How about some of the big Blogs?
Great article in the WSJ today: Time to Cash In? Three Signs Your Blog May Attract Buyers.
Brian Stelter set tongues wagging in the blogging community last year when he accepted an offer to sell his television-news blog, CableNewser.com, to Mediabistro.com Inc., a New York-based media networking and education site.
The student, now 20, agreed to sell the rights to his blog, renamed TVNewser.com, and continued to write for it. In return, Mediabistro.com essentially “pays my college tuition,” Mr. Stelter says.
“It was a great deal for them because they’re getting great content every day,” he says. “And it’s the perfect job for me because it gives me income without being a 9 to 5 job.” Mr. Stelter wasn’t specific about the terms of his contract, but says his compensation covers the roughly $3,500 a semester he pays as a full-time student at Towson University in Baltimore.
It used to be rare for an established, mainstream company to buy an individual’s personal blog. Blogs are frequently updated online journals, typically authored by professionals, hobbyists, or regular Joes reaching out to share their thoughts, information and photographs with others. Few consider their blogs a business, though the growing use of advertising links and blog sponsorships have helped some turn a modest profit. While sales aren’t making headlines every day, there has been some business interest in buying blogs and hiring their authors as employees.
The three things are:
- You have web credibility.
- Your blog is a cash cow.
- You have a coveted audience.
Stewart Alsop had said to me in an email exchange a few months back that he feels old-fashioned because he was used to being paid to write, and sometimes a lot! All this free blogging seemed to have annoyed him. But may be, Stewart should now consider blogging, given that he has a personal brand already as a reputed journalist!! Om has certainly done a good job building up his blog to the extent where someone must be willing to pay good $$$ to buy his.
Yahoo! has, of course, already done a deal with Ariana Huffington, on her celebrity blog …
Adam L. Penenberg writes in wired.com:
“Calacanis employs 120 bloggers and publishes 90 blogs — including Engadget (which covers consumer electronics) and Blog Maverick, typed by billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban — with his writers making anywhere from $200 to $3,000 a month. (One presumes Cuban doesn’t do it for the money.) On average, Weblog salaries are about a quarter to half what a mid-level editorial job would pay, without the daily office commute.
“Not to mention (bloggers) get to write about the topic they are most passionate about,” said Calacanis, who claims to be on track to collect more than $1 million in Google AdSense payments over the next year. “So, for our folks, it is like they are making money off their hobby. Think a scuba diver or video-game player making $500 to $1,500 a month writing about scuba diving or video games.”
Here is the URL: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68934,00.html