Reader Poll: Are you a fellow blogger?

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Do you blog? If so, what is your PRIMARY reason?

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PLEASE feel free to elaborate via the comments (or, via e-mail [ajc AT 7million7years DOT com] should you choose to remain anonymous) 🙂

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14 thoughts on “Reader Poll: Are you a fellow blogger?”

  1. I have a personal finance/entrepreneurship blog, which my interest for comes and goes. I’ve made less than $50 from it, so not exactly what I’d consider “additional (side) income”. It’s more of a hobby than anything.

    It has lead me to learn a lot more about internet marketing, and I am considering putting this knowledge towards a different area like a niche website.

  2. I voted ‘I don’t blog’ but actually I do blog but only for fun. This option is missing from the poll.

    Never gained a penny with my blog and never intended to!

  3. “Never gained a penny with my blog and never intended to!”

    @ Jurgen – Same here 🙂

    PS Congratulations on winning your first amateur radio contest!

    @ Chris – Thanks for sharing … I’ve seen your blog and like it. It you put the same professionalism and thought into a ‘real’ venture, I’m sure you will do well!

  4. I would have voted “none of the above” if that had been an option. I blog, but not for money. From my first post:

    “…to impose some discipline on my personal financial planning and money management. ….. Putting my investing and other ideas down in writing should help clarify my thinking. Failing which, I get to look back and wonder what on earth was I thinking”

    Financial blogs are a dime a dozen – and, quote frankly, with a few limited exceptions, many of them are just rehashing the same old “advice” or commenting on news reported elsewhere.

    The few that I read either take a different approach (e.g. 7m7y) or offer some genuinely useful and penetrating commentary (e.g. Bad Money Advice – sadly on hold). There are a small number of personal financial journals which I follow as much for entertainment as anything else. I suspect that very few blogs make enough money to justify the effort being put into them – most people would do better (financially) persuing other endeavours.

  5. @ TraineeInvestor – Does that mean that I do NOT “offer some genuinely useful and penetrating commentary”?! 🙁 [I don’t know how to do a happy/sad sweet/sour face to indicate that I’m having fun with this]

    BTW: I hope that one of our readers who does think that blogging will take them to their (large) Number / (soon) Date will share how they think it will pan out … otherwise, I’ll be forced to stick to my assumption that blogging is fun, instructive, perhaps even useful for a little (or a lot?) of side income … but, that’s about it!

  6. Adrian

    Apologies, I should have written “and/or” instead of “or”. For a guy who makes a living writing very precise legalise you’d think I’d be able to proof read a short comment properly wouldn’t you. :facepalm:

    That said, there’s nothing like a little pressure to keep you on your toes. 🙂

    Cheers
    traineecommentator

  8. I blog as my contribution to society – to try and help people. So I try to blog helpful stuff, including a regular Christian devotional, but also on topics that generally relate to self-, community-, and organisation development.

    I have considered beginning to use e.g. advertising to start making money from it, but I’m not quite convinced that it is the route I want to go.

  9. I operate (and write for) a company blog. I am a marketer for a non-profit financial topics publishing company. We sell our text books business to business. We are trying to take one of them direct to consumer. The blog is one part of the plan to do this.

    Think it will work?

  10. AJC,

    I blog for side income. I don’t think I’ll ever make enough off of it to come close to my salary (and benefits) but it has helped with saving and paying off debt.

    It has also led to a side business of buying other blogs and selling advertising on them too with my contacts.

  11. @ Jonathan – Depends what your target is: if it’s to make some side-income talk to Evan 😉 I think it will work, too – presuming that your book matches the target audience of your blog.

    If it’s to make $7 million in 7 years (or some other large number / soon date) then that’s what this poll is to find out!

    So far, all but 1% of my readers think NOT … but, I REALLY want to hear why the 1% think I’m wrong!

  12. Jonathan,

    If I understand your strategy correctly, you are using the blog to build “platform” – a reader-base that will eventually buy your book because they’ve been reading your blog.

    It can work, if, indeed, your blog is drawing a growing number of readers, and if you are going to be able to convince them that what is in the book (which they will be paying for) is significantly enough better than what they’re reading (for free) in the blog.

    This works well for some people (Seth Godin, Alexander Green, and others), but I suspect it is really difficult.

    Nevertheless, the best way to learn, is to try something. If it doesn’t work, I’m sure you will have gained all sorts of other valuable experience. If it works, then great!

  13. @Ashton

    you’re right. Free content leads to paid content that is better than the already good content. And since it also functions as an eWorkbook, perhaps Chris Anderson’s theory of the Long Tail is relevent.

    If it works, great! If it doesn’t, our non-profit is out a bunch of man-hours.

    Haven’t heard of Alexander Green, will have to check him out.

    @Adrian, we should all be so good as to $7 million in 7 years. Thanks for writing.

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