[...] Granju raised the topic at Babble, in response to an article by Ann Douglas about ‘top’ mom bloggers and ‘top blogger’ lists [...]

Great article! I’d be really interested to know what other bloggers earn, how they earn it, and if they think it’s fair compensation for the scope of work involved.

Some sites like Federated Media can let you see what other bloggers are charging and you can do some math to figure it out but I think most bloggers making a real living likely are supplementing with speaking fees or jobs they get through blogging. Which is to say that all the folks who used to come to my WordPress workshops hoping to make a passive income were disappointed to find out how ,uch work it is.

I never expected to make a living at blogging. What I wanted (and what I’ve been fortunate enough to get) is opportunity to get other writing work that’s meaningful to me. My blog has DEFINITELY done that. But as Twitter and Facebook and more aggressive marketing has become necessary and as my personal life has gotten busier (I homeschool my kids and I’m now a full time grad student) I can’t justify the time in social networking so things have slowed down.

What I wonder is how much the folks who RUN the ad networks make. I’m not asking in an accusatory way; I’m genuinely curious. I want to know more about the BlogHer machine. How large is their staff? What do salaries look like from the top on down? How much do those conferences make? Again I’m not coming at that with an Us vs. Them mentality. I want to know because it’s part of the whole “mommy blog” picture.

Katie, if the mommyblogging world doesn’t involve real competition, all these “top” bloggers would do us a service by refusing to participate in these fake awards. If they have tons of readers, we already know that they are good! The awards take away from what I consider to be the warm and supportive atmosphere of the mommy blogosphere. I’ve found such great writing there, and made some great friends. I love how I can “meet” new people just by clicking on the link embedded with their name when they comment on a blog I already know.

Speaking of which, Babble does not allow that, have you noticed? I consider it a breach of blogging etiquette that our names as commenters are not hyperlinked to our sites. If someone leaves an interesting comment, I can’t click to find out more about her. It sort of cuts down on the conversation, you know?

I’m a blogger as well, though I do bristle at the term “mommyblogger”. I do think blogging is undervalued. I use BlogHer ads on my blog, but lately, I’ve been thinking about moving on. Like Dawn, I’m very curious what they make, how much the salaries are for their employees and several other questions about how they run. I’m irked that each blog seems to get listed with the same group of blogs each time. I’m talking about the lists that appear under the BlogHer ads on individual blogs. I’ve been with them for over a year and my blog is always listed with the same blogs. Everyone’s blog readership would increase if they rotated that a bit. They also seem to run a lot of PSAs that don’t pay (at least not for the blogger).

Like Suburban Correspondent above, it irks me that Babble doesn’t allow for commenters to hyperlink their blog. I, too, feel that is a breach of blogging etiquette.

Okay, I’ll go.

I make much more blogging (that is, from the business that is my blogging ‘brand’ – more on this in a moment) than I ever did as a sessional university lecturer. Many people, I think, would consider it a lot. (How much exactly? Maybe I’ll screw up the nerve to talk numbers if this conversation continues. But because people are so quick to get their dander up about these things, talking numbers makes me nervous.) (And now, look, I’m wringing my hands and being a priss about it, which is a big part of the problem here, right?) (Gah.)

I don’t make the bulk of what I earn from CPM ad earnings. I make some of it that way, but not most of it, not by far. In the ‘advertising’ corner of my business I make much more through dedicated campaigns, some of which come through Federated Media, some of which I broker myself. And then there are earnings from consulting, and ‘spokesperson’ contracts (which might seem closer to ‘advertising’ but in practice, in most cases – in the best cases – are closer to consulting.) And then, finally, there are earnings from freelance writing – magazines and other more conventional forms of publishing (in the coming year, fingers crossed, book publishing) – most assignments of which are related to my quote-unquote brand.

It’s a business. And it involves more than relying on the CPM advertising model – very few independent bloggers can make a go of things with this model (and even the examples that I would cite here – like Ree/Pioneer Woman – have more magazine-like sites with multiple pages and sometimes additional contributors.) It involves *work* – it’s not just sitting down and tapping out posts. The content comes first, of course – I wouldn’t have the ‘brand’ to capitalize on – yes, dirty words, these – if I didn’t produce good content. But doing something with that content is work – roll up your sleeves and make the coffee at 6am *work*.

