Oh the Possibilities: Blogging for Cash

Blogging for money demonstrates that the future of journalism as blogging is possible. The Rowse reading, "Should I Blog For Money?", gives good insight into the world of blogging for profits. Any ambitious amateur would find his assessment of the risks and benefits of blogging to be quite accurate and certainly very helpful. It is important that we recognize the opportunities and capabilities of this rapidly popularizing media form, as it is the future of our field. It is the genuinely communist form of journalism, distributed by and for the people. It is citizens demonstrating that the will to know the truth is more powerful than the money that pays for ignorance in the media.

Articles like the aforementioned Rowse piece can be very helpful to beginners in the blogging community. It opens your eyes to the possibilities of blogging for cash and also warns you about the possible downsides. It is really important to recognize that advertising on your blog is not for everyone and that you must really consider whether or not it will conflict with your personal objectives, your readers' interests and your overall product. We cannot let ourselves repeat the mistakes of the past informers, we must re-establish journalism as a honest and noteworthy practice.

Use Your Blog to Land Paid Writing Gigs 9 Practical Tips by Steven Snell was even more helpful, in my opinion. When thinking of paid blogging, I only considered sponsored sites with advertising. I never thought about blogging as a means of getting your name out.

All of this talk about paid blogging reminded me of a great lady I know. Her name is Mary Jane Mucklestone, and she has a knitting blog called Mary Jane, Midge & Mink. Mary Jane once worked for Interweave Knits Magazine, but now she makes amazing knitting patterns for several different knitting books, websites and magazines. She has made money off blogging in a way not discussed in the readings. Mary Jane sells her own pattern on her website. In doing this, she utilizes her own niche and her own resources to make some extra cash. This just goes to show that there are many blogging possibilities yet to be explored and discovered. Traditionalist journalists and weblog Critics need to open their eyes to the possibilities of this new medium. They need to recognize that there is still a lot to be learned about blogging and we can only do so through experimentation.