As noted in the headline, there is an internet cottage industry of people getting paid to write online about how to get paid to write online. See websites like The Write Life, Making A Living Writing, and many more if you Google anything along the lines of “professional blogger”. It’s a weird, self-referential phenomenon.
Empowering writers to make more money is obviously something that I support, and I’ve read a million posts about upping your personal ROI. However, I do think these “Unlock your potential!” types of websites deceive readers. Maybe not directly. But here’s the reality, a reality that’s unprofitable to admit: There aren’t that many well-paying writing jobs out there; most people are neither lucky enough nor talented enough to get them.
(I kept this post in drafts for a while, but I realized that I don’t have anything else to add. So… here ya go, world.)
Mike Licht has made and posted a million of these for some reason.
Necessary context for the upcoming screenshot: Ben Thompson is a popular tech blogger who offers an exclusive email newsletter for $10 per month. Recently some kind of bug inserted a couple of subscriber-only posts into the blog’s public RSS feed. Here’s a brief Twitter exchange between subscriber Blaine Wilson and Thompson:
Wilson: “Hey Ben, I’m interested to know if the RSS leak lead to any sort of upside in update subscriptions as people got a taste.” Thompson: “I’ve learned that RSS users aren’t really the types to pay for content :)”
I don’t have any substantive commentary on Thompson’s observation, but I think it’s worth noting. (Obviously, considering that here I am noting it.)
I wrote the following post in response to a brief Twitter conversation (screenshotted below) and an article by Jeff Jarvis: “WTF is promoted-native-sponsored-brand-voice-content? It’s an ad. That’s WTF it is.”
Anthony De Rosa (chief editor of Circa News) has a point. In effect, sponsored posts are advertisements. But the experience of reading one is more complex than that.
No one is going to click on an article billed as an advertisement. They shouldn’t, because reading several hundred words of traditional advertising copy would be tiresome. However, paid-for editorial can feel different from a hard-sell ad. Using a new term for a distinct practice does not constitute deceiving readers. Jarvis’ survey demonstrates that the terms currently being used are inadequate, but that doesn’t mean “advertisement” is the only option. I agree that clear language is needed, but I don’t agree with the conflation of regular ads and “content marketing”.
To cite an example that I’ve used before, this is a traditional Marriott ad:
Underneath the vague disclosure—that part is not exemplary—is an actual story. Marriott paid for the essay and I associate it with them, but the text ignores Marriott. An unnamed hotel is mentioned once, but that’s as close as it gets. The purpose of this sponsored post is to link luxurious wandering with Marriott, which it accomplishes. Without being totally evil.
TL;DR? Be honest with readers, yes, but there’s no need to unnecessarily hamper native advertising. It’s frequently executed abysmally, but so is everything.
“What Facebook is doing—and not just Facebook, but nearly every disruptive Internet-based service from Uber to Amazon—is destroying all of the barriers between supply and demand. Moreover, this destruction isn’t really the fault of the destructors; it’s the natural outcome of the Internet, where distribution is free and marginal costs are zero. It’s the most important story of our time.”
Quote from the Daily Update email, 3/24/2015. I highly suggest subscribing.
Today I paid for something that I could have gotten for free. The process was kind of annoying but I still did it. Usually people put up with extra hassle to avoid paying, like when they install a program in order to pirate media. On the other hand, I voluntarily underwent hassle to pay $10 for something I didn’t need to pay for. What was it, and why?
It was a blog, which positions itself as an online book, called Practical Typography. I read an article that Matthew Butterick wrote about Medium, a platform that I find insidious. Then I clicked around the site a little. I saved an article about the font Times New Roman to read later. Crucially, I found the page “How to pay for this book” and read it. Butterick explains that he doesn’t like paywalls but wants to be compensated for his work. Basically, he asked me to donate. I didn’t—and don’t—plan to read all of Practical Typography. But I donated $10 because I respect what he’s doing and I want it to continue.
I can’t put my finger on exactly what motivated me to chip in. This isn’t a website that I read often and am devoted to. It’s just something I came across while browsing, after following a link from Twitter. I wouldn’t pay $10 for a physical version of the same thing. And yet I voluntarily, at slight inconvenience to myself, gave the guy money. (The inconvenience was entering my debit card information, which I still haven’t memorized.) Maybe I did this because the author holds a view that I agree with:
“The immutable law remains: you can’t get something for nothing. The web has been able to defer the consequences of this principle by shifting the costs of the written word off readers and onto advertisers. But if readers permanently withdraw as economic participants in the writing industry [by refusing] to vote with their wallets—then they’ll have no reason to protest as the universe of good writing shrinks.”
Quote from “The economics of a web-based book”. As a writer, I have a vested interest in convincing readers to pay for good writing. So of course I agree with Butterick. I think that’s probably why I donated. The other factor is identity.
People are fundamentally self-interested. We don’t do things that benefit other people for the sake of benefiting other people, but because of how the actions make us feel. Our culture prizes magnanimity, finds it to be publicly laudable, so there’s an advantage to being generous. Even if you don’t brag about it and nobody else knows, you know that you possess a personal quality regarded as admirable. That makes you feel good.
Everything I do that seems largehearted is actually selfish. For instance, giving out my zines for for free—I just want my writing to be read widely. Paying the other people who contributed to Balm Digest—I want to live in a world where the work of artists and writers is materially valued, so I take steps to create that world. All of it makes me feel good about myself.
Patreon succeeds not only because people realize, “If I don’t pay for this thing to continue it will stop existing, and then I won’t be able to enjoy it,” but also because being generous boosts their identity. Our culture commends that behavior. Which makes evolutionary sense: generosity nurtures strong communities, which enable our species to better survive and propagate.
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