I’m not a ‘big’ blogger in the same category as Heather or Ree. But I am a successful blogger, and I’ve made that success for myself by building a business around my blogging brand. And it is, as I said above, *busy* – I’m in the process of hiring an assistant because it’s gotten too busy for me – but it’s awesome, and I love it, and I’m proud of myself.

Are we allowed to say that, as moms, as women – that we’re proud of our success? Because I am. I wish that we could talk about it more openly, and be more open in giving advice and support to each other. We do some of this at conferences, but we could be doing it more, more consistently and more openly.

Thank you so much for starting the conversation, Katie. Maybe I’ll screw up my nerve to write about this more fully at my – oh my god so successful! don’t tell anybody! – blog ;)

Let’s make one thing clear…dooce did not “[originate] the medium of blogging”…she may be one of the first big “mommy”bloggers, but there is a big and interesting world that lies beyond crying about how hard it is to be a mom and sharing your interior decorating ideas, and it had blogs before dooce…

Dooce rocks. You can split hairs all you want on whether she was technically “first,” but she pioneered the medium and continues to do so. She is fantastically gifted writer and photographer, a wonderful mama, and the kind of friend I feel blessed to have. She has arguably helped more women launch their own blogs and earn a living for themselves via their blogs than anyone else working in our medium. -Katie

I am not a blogger so no blogging insight per se, but the two facts you mention – that women in the same field do not necessarily feel competitive and are also reluctant to discuss salaries or money – are two reasons that women are frequently underpaid in relation to their male counterparts in any industry. I believe Gloria Steinem has argued that inequitable pay remains an issue because people are socialized to avoid discussing money (and companies are afraid of salary transparency) and because women, generally, have been socialized that being competitive is necessarily unfriendly and perhaps unfeminine.

The best thing is often to swallow your pride or fear and lay out numbers to your colleagues. The media companies know how much they are paying each of you and that information on their side creates an imbalance of power in negotiating your ad revenue individually in the absence of such knowledge. You have to start with the assumption that these companies/ads are likely paying you as little as possible.

I am just saying that while dooce may have pioneered MOMMY blogging, there were many technology, music, political and all many of other blogs, before that. And the comment from the person tooting dooce vs pioneer woman is so very subjective (I don’t care for either of them, so there…) I know this thread is about the mommy ones, though, and it’s very thought-provoking, to me, for reasons even outside the blogging “marketplace.” The idea of valuing information is so open-ended and complex, putting a $$ value on sharing. “Mommyblogs” run such a gamut from frankly trite and un-funny entertainment to very useful sources of information on health, birth, parenting, politics, it’s hard a hard one to call. I like KAG’s emphasis on the sense of community and the mommy blogosphere having a different model from the typical “competitive” business model to a sharing, partnered, linked model…but, how then is the money generated other than through advertising, unless maybe non-profits or government agencies might give grants to those bloggers they deem worthy, like other “artists”? ALOT to think about here…

Top mom blogger or not, I’m always totally open to discuss my ads and other ways I make a living from blogging, especially if it helps another blogger out. I feel most comfortable discussing numbers in person, but I make about enough to pay our house payment each month, sometime more if I’ve taken on extra projects. This is via ad revenue on my personal blog (I sell my own ads) and blogging for other sites.

Steph

Bravo, Catherine, for managing to be generous, helpful and transparent and still remain in control of your personal information. There’s no point to exposing earnings until people can handle the premise that for-profit blogging is a legitimate business model, and that those who do it successfully are entitled to their success, whether the content is your cup of tea, or not. Even in this short thread (which is bound to get much longer), I see we are not there yet. Why give detractors more ammunition to attack with? That Pioneer Woman or Dooce or anyone doesn’t deserve to make money for connecting with a wide audience and consistently delivering on their brand is just so ludicrous, I can’t even believe it still comes up. Blogs I don’t care for aren’t making money off my clicks, but I don’t begrudge them their success.

Having said that, I don’t see why there can’t be a credible survey that shows ranges and averages across categories without naming names. I’m surprised there isn’t already.

