Dad Bloggers Get Paid To Blog

Editor’s Note: This post originally ran in 2012. If you go through the files you’ll find other posts like  How A Dad Blogger Uses Amazon To Make Money From Writing that flow in a similar or related vein. Some of them are tongue-in-cheek but there is useful information in there and proof that some things never change.

Playing in the Background Subterranean Homesick Blues– Bob Dylan

I don’t want to make you feel badly but I get paid to write. In fact I earn so much money from my writing that I have begun using single dollar bills for kindling. Yep, that is right I burn money in my fireplace like it is going out of style.

Don’t want make you feel insecure but I get invitations to speak at every major blogging conference including the secret ones that only the A-listers attend. Heck at the last one George Clooney and I hung out together for at least 6 minutes and it is not because he gave me a drink order. Hell, if he had done that I would have given George the patented Jack Steiner steely eyed glare and the last six dark hairs on his head would have gone white.

Don’t fuck with me George, I am a dad blogger- hear me roar. They say that behind every good man is a good woman but behind every good mom blog there is a great dad blog.

But enough of that crap, let’s cut to the chase: Dad Bloggers get paid to blog. We don”t work for free.

Know Your Worth

Ok, I’ll drop the sarcasm but continue with the message because it is important and applicable to all bloggers. Know your own worth. Your time is valuable and if someone asks you to work for them you deserve to be compensated for your time.

Unfortunately some of you haven’t figured this out yet because you continue to work for free or even worse for peanuts.

What that means is that when someone asks you to write about their business/product/service you spend hour working on the post(s) but get little to nothing in return.

Examples:

1) Brand XYZ has you spend four or five hours working on several posts reviewing/promoting their product. They provide you with a $10 gift card to use as part of a giveaway that you all hope will draw readers. In return you also receive a $10 gift card.

The problem is that you just spent four or five hours working for a $10 gift card. Let’s pretend that the gift card is the same as cash. All that time you spent working was for less than the minimum wage.

2) Brand XYX contacts you and asks you to write a post about their product or service. They don’t offer a gift card or any sort of giveaway, but they don’t expect you to work for very long either.

This is still a problem. They came to you because they think you reach their target audience and you just provided them with free advertising. They are paying someone, somewhere for the chance to promote their product/service/company. But you just gave it away and your time for free.

Several years ago I had a lengthy disagreement with some mom bloggers about this and why their working for free was bad for all bloggers. It is bad because when you work for free you devalue your work and mine.

Two of them disagreed with me and said that I was preventing them from monetizing their blogs. My response was that what they were doing was no different from putting out for free. I am sure that they wouldn’t sleep with any man that asked. I received a very strongly worded reply from one of them and the silence from the other.

All sarcasm aside, I really do get paid to write and I really am paid for my time. That is not me being snooty, obnoxious or sarcastic either.

In most cases the people that contact bloggers about these reviews are getting paid. I strongly doubt that they would work for free, so why should you.