Blogging for pay: A reality check

There's an interesting -- if not entirely accurate -- look at the world of professional blogging in today's Wall Street Journal. The author claims the number of people who make a living as a blogger outnumber firefighters, bartenders, or computer programmers. Are there really that many well-paid bloggers? Are we talking about planet Earth?

WSJ author Mark Penn asserts that 1.7 million writers turn a profit blogging and more than 450,000 consider it their primary source of income. "That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid by the word, the post, or the click -- whether on their site or someone else's," he says.

As Penn correctly notes, "the barriers to entry couldn't be lower" for would-be bloggers. There's no formal training required, and startup costs are virtually nil. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection to hang out your shingle on one of the numerous free blogging platforms. As lay-offs abound and unemployment numbers skyrocket, blogging seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?

Not so fast, let's break this down a bit. Technically, it's not difficult to make money blogging. Slap a few ads on your blog and wait for the cash to come rolling in, right? Well, sure, if you consider $3.00 a month profitable. The vast majority of bloggers will never see $75 to $200 per-post or $75,000 per year figures Penn mentions. Indeed, buried in his article is this little nugget: "...bloggers who do it for a living successfully are 2% of bloggers overall."

Two percent.

Would you take a job in an industry where you only had a 2% chance of earning a living wage?

Though the article makes a number of valid points about blogging, it also gives the impression that the field is equally lucrative for everyone. Long-time professional blogger Darren Rowse tells a different story. The results of a blogger survey he conducted revealed that, "...57% report earning less than $100 a month. 30% reported earning less than 30 cents a day."

Don't get me wrong, it's certainly possible to make a great living by blogging -- I do -- but it's not the cakewalk that's portrayed in Penn's article. It's a lot of hard, and often solitary, work. The success stories you hear today are about people who have believed in blogging since its infancy and have been at it for a number of years. Of course, there are exceptions.

You don't get into the blogging industry to get rich quick, you dive in because you love it and can't imagine doing anything else. If you're among the lucky fraction of writers who find success, you'll turn enough of a profit to make a living without delivering pizzas on weekends for grocery money.

 That's the reality of the industry, but don't let it scare you. Give it a try anyway, you've got nothing to lose if you have some time on your hands.

Now, go forth and blog.