OK, I’ll chime in, as well. Like Catherine, I made/make virtually no money on ads on my blog that came through ad networks, so I finally just took them down. I make no money writing my blog, but I am a freelance writer and have always been a writer, so I make some money that way. It’s a bit tougher for me to find “sponsors” or people interested in paying me for blog related things since I write about politics from a decidedly left of center point of view! I’m trying to increase the amount of consulting I do outside the blogging world and am trying to cultivate an income from speaking. Fingers crossed that once my book about moms, politics and social media is published in May, that will help with that.

As for “top” bloggers, I think that means different things to different people. I probably have less of a readership at PunditMom than other bloggers do, like Catherine, just as an example. But I have carved out a niche on a topic that a lot of moms don’t write about.

I do wish we could have some more open conversations about what it’s possible to make from the varied roads that are connected to the online writing (I now prefer that to “blogging!”) so that we could all benefit. But, I’m not holding my breath. :)

Katie, THANK YOU for bringing up the elephant in the room. I am a journalist first and a blogger second, so I am willing to say that I make less than $1,000 a month from blogging. And maybe 1% of that is from cpm advertising. Sorry, I’m not comfortable saying in a public forum what I make from my freelance writing. :) However, I think it is SO important to talk rates so that we all have a benchmark to negotiate with publishers, both online and offline. I wrote a pretty detailed post about rates and would love to see more people talking hard numbers: http://www.currentmom.com/currentmom/2010/08/succeeding-as-a-freelance-writer-or-editor.html (click on the handout for the rate scale)

I read all these comments with great interest (and one of the first things I wanted to do was click on each woman’s name and check out her blog… why doesn’t Babble do that?) and something that came to my mind was UNION. Katie, in a way, you’re kind of like Norma Rae standing in the factory holding a union sign. I think being more open about this kind of thing can only help us all get better at what we’re doing in the same way that writing about being mothers has helped us become better mothers – or at least helped us feel not as alone.

I appreciate the open conversation because OH MY GOD it is so hard to get anyone to openly talk about traffic and money and when you are trying to break into the blogging biz, so to speak, you can be absolutely clueless. The only way I had any idea what folks were making was by combing over the Federated Media pages that give you an idea how much traffic some bloggers were getting and what they were charging.

Here’s my experience: my blog has allowed me to connect with people who have turned around and hooked me up with other people so that now I make enough money through freelance writing to support my family. It’s not a TON of money, but it’s enough that if we want to move (as has been the dream) out of Utah I can tide us over until my husband finds a new job. But that’s not revenue from my blog, that’s from online writing work that I wouldn’t have got without my blog – because of the connections I made through it and the writing there that has served as a resume of sorts… And my blog readership has followed my other online writing endeavors so that I’ve been fairly successful thus far.

I currently have Blogher ads on my blog and they take more than half of what I make (which isn’t that much) and that drives me nuts because I can see that I have more traffic than several bloggers who’re with Federated Media who make more than I do… but I’m not sure what to do about that and I’m sure there are others out there in the same position I am. I’ve always kind of considered myself a ghetto blogger. I learned everything and do everything on my own. Which, I guess, is why my blog looks like crap and is never tricked out like others. But I take pride in that, in a way, because I guess that means people don’t care about the glitz, they just like what I’m putting out there. I think. I hope.

Katie said, “We are small business owners” but we aren’t ALL small business owners. I got into blogging because I wanted to WRITE and as I said in Ann’s article, I have very very very mixed feeling about how blogging has become a business. I think it’s been great for a lot of women and I think it’s been lousy for the medium of blogging as a whole. BUT I would rather see women find ways to empower themselves and raise their voices and make some money on their own terms than protect some “sanctity of blogging” ideal. So when I say I have mixed feelings I mean for myself ONLY.

