On being a professional blogger
In recent months, I’ve been meeting with a number of people who don’t actually know who I am from the get-go. This is actually not surprising, as the interactions have been in person, face-to-face, mostly first-time meetups. These people don’t know the broad range of activities I engage in (from teaching to research to freelance writing to consulting) so they look at me through only one lens.
The question I most often get asked is not whether I make money from blogging (a topic my friend Derek K. Miller wrote about last year) but whether do I do it as a professional activity or whether I am a professional blogger.
I told my friend Lorraine Murphy about being this question a few weeks back, and she asked me point blank – “do you get paid for blogging?” – I answered – “well, only for the freelance writing I do for other websites“. And then she concluded “well, then you ARE a professional blogger“. But the thing is, I don’t get paid to blog on either this (my personal blog) nor on my research blog. Lorraine does consider herself a professional blogger and so she should, as she blogs for a number of sites as well (and does get paid)
I do have friends (like my good friend Arieanna Schweber) who ARE indeed professional bloggers. And as she said in an interview, it IS hard work. The last time I had this question posed to me I thought of a really short answer, but I couldn’t, so I ended up giving the long-winded answer.
If you ask me whether I take blogging seriously and in a professional manner, the answer is – yes, I do. While this is my personal blog and nobody pays me to write here (nor on my research blog), I do treat my blogging as a job and interweave it within my daily time allocation process. If I am running a contest to give away tickets for theatre, films, etc. I contact the sponsor of the tickets, the winner, do the draw, promote the contest. I take time out of my day to write content, not only for myself (whenever I want to write about something) but also when I think of stuff that can be useful to my readers, like my productivity tips, or something cool about Vancouver, or a restaurant review.
I respond to readers’ comments, I talk to people on Twitter, I promote the stuff of my peers online, and I do all of that within my daily time budget. I respond to questions from the community, I connect people over Twitter or through our blogs, I reach out to the community, etc. Of course, I give priority to my client work and I try to balance my freelance writing, as well as my teaching and my research, but broadly speaking, I would say that yes, I treat blogging as one more of my gigs, and I treat it with respect, ethics and with a genuine interest in my audience (my readers). Even attending social media gatherings, events, etc. are part of my daily allocation of work time.
I’ve had a few conversations with my friend Rebecca Bollwitt on this topic as well, and while her and John’s company Sixty4Media primarily builds sites, she does treat her personal blogging with the same degree of professionalism as I do.
I wrote this post mostly to clarify how I think of blogging and to express how seriously I take blogging, even if it continues to be my personal blog. It’s just enjoyable, and I think that work should be enjoyable, so I just take it as part of my job.
Related posts:
- How to insert “blogger” into my CV?
- Blogging as a professional gig
- Being an academic and a blogger – two models, one mind
- Blogger Relations – Cossette Convergence – VIDFEST 2008 – Barefoot, Trgovac and Bollwitt
- Blogger couples, local socially responsible entrepreneurs, and other musings
Interesting post, Raul.
I think many people think that blogging is the new way to “get rich quick”–and while there are guys like Darren Rowse (Problogger) who do make a living blogging, they are far and few between.
I don’t know anyone (except maybe Lorraine) who blogs for a living, and even she does other things as well, like workshops.
I started a blog as a backup for my business. I wanted to have a blog to help to build my reputation as a ‘professional’. I don’t make a penny from my blog, but like you, I treat it like a job. Sometimes I meet people for the first time, and they say, “Oh, yeah, I know you!” and it’s from my online presence.
I love blogging, and I think that it has other benefits, but getting rich… not so much. Unless you’re Darren Rowse.
A lot of people throw around the ‘professional’ label on stuff that may or may not be true….I myself consider a professional to be someone that earns most of their income via working in a particular field… typically this is greater than 50% of your annual income….sometimes this label is also applied to folks that get special training in a field. Does that make them professionals right out of the gate because they survived the course? I’m not so sure.
I take a lot of photos, have a big camera but am not a professional photographer although I get called one a lot. Some people buy a pile professional camera gear and call themselves a professional without actually knowing how to take a good photo.
I blog on my website about photography and technology. I am not a professional blogger…again I sometimes get called a pro blogger because I get interest from various companies that send me stuff to review. If I register “imaproblogger.com” does that make me a professional blogger by default?
My day job (I guess that makes me a professional e-business analyst) pays the bills so I can buy my camera gear and technology. Occasionally I get paid photography/video gigs but it isn’t enough to quit the day job quite yet, and I’m not quite sure I’d want do that full time as it would become, well, work, rather than something I’m immensely enjoying as a creative outlet.
How you approach something (professionally, casually, passionately) shouldn’t really matter…as long as what you’re creating is quality. Flip flops or penny loafers, the output is the same.
I’m also surprised people actually care if bloggers get paid for a blog post?
Define payment…ads versus outright payment from a vendor to discuss a product or service (or getting those products/services for free in exchange for writing about them).
Both avenues end up putting $$ or stuff in the blogger’s pocket that ultimately means more content will be created. Most bloggers I know tell the truth and aren’t afraid to criticize something regardless of how they got it. If it’s all happy happy joy joy product love, then people will find another site as they can see through the bullshit.
Does it really matter as long as there is useful, compelling or fun content being created, and given away for free on the internet? I certainly don’t care how it got there and who got paid for it.
Some much for a short comment
I’m with you on this topic
I get asked this question frequently too and I simply answer, my blog is my portfolio which leads to other freelance work. If my blog was strictly work, I believe it would lose its charm and I would itch to move onto something else. Kudos!
I agree with John. A professional is someone who makes a substantial income (it need not be the majority of theirs, but there’s a “know it when you see it” element) from an activity. You can probably be classed as professional if you make enough to declare the activity on your tax forms, and write off related expenses.
I think I can still call myself a professional musician, since I used to do it full-time, made nearly half my income from it for a few years after that, was in the Musicians’ Union, and still declare musical income and expenses on my taxes (and I charge GST for my services). Similarly, my writing and editing projects made up most of my income when I was freelancing, and comprised most of the work at my day job — or they did before I went on medical leave for cancer treatment in 2007. I’ve taken a lot of photographs as part of my job, but it’s really a hobby for me because that’s not why people hire me (at least, not usually), and most of what I photograph isn’t determined by the needs of any customer or client.
These days I spend quite a bit of my time blogging and podcasting, but I’m not a professional in either field, because I do it for my own whims, and don’t make substantial cash from either one. But don’t forget, being an amateur is not somehow inferior: amateur means someone who does something out of love, and a lot of amateurs are more enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and talented than professionals in the same field (or they’re in a field where you can’t make a living very easily). An amateur can still be an expert.
I’d be perfectly comfortable running a course, leading a seminar, being interviewed, or offering my opinion as an expert on blogging, podcasting, or photography (or writing or musical performance, for that matter). And I have. You don’t need to be a pro to be good, or to be able to give advice.
I don’t, actually, do workshops anymore. The social media workshop “space” is so vastly overcrowded now that I am lucky I got out of it when I did. The ratio of social media teachers to students is pretty much 1:1 in this city right now.
Let me ask you this, Raul. Why does the word “professional” matter to you? What does it mean? It certainly implies that blogging is a profession, whereas I think probably it’s writing, not blogging, that’s the profession. But that would also indicate that people were professional writers who are introducing themselves as professional journalists right now. Does the medium matter?