted and there are 6 x 125 x 125 Ads in the sidebar. That converts to a cool $60,000 per month of passive income. So dare I brag about how I forgo all my sleep, making not even 10% of what others are making, from writing paid reviews any more?
This is an insightful post but funny thing is there’s no comment coming in from the usual suspects. Usually they come in very fast. But I think I can understand….
hahahaha I din catch this post. I was in KL celebrating my birthday/ lol
I agree with you totally… but of course some people will be angry. But then in all honesty, I don’t know what is there to be angry about. *shrug* You are merely stating your points.
For anyone who feels offended, I sure hope they’ll be guided by facts and not emotions.