I don’t want to turn my blog into a business but before I got into grad school I was really struggling to figure out if my reluctance was a mistake. I’d get on these blogging lists (and for the record, I never ever ever marketed for any of the “vote” contests except for The Bump and that was a political decision about getting my adoption-reform minded blog out into a more traditional setting) anyway, I’d get on these blogging lists and then what? I parlayed it into NOTHING. I’m very much an introvert; I find social networking on twitter and facebook exhausting let alone in real life. I admire the women who can do it but I do wish that we could see that there are blogs and then there are blogs and then there are blogs. There are lots of ways to be a successful blogger just like there are lots of ways to be a successful writer and not all of those ways are connected to money or hits or getting on a “best of” list.

Hello ladies-

I have read Katie’s blog since Henry’s ordeal started, and link over to her babble stuff as well. I also read a bunch of other “mommybloggers,” and the list seems to grow over time.

I have a question for you guys, though – do you lose ad revenue if I read your blog through google reader instead of actually going to your blog? If that is the case, I will stop using google reader. I have been thinking about this more lately – it is an incredibly useful tool, because it saves me the time of actually going to each of the blogs every day. However, if it also causes you to lose advertisement revenue than that is another conversation that would be interesting to have.

In any case, thank you for sharing your lives with me. I enjoy sharing in both the joy and sadness, especially since I do not yet have kids of my own and absolutely love little ones (and medium-sized and big ones!)!

This thread is incredibly timely. I am asked about blog monetization a LOT because I guess i’m one of the few parenting bloggers who has managed to make it work.

I am VERY happy this conversation is happening, because it needs to happen. Mom blogs (whether you like the term or not) are valuable… for all sorts of reasons. They are a digital scrapbook of our lives. They are a springboard for excellent conversations. They are a support group. And they can sometimes lead to paying jobs – writing, consulting – and ad revenue.

I was quoted in Ann’s post. I have been blogging since 1999 and my blog is at http://www.quietfish.com/notebook. This makes me something of a dinosour – a geekosaurus of sorts, but it has been an incredible journey and I’ve seen a sea of changes in the blogosphere.

I started selling ad space on my blog in 2008 in order to recoup costs. It was truly seen as “selling out” at the time (some people thought I was exploiting my story, and my children’s stories, but whatever), but hosting, domain name, my Flickr pro, bandwidth overcharges, were eating a hole in my wallet. And I wanted some extra cash to cover my coffee habit. :)

My blog is very geocentric. I write a lot about Ottawa and the neighborhood in which I live. Consequently, all of my advertisers are local. This works for me, and I’m happy that my little corner of cyberspace generates an income. It’s become the equivalent of a part time job, in terms of time I put in and income that comes from it (which is low double digits, there, I said it).

Anyway, to make a very long story short… just this week I tried to rank Ottawa bloggers according to income and it didn’t pan out. I was never going to publish rates, but people are not comfortable talking about money so I pulled the ranking part of my original post. I changed my post because I was uncomfortable making my tribe uncomfortable. I thought it would be helpful to show other bloggers (and potential advertisers) who’s out there, doing it, but whatever. It didn’t work out the way I thought it would.

I didn’t see a problem ranking bloggers on a scale that is based on factual information. I thought it’d be an interesting excercise.

Anyway, yes, I think this is a very beneficial conversation to have right now. Thanks for kickstarting it! I wish I had more time to jot down all of my thoughts on this topic.

Fascinating conversation, and yet I’m not sure it’s all that different from previous clarion calls for transparency and openness and helping each other understand our own worth. Regardless, here’s my contribution.

Two years ago, I realized that as my paid work was picking up I had trouble prioritizing my blogs. So I proposed a stand-alone project to interview 51 prominent women in my field over the course of two years and publish excerpts on WomeninPlanetaryScience dot com. The proposal was accepted and funded, and it paid well enough for me to keep the blog going and to prioritize my work there as I simultaneously built a community. The funding is over now, but it’s a small success, and it was a great experience. I am still blogging there, and thinking about the next move.

I don’t make a dime from my personal blog. It’s my choice due to the nature of the blog (a mother’s journey through cancer), but I support those who do run ads and find other ways to be compensated for their work.

