How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months

How I Sold a Blog for $20,000 in 8 Months(blogtyrant.com)

38 points by ndimopoulos 15 years ago | 27 comments

sofuture 15 years ago |

What an appalling and offensive use of one's time.

Make not-so-much money by providing generic content on a subject until X level of popularity is reached, at which point you transition the audience into a not-astounding paycheck and the web property into a commodity valued solely in visits.

And the world moves on, nothing bettered, and very little changed, beyond a tiny shifting of money ownership.

chopsueyar 15 years ago | |

This is the greatness of Google.

Information Dilution. Instead of a site with dense, focused, relevant content, we can create hundreds of sites with watered-down information.

The more sites we have to sift through, the more money everybody makes.

Google has incentivized the web to dilute content.

endlessvoid94 15 years ago | |

Come on.

Everybody starts somewhere.

petercooper 15 years ago | |

It's crass, but an extra $20k in the bank as a safety net can make the difference between someone becoming an entrepreneur or stay working full-time.

kristiandupont 15 years ago |

$20,000 for 8 months work isn't very much. It's not very clear how much time he spent per week but it sounds quite significant.

GFischer 15 years ago | |

I always qualify "isn't very much"... for the U.S.

I could definitely use U$ 20.000, it's more than a year and a half of my (post-taxes) salary here in Uruguay.

(And yes, I should look into consulting, etc. HN is a great way to nag me to move forward and it's good advice).

qq66 15 years ago | | |

Don't most blogs tend to be read by people in that country though? Perhaps there are subtle cultural differences in topics, language, style that make blogs more appealing to people who are culturally similar... for example, I know that Dell concentrates sales forces by geography to some extent, so that when you call from the South you get another person from the South and might be able to chit-chat about whatever Southerners like to talk about (mint juleps?)

kristiandupont 15 years ago | | |

Right, I guess my comment might even be insulting to some - if so, I apologize. I am in Denmark but I think wages here are pretty comparable to the US for many industries.

But, if what you say is true then surely you should consider writing a blog as described in the article?

noodle 15 years ago | |

he used 10 hours/week as an example, and that would put it in the neighborhood of $60/hr

semanticist 15 years ago | |

US$20,000 for eight months would put it roughly on par with what I'm earning in Edinburgh, UK right now.

Unseelie 15 years ago | |

He's made a point about monetizing it from the beginning, so one can assume that he's earned more than just the $20k: he's trying to show buyers that it earns money, and the best way to do that is to have it earn money.

umsm 15 years ago | |

Many times the experience and knowledge learned are invaluable in future projects as well as at prospective places of employment.

roc 15 years ago |

> "Write a blog you believe in"

This sounds like the "How to Get Rich Quick" book that instructs its readers to write and promote a "How to Get Rich Quick" book.

Where exactly is the common ground between writing something you believe in and writing and developing a blog with the explicit goal of an optimal quick cash exit?

enjo 15 years ago | |

I was a bit turned off as well. After all your going to spend EIGHT WHOLE MONTHS on this. EIGHT! Think of it...two entire seasons will pass!

Maybe putting some more time into it will yield rewards that don't appear to be sub-minimum wage?

PStamatiou 15 years ago |

Or I could keep my blog and make the same amount in ads in the same amount of time. :)

knieveltech 15 years ago |

A couple things I was curious about after reading this: wouldn't a blog that's just been handed to a new owner end up losing followers once the readership realizes the old author's bailed? Also I'd love to hear any tidbits you'd care to share on monetization strategies for bloggers.

noodle 15 years ago | |

depends. a lot of niche blogs don't make their money on regular readers, but on the adsense revenue on organic searches and people looking around for info they want. a lot of the techniques he talks about is similar to the process people use to make that type of adsense/referral.

wallflower 15 years ago | | |

> but on the adsense revenue on organic searches and people looking around for info they want

"Detailed revenue breakdown of a gadget blog ($61k in dec 2007)"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=216960

http://selfmademinds.com/200801/income-breakdown-for-decembe...

pbhjpbhj 15 years ago | |

People will come for the old content and consume the new content, possibly to a decreasing level, but still. Also if you're simply buying the blog to point some links to another site for garnering Google linkjuice or to own the first SERP or whatever then you probably don't care it's the current link structure (on- and off-site) that's working for you.

astrange 15 years ago | | |

> Also if you're simply buying the blog to point some links to another site for garnering Google linkjuice

That sounds like paying for a link to me. Does it count as paid links to them? I always wondered about this kind of thing - I would never keep visiting an authored website if something like this happened to it, and I don't know anyone who would, so I've never understood what the buyer gets in this situation.