There’s an interesting post by Tom Coates over at Plasticbag following the launch of Wonkette, the latest weblog from Gawker media. Tom wonders why there aren’t more people exploring the professional weblog sphere. This post is based on some of the thoughts I left at Tom’s blog.
Why aren’t there more people making a living from blogging? Well, first of all, it’s early days. I’ve often said I’m quite surprised at the number of students and young journalists who don’t know anything about weblogs, the technology that underpins them (and makes nanopublishing viable) or the form of journalism which has risen to support them.
I’d like to think that if I was starting my career again, I’d eye a weblog as an interesting way to make a name for myself, and earn a little money – especially if I had a special interest I wanted to write about.
But a bunch of tech-savvy journalism students I spoke to recently knew nothing about blogs, and if they don’t know about it, they’re hardly likely to dive in. That’s a shame, because the apparently marginal economics of the weblog business would suit it perfectly to people with less to lose, and no mortgage to pay (vast student debt notwithstanding).
So we’re left with a marginally older group of people, people who already have day jobs and mortgages and – so – more to lose. And even if you’re a freelance journalist, or a consultant, or otherwise self-employed, I think some potential entrants look only at the profit/loss sheet and see it’s going to be hard to make a case for spending the time and effort a good weblog requires. That’s a shame too, because I’m convinced a blog which meets five key criteria will offer some financial reward and potentially offer much more valuable payback, in a roundabout way.
What do you need for a good nanopublishing effort?
1/ A decent niche: ideally, one that’s not being served at the moment, which is very, very tightly defined, and which is built around a community of interest that also has an e-commerce angle (for small amounts of revenue available through affiliate links with online retailers). A tight definition is good for advertising – gardenhose.com is going to get exactly the group of people hose makers/advertisers are looking to reach. And it’s good for consumers – they know what they’re going to get when they see the site listed in Google. This also means that Worldofhoses (dealing with industrial and garden hoses) may be less successful in getting the advertisers, and readers, than its more specialised rival. Beware.
2/ A big market: It might sound like a rehash of web publishing’s earliest hype, but it’s true the internet means a tight niche no longer means a tiny audience. The aim has to be a tight niche, but big market. You’ve got an advantage if you live in the US – I’d much rather be creating a weblog there ahead of anywhere else, as the size of the US market transforms everything, and makes the marginal case… well, a little less marginal. There are workarounds – like making sure you post hose prices in dollars as well as pounds/euros – but you have to decide if that’s too much of a compromise to bear, or if it’s going to offend readers elsewhere.
3/ Passion and perspective: Maybe you’ll be lucky, and get a juicy narrow, deep niche all to yourself. But chances are competition is already there, or will arrive soon enough. What builds loyalty and makes it harder for other sites to steal your readers is your obsessive knowledge, and unique perspective. I might love coffee, but I know that against the guys at Coffeegeek I am but a bungling amateur. There would be no point in launching a weblog against them, no matter the fact I suspect it could be a lucrative niche. I just don’t have that expertise, or the contacts to get interesting stuff every day. This is one of the defining differences between mainstream journalism – often written by generalists in a hurry – and nanopublishing, which is normally written by specialists to their own, internal deadlines.
4/ Access to the audience: you need to let people know you exist, and without spending tons on advertising (this is supposed to be a low-cost method of publishing, remember). Some connection with an established media brand, or a way into an existing channel to that audience – a society, mailing list, or another website – will work. Don’t despair if you don’t have this – still in your favour is the fact that the blogosphere is showing itself adept, thanks to reciprocal links, awards and tools like blogdex and technorati, in rewarding excellence in content niches. Write good stuff, get spotted by a few fellow bloggers/nanopublishers, and you’ll quickly find your stats snowballing.
5/ Don’t worry too much about the profit and loss sheet. There remains a lot of potential for established media brands and big-name/expert individuals to use the nanopublishing model and make money doing it. But the P&L doesn’t record all assets. Enhanced reputation or a lower cost of sale for the core product (consultancy or writing, for instance) could be the main, but intangible, benefits a nanopublishing site could bring someone who wasn’t able – or looking – to make a living from it. And, let’s face it, the main investment in all this is your own time – unless you take the very brave move of trying to take it to the next level, and create more than a one-person business. But that’s for another time…