Serves me right for tapping out a comment when I’m rushing. I just realized I wrote “low double digits” – which would indicate that I earn less than $100 from my ads. What I meant was that I earn $XX,000/year, and the XX falls in the lower end of double digits. :)

Hmm, Babble seems to be holding my previous post in which I shared what $$ I make from blogging… anyway, I do think that it’s helpful and valid to discuss specific rates and earnings, but it’s easier in small networking groups rather than on a public Internet forum. If you search CurrentMom for freelance writing you’ll see the very open, specific, number heavy posts I’ve done about how to set your freelance writing rate. In all my networking groups we talk rates for specific gigs and projects without sharing how much we make each year. I don’t see how you can build a business without this information. Maybe I should do a post just on blogging rates and earnings?

key Kakki – We moderate our own comments, and I was in a meeting, so I have a backlog to approve now :-) – Katie

I am not a blogger or writer, but I think there’s a difference b/w not publishing earnings v. talking cold, hard numbers. Information is power and if you don’t have accurate information you are essentially negotiating against yourself, which is never a position you want to be in. Hard numbers ALWAYS help any conversation regarding compensation. How do you know if you are being compensated fairly if you don’t know what the market will bear?

I find this all very interesting. While I am new to blogging, I am not new to E-Commerce. Many people underestimate the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes of very successful blogs – there is so much Social Networking, and Marketing that it becomes a “Job” and that warrants pay. I also believe that experience should be a factor – perfected writing styles, consistently interesting posts, longevity should all be rewarded. For me, I have absolutely no intention of making any money off of my blog while I am still developing the craft of writing one.Why invest much time and effort when the ‘final product’ is still in the beginning stages? I blog because I want to be a better writer, the money isn’t even on the radar.

@ Harriet – Have you ever worked at a job where it was OK to discuss what you made with your co-workers? From my professional experience that is highly frowned upon. A Salary Survey would be conducted by a neutral company where income is reported anonymously to get a good idea of the actual, average digits.

“there is so much Social Networking, and Marketing that it becomes a “Job” and that warrants pay. I also believe that experience should be a factor – perfected writing styles, consistently interesting posts, longevity should all be rewarded”

OK…rewarded by who? these bloggers are largely in business for themselves, ie, self-employed, so their “rewards” are necessarily tied to what advertisers will pay them and what other writing/speaking/etc. assignments they may get based on their blogging…

to ask the question of whether bloggers are paid “enough”? well, it seems all very free-market at present, they get paid what advertisers and publications think they’re worth…presumably based on clicks…? of course, there are new FTC regs about product endorsements and such, too, that I am sure the pros are very aware of

(I’m not a blogger, just an opinioniated blabberer)

Oh So Curious – how much time one has to put in depends upon the blogger and their talent and efficiency and business model and a ton of other factors. If you just stick up ads or join an ad network you could work your ass off ten hours a day producing content and doing SEO and – unless you’re a rare exception – not make enough to make a car payment. I will say, though, that in order to achieve any success (however defined, beyond personal satisfaction) that you have devote real time to it. Let’s say that ‘putting in the hours’ is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success ;)

@Melissa, actually most of the places I’ve worked are required to PUBLISH the salaries of every employee every year in a searchable fashion so that ANYONE can retrieve salary data on any other person. Employee or Joe off the street can search the database and find out exactly how much I earn in a year.

I do agree with @Harriet that the title of the article leads one to believe that actual numbers will be discussed and yet, they’re not.

Katie: It’s so interesting to read this. I really encourage whomever doesn’t feel comfortable talking about money TO talk about money. I see from the comment some women think that only women are “socialized” and “paralyzed” but it was maddening at my last job to not be able to get any people to tell me their salaries, how they did on the performance reviews, what raise or bonuses they got, brainstorm about how to move ahead. Speaking from personal experience, 90% of men and 90% of women are low self-esteem, business know-nothings who think that secrets are power and openness and cooperation are weakness. Yes, they’ll cooperate (brag) about how much money they saved on a purchase, or what new car they bought, but they are nervous and ashamed to talk about their personal [lack of] success. 90% of people are also risk averse, allergic to hard work, unable to determine what work will bring results, and unable to understand what is worth something in the marketplace. I’ve asked both men and women to help me invest in business ventures — ventures that have proven to make a lot of money — and the vast majority simply find reasons not to participate. That’s 90% of all people, men or women. Women are not at all special in that regard. Since most of you are married women, think about your husbands and ask yourselves if they are like that or not — they are.

