Using Your Blog to Make Money

I think that a lot of bloggers dream of being able to make money through their blogs. Maybe they hope that a literary agent or editor will come across their blog and offer them a book deal. There's nothing wrong with that, and one can dream, right? After all, it happened to Jen Lancaster (who originally blogged about being unemployed), Julie Powell (who blogged about her attempt to cook her way through one of Julia Child's cookbooks), and Angela Nissel (who blogged about being a broke college student). But I think they got book deals not only because they are all great writers, but also because they started blogging before a lot of other people did, not to mention their writing focused on specific themes.

You may also dream that the book deal will lead to a movie deal, where A-list actors like Ryan Gosling and Elizabeth Banks will clamor to star as the fictional leads in the story that you wrote. Ryan Gosling will fall in love with you just because he's so amazed by your talent; he'll say, "Who needs an A-list actress who looks like a Victoria's Secret Model when I could have you?" And you'll say, "Sorry, Ryan, but writing will always be my first love."

And then you may dream about becoming so rich that you can buy a helicopter. That way, you can travel in the helicopter to your high school reunion, like that guy did in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. After all, showing up rich and successful to your high school reunion (in a helicopter, no less) is every high school nerd's DREAM. When everyone comes out to see you arrive, the mean girls' dresses will fly up over their heads, just like in the movie, and the mean guys' toupees will fly off and they'll have to go running after them. Meanwhile, you will climb back into the helicopter and fly away, but not before yelling, "See you around, LOSERS! Eat my dust, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Wait. Am I the only one who has this dream?

When I first started blogging, I didn't really think that a literary agent would come across my blog and offer me a book deal, but I thought that it would be good writing practice. I also thought that maybe I could take some of my favorite posts and put them into a book, or I could use the posts to get ideas for stories. I  wanted to share my writing with other people, because up until then I'd kept my writing hidden away in my journals. But I do think that some people are hoping to get book deals through blogging, which may explain why several of the comments I read on agents' blogs say stuff like, "Oh, you are SO RIGHT about EVERYTHING! Why didn't I think of that? I bow down to your utter wisdom and glory."

Even though I'm not a member of 20sb anymore, I still check out their discussion forums every once in a while. I read one where a blogger wrote that he was asking for donations on his blog; he was going to use the donations to buy a car. However, most of the other bloggers reacted negatively, criticizing his actions. When I looked at one of his recent posts, he said that after a year of collecting donations and saving his own money, he had enough to buy a used car.

There have been  people who asked other people on the Internet to give them money, like Karyn Bosnak, who started a website asking people to give her money so that she could pay off her $20,000 credit card debt. It worked; thousands of people gave her money as well as gifts and care packages. AND she got a book deal and a movie deal out of it.

I think what Karyn Bosnak did is very different from the guy who wanted money to buy a car. She included a lot of fun stuff on her website, like  "The Daily Buck", where she wrote about the things that she did to save or earn money each day. That's why I think that she was kind of like those street performers that I often see dancing, singing, or playing instruments around Chicago. Recently I saw a girl perform with a hula hoop. Once I saw a guy who danced while doing tricks with yo-yos; he advertised himself as a college student trying to pay his tuition. He got several donations from people who stopped to watch.

Even though Karyn got a lot of hate mail and death threats from mean-spirited jerks, a lot more people were generous enough to help her. As she wrote in her book (which is one of my favorite reads, even though I cringed at some of her purchases, such as how she once spent more than seven hundred dollars on lingerie. For me, a "splurge" means buying brand name cereal.), many people can relate to what it's like to be in debt.

I think that Karyn came up with a pretty imaginative way to pay off her debt, but I don't agree with that other guy's actions. It's one thing to get a book deal because of your blog; it's another thing to ask people to give you money just so you can buy a car. I wouldn't mind having extra cash to buy a new car, or enough money to buy all the coffee and chocolate that I want (because then I can be wired ALL the time and work as much as I want, bwahahahaha!). But I'd rather earn my own money to pay for those things. The guy who was trying to get people to pay for his car claimed that he was a full-time college student with not enough time to work multiple jobs. But as someone who's worked multiple jobs while attending graduate school full-time for the past several years, I have no sympathy for him. I also think that what he did was wrong. Next thing you know, he'll start trying to get people to buy him a helicopter.

In my next post, I'll write about including ads on your blog to make money, but I'm curious to know what you think. What do you think of people who use their blogs to ask other people for money? (Side note: I'm not referring to bloggers who ask readers to donate to charity or some other noble cause, like a medical operation, because that's different.)