Goodbye Blog. Hello Letter.

Goodbye Blog. Hello Letter. (davemorin.tumblr.com)

16 points by vibhavs 15 years ago | 19 comments

swombat 15 years ago |

This viewpoint fails to see that the author benefits just as much as the reader, if not more, from writing quality stuff that attracts eyeballs.

A famous blogger has much better ways to monetise their fame than monthly subscriptions. A blog is a delivery tool to direct people's attention to places - you can sell stuff via your blog. A successful blog is also a powerful reputation-building mechanism. You can sell yourself through your blog. A successful blog is also a great way to open doors - you can introduce yourself thanks to your blog.

By charging your readers, you decrease the value of your blog... to yourself.

ajdecon 15 years ago | |

Which works if you view writing purely as a way to sell your time or your other work. But if you want to make a living by writing, not by starting side businesses, then I don't think it's clear that your content should be free. Some people want to find a way to make a living as content creators, not as content creators + t-shirt salesmen + consultants.

How possible is this in general? I don't know. It's the same problem that exists with all other digital media. But I think it's likely that some people will probably find a way to make a living with paywalls or email newsletters, and be happier that way--even if they could make more by selling t-shirts. And I suspect they will do so with a very high price point, because exclusivity always sells.

swombat 15 years ago | | |

Then they can sell ebooks or even traditional books through their blog, and/or get their column syndicated by a paying newspaper (as long as those exist).

Note that I'm not saying that paywalls are always going to fail, just that in general the argument "I write good stuff so I should charge for it" is pretty unsteady.

carbocation 15 years ago | |

To what degree would you say that this line of reasoning would be different if you replaced "blog" with "product?"

ergo98 15 years ago | |

>A blog is a delivery tool to direct people's attention to places - you can sell stuff via your blog. A successful blog is also a powerful reputation-building mechanism.

Reputation goes down the toilet the moment you start selling stuff on your blog. Affiliate links are the scourge of blogs, because you don't know whether it was an incidental monetization, or whether the blogger thought "How am I going to get this thing to pay by indirectly and inefficiently taxing readers?", scrounging around for some sort of affiliate junk to claim to be over the moon with.

Examples abound of prominent bloggers flushing credibility and reputation down the toilet when they chose the "Sell" route for monetization.

Reputation itself is a bias, though. Some of the worst blogs are the ones where the writer is clearly preening themselves for future employers.

PStamatiou 15 years ago | | |

> Reputation goes down the toilet the moment you start selling stuff on your blog.

I'd say there are a great number of exceptions to that. My blog has several thousand subscribers (for whatever you want to define an RSS subscriber as) that have been following my blog for years, they know I have been working at early stage startups for years and they value my opinion, even going out of their way to ask if I have an affiliate link for something I might have mentioned on Amazon before or elsewhere.

One guy even held off buying a big DSLR camera on Amazon for a few days until he was able to get my affiliate code from me while I was out of town.

People can have a voice that is valued online and sell stuff through their writing/blog. Affiliate sales on my blog alone pay my rent while I can run around doing startups with no compensation.

Ken Rockwell comes to mind too. He reviews cameras and has amazing guides. Each camera page has a blurb about asking readers to buy it from sites that have his affiliate code.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/

swombat 15 years ago | | |

Actually it seems to me that affiliate links are the worst way to sell through your blog. Sell your own product. If you don't have a product, build one, around your audience. They like what you write, so some form of ebook makes sense.

_delirium 15 years ago |

It'll be interesting to see how this goes. It has some intriguing possibilities, but it's also a pretty saturated market. The "market" for free information is indeed super-saturated, but the market for pay information is quite saturated as well. I already have more books, e-books, journal articles, conference papers, magazines, e-zines, etc. to read than I can possibly buy and read in any reasonable period of time. Where will reading premium blogs fit into this? I guess into the "e-zine" category. It'll be nice to get more quality stuff in that category, but there isn't really a current shortage of writing I can buy for money. So it'd have to be particularly compelling--- and also has to compete with the premium-quality-but-free online writing that's subsidized via other payment mechanisms, like blogging professors, who get paid in ways other than monetizing their blog directly.

frossie 15 years ago | |

I think it also ignores that many of the blogs I find most endearing are from new bloggers finding their writing voice. I find that by the time a blog has become big enough to secure its author a book deal, or a paywall slot, its best days are over.

Of course that may be just my personal quirk.

petercooper 15 years ago | | |

Another issue is that "big" blogs often hire other writers to increase traffic and revenue. TechCrunch, for example. I still love Arrington's posts but some of his new writers leave a lot to be desired - I preferred TC when he was the sole writer and even though his posts are as good as ever, the SNR has fallen.

lelele 15 years ago | |

> I already have more books, e-books, journal articles, conference papers, magazines, e-zines, etc. to read than I can possibly buy and read in any reasonable period of time.

That's why I have made the resolution to read as few books as possible, and stopping there. I'm currently selecting the true classics such as Dale Carnegie's books.

bpm140 15 years ago |

Maybe someone with great knowledge can chime in, but it seems like this is classic Prisoners' Dilemma. If only some people lock up their content, those who give it away for free will eat their lunch.

I applaud Dave for believing in his position enough to take his writing behind a pay-wall, but I think game theory is going to show this to be a poor solution in the long-term.

petercooper 15 years ago |

There's an evolutionary process at work here. Once e-mail newsletters become passé, we'll see weekly fax shots, then snail mail, skywriting and, finally, personal visits at $1000 each. Then you realize you're a consultant.

I jest, I started an e-mail newsletter myself a week ago ;-) It's interesting to think where all this might go though. I bet if celebs could charge a few bucks a month to follow them on Twitter, there'd be a massive revenue stream there from gossip hungry admirers.

DotSauce 15 years ago |

Is it just me or is the letter.ly subscription page really bland? Too minimalist? I think it needs color, a more detailed description, anything compelling that might make me consider subscribing before closing the page.

A real subscribe 'button' and proper capitalization could help as well.

zeynel1 15 years ago |

''Recently, Eric Schmidt, of Google, remarked that “There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003.” He continued, “Now that much information is created every 2 days.” We are creating more than ever across this ever expanding medium that we love.''

I feel like a visionary! I wrote recently that ''we have more written-word saved in Google's servers than all previous written-words combined since the invention of the written-word.''

http://makebelieve1.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/a-pc-appears-on...

I wonder,though, how did Eric Schmidt calculate the ''5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003.'' Because I thought about the same thing and I decided that given the incredible variery of mediums from clay tablets to books to computer discs it would be impossible to know. Do you know how he arrived at that number?

And I realize that some HN readers will downvote me for referring to my own blog but so be it, this is a very interesting question for me. I wonder how he arrived at that figure he quoted.

mkramlich 15 years ago | |

I'm guesstimating that he guesstimated.

zeynel1 15 years ago | | |

Even just guesstimating seems difficult to me. I wonder then how did he guesstimate?

lelele 15 years ago | |

Didn't Google start a project on scanning all existent books to build a digital library? Maybe they derived their estimate from there.