Every successful person who doesn’t share with you, ask yourselves why not? The answer is because they are competing, though you may like to believe they aren’t. There may be token cooperation, sharing of content, pats on the back, etc, but they hold back the essential business pieces of how much to charge for what type of ad, how to market yourself so that you get tv spots, how to secure sponsorship, etc. Anyone can post pictures of their kids — that’s hardly a product. The competitive advantage comes from marketing. Momblogging is merely a hobby for 99.9%, just like all blogging. The people who make lots of money are not expert bloggers, they are competent (maybe) but became experts in the business of marketing.

Here’s who makes what (my guesses): Some individual mom-bloggers make tens of thousands in advertising per month (I would say like 1/10,000). Probably 1/1000 make thousands per month. 1/100 make thousands per year. The rest make zero to hundreds. You probably need to be in the top 1% to make even $5,000 per year in ads, and it goes down just as rapidly after. Probably 50% of all long-term mom bloggers make $100 or less per month — and you never heard of them. Mom-business bloggers make additional revenue by writing books, selling products and services, and mixing the media (tv, radio, podcasting). If you sell products instead of just advertise, then your opportunity to make money goes way up because of commissions. Someone said Dooce makes 40K per month: that seems unbelievably low for the universally agreed top mom site on the Internet. If the top mom site doesn’t make millions per year then you have nothing to learn from her on the business side. That 40K is what she could likely make from ads alone.

My suggestion: Start really sharing with each other, even privately, how to make money. Find out who among you is willing to make a business out of it, and then systematically band together to help each other. Build mastermind groups, create networks, collude, cross-promote. Kids and parent stuff is big big business. There is enough to go around for a few more individuals to make a good living off it.

Perfecting Parenthood

These comments have all been really interesting. I have a fairly popular blog. I make VERY little money from my personal blog, however I make some decent money BECAUSE OF my blog. My blog has opened doors to other writing opportunities, spokesperson jobs, and publishing contracts. I think I could make more money from my blog if I had the time to really work on marketing, but being a single mom to my six kiddos is my priority these days. I personally love to hear success stories of women who make buttloads on their blogs whether I like the blogs or not.
And I may be the only one on the planet, but I have no problems with being called a Mommy Blogger. Those are two of my favorite names, in fact. :)

@Dawn Meehan: I like the term Mommy Blogger, too, actually. I think we are a very small club.

Two of my faves are Mormin sisters cjane and nie nie. I don’t know why I love them so, I am not Mormon, not conservative, not crafty and not good at home decorating. But I do wonder how they maintain adorable children, beautiful houses, lots of entertaining and neither they nor their husbands work outside the home. Are their blogs supporting all that?? If so I’m in the wrong business (and nosy!!)

I only have one small contribution here, just to dispel something: a commenter noted that one could look at FM’s site, see what a blogger is charging, and based on reported traffic do some math… Not so. As any FM author can attest, 1) a small (20% or less) of a site’s ad inventory may be filled at any one time (and almost always, 100% isn’t being filled), and 2) the CPM rates you see are almost never what we get. Most campaigns of recent memory have been in the $2-3 CPM range. So, indeed, the math gets very complex.

In the spirit of transparency and all that. :)

GP! While I don’t always agree with you, I normally like your posts because they always offer the opposing view and sometimes give a different perspective. BUT, I find your last comment regarding the 6 kids as uncalled for and just…mean! You can totally feel that way but I just feel like that comment was out of place in this discussion.

I think Dawn would agree her current situation is not awesome. I really take offense, actually, at people who have an excessive amount of children, and frankly, more than 2 (and had at a later age) according to the science I’ve read on population, is too many. It’s selfish and shows a lack of any control or foresight. But, you’re right, it was out of place in this discussion. Carry on! Sorry.

Loving this discussion. I’m not sure why a discussion about money would have to include somebody sharing their actual yearly income. If I wanted to know how much I could earn as a self-employed plumber, I’d expect an experienced plumber to tell me about how much I could charge per hour or per job, not how much THEY make in a year. How much they make is pretty irrelevant to me: their experience, contacts, skills, location and expertise all factor in.

I just chimed in over at Her Bad Mother to say that I think what we need are more general discussions about what’s possible in terms of a single campaign, or a single post, or a month’s worth of ad revenue if you have X number of pageviews. My experience as a paid writer comes mostly from print, but if you asked me how much you could earn writing for a national magazine, I’d tell you somewhere in the $1-$2/a word range. I wouldn’t tell you a yearly income to shoot for because it would depend on SO much (How many good ideas you could come up with. How good a writer you are. How fast you write. How willing you are to market yourself. Plus some timing and luck thrown in.)

But if we at least have a general idea of what the different various components are worth, we can get an idea of a way we could cobble them together for ourselves, and what might be possible for US.

I have never paid much attention to the Top Mom Blogger lists because it has almost nothing to do with income. I know several ladies who consistently make these lists and make way less than I do. While I don’t announce what I make, I don’t hide it either. I make more than my husband, who has a good, full time job outside the home and I make more than I did in my previous career in marketing. I also make enough to cover all our monthly bills if I need to, with change to spare. I usually refer to myself as an affiliate marketer first and blogger second because the bulk of my income is made as an affiliate, followed by private ads, Google ads, and my own products. I cap my own income because I am not willing to get into consulting, become a spokesperson, write for other people, or even travel. I do often wonder at the earning potential of bloggers who do seek out those opportunities though. They are of course investing more of their time and energy than I currently do though. ;)

I primarily use ad networks at this point. In December, my “paycheck” finally exceeded my part-time job as a college professor. But then in January it dipped down. It is so unpredictable. I know I could make a lot more money selling my own ads and being a bit more entrepreneurial about it – but that’s not really my skill set. I also feel like my time is so limited – I really only have time to either write well, or negotiate sponsorships and ad space. I’m gonna choose to keep the focus on writing for now. I’m hoping in the future I can outsource the business and administration aspects that I mostly suck at doing. But I think that there are very few women who are really pulling off making a living at blogging.

Fascinating conversation–and civil, too!

@Dawn it’s not as easy as “just go hire someone”. Single mom. Six kids. No child support. Losing my house. And I certainly wasn’t blaming my kids; simply …

Dawn, I’m sorry for your situation, but it is exactly as easy as just hiring someone; you don’t hire someone to lose money, you hire them to make more money. I mentioned that I knew other bloggers who had done it. It’s free to ask them. You have the traffic. Anyway, it’s up to you. Same suggestion for Kristen who says she doesn’t have some of the expertise. Again, if you want me to refer you to anyone, drop me a note at Perfecting Parenthood. Don’t worry, I’m not selling anything, and I wouldn’t advise you since I’m not a successful yet either, I just want to appear helpful here. I know some people who are successful in this very sphere.

It’s this sort of intelligent, thought-provoking commentary and subsequent discussion in the comments that will always serve as the divide in the dichotomy between mom and dad bloggers. And really, when it comes down to it, dads don’t really fit into the picture when it comes to the business end of blogging. The reason for this is because we can’t get past those petty competitions where we waste our time coercing people into VOTING our site into the the Top 25 Daddy Blogs instead of focusing on content and community. Bragging rights don’t equated to bucks, but we dads are too busy sizing up our 6 inch URLs to figure that out. My hats off to the moms who blog and their success–you’ve no doubt, earned it.

Awesome discussion –
I’m loving this discussion and the fire that people bring to the table (Dawn, Perfect Dad). First off, I must say I’m a bit worried that more of you aren’t making a bit more. Again — totally your decision if you want to monetize — but if you do, with some traffic some of you out there should be able to pull in a bit more if doing it smartly.

Over time I’ve developed a rule where I think about 1000 hits a day can reasonably make most bloggers $1,000/month. (WARNING: RESULTS VARY!)

Here are a couple resources where bloggers open up with (Real! Live!) numbers:

Actual figures for bloggers making money: http://ablogjob.com/a-full-time-blogging-income-whats-your-blogging-income-price-point-and-when-can-you-quit-your-day-job/

and

http://bloggingwithamy.com/how-much-do-real-bloggers-actually-make/