For Gods sake, get over yourself!

If I saw paid posts I’d unsub.

Unsubscribing isn’t dictating what you can or can’t do with your blog, that is dictating what I do with my feedreader.

You’re still free to do what you’d like with your blog.

Hi Mark,

Do you mind explaining exactly what the thinking is behind unsubscribing from a blog with paid posts? What is it exactly that offends you so much? If the posts are obviously paid, with no pretensions of being otherwise, how does that affect your life?

You make a good point about dictating what you do with your feedreader, I just don’t like the fact that people are going around threatening bloggers with unsubscription. What if people decided to unsubscribe from all sites showing AdSense ads, or selling affiliate products?

I just don’t understand. I’m genuinely confused by all this. How does the fact that I make a paid post make the post before it, or after it, of any less value to you?

Do you stop watching television because the shows use product placement. Do you stop watching sports because the teams are sponsored by big business, do you stop reading newspapers because they carry advertising?

Of course, any blogger is free to do as they wish. Any reader is free to unsubscribe…

Once a blogger starts using *my time* as a means to make cash, then I’m probably not going to read that blog anymore.

There is a hell of difference between posting about some super-duper product that you are personally using, which you think might help your readers if they try it and mkaing some crappy post to please the person paying you.

I’d rather see someone like Yaro pimp all the products under the sun and be transparent about it, than see any blogger accept cash for writing and force his/her readers to read drivel.

As long as paid posts are marked as such I don’t have a problem with them - I’ll still read the other 95% of your blog with as much interest.

Stu, I think you should worry less about what other people think. If they don’t want to read your blog, so be it - keep up the good non-paid content and other people will come visiting soon enough.

You could always set up some new blogs - since you like writing - and use those to explore the idea of paid posts more regularly, without annoying as many people. Or do you only get paid for posts on blogs which are popular?

Fair call burty, so I assume you’ll be taking down all your affiliate and AdSense sites then? After all, they’re really just wasting people’s time in an effort to make you money
Nobody’s forcing you to read drivel, that’s my whole point.

Tom, I’m not worried about what other people think, I just wanted to let all the people who are running around threatening to unsubscribe from people’s blogs because they dared to actually try to make a buck, that their threats are pointless and baseless.

I just think it’s funny that there are people who are subscribed to this blog, who say they would unsubscribe from any blog taking advantage of paid posts - huh?

And what affiliate and adsense sites would they be? Ohhhhh, you mean the ones with unique content, semantic design and proper, useful products that people can purchase if they wish to? As opposed to Bullshit that you expect your hard-earned blog readers to wade through?

If you have writing skills, use them to do something that not only benefits you once, but benefits you time and time again. It’s really sad to see anyone have to resort to BS posts for $5 each.

This sucks, and I have wasted enough time trying to show that PPP is a crap way to monetise your time and effort. I’ll blog about it tomorrow.

You’ve lost a bit of integrity tonight, Stu

“And what affiliate and adsense sites would they be? Ohhhhh, you mean the ones with unique content, semantic design and proper, useful products that people can purchase if they wish to?” - but ultimately, they’re still just there to make money.

“If you have writing skills, use them to do something that not only benefits you once, but benefits you time and time again. It’s really sad to see anyone have to resort to BS posts for $5 each.” This does benefit the writer at the back end as well, you get paid for the post, you get the opportunity to monetise the content in the long term

“This sucks, and I have wasted enough time trying to show that PPP is a crap way to monetise your time and effort.” - Nobody’s forced you into the argument, and you haven’t really shown anything - you’ve just said it’s crap, and it offends you personally.

“I’ll blog about it tomorrow.” - I look forward to seeing what you have to say. Good, robust, intelligent debate is what makes the blogosphere work

“You’ve lost a bit of integrity tonight, Stu” - How so - I’m still yet to have anybody explain to me how the fact that I write a paid post detracts from the quality of the non-paid posts I write.

PS - I’ve been writing paid posts here for about a month now, yet you’re still here?

“I just don’t understand. I’m genuinely confused by all this. How does the fact that I make a paid post make the post before it, or after it, of any less value to you?”

It doesn’t change the value of your original posts.

Put the add at the end of your post, just don’t make me come all the way to your site to view an ad, there is no point in that other than to waste my time so you can make a buck, and if I do it enough there is no point in subscribing.

Just a personal preference, nothing to get excited about
I thought readership and writing were your main priorities here? Why are you willing to lose readers to earn a buck and call people with a differing opinion names (”pompous, megalomaniacal, self-important”)? Seems like a contradiction of priorities eh?

If your motivation is to make money with this site I would highly recommend pay per post and more, if the goal is a large readership I would stay away from it.

“PS - I’ve been writing paid posts here for about a month now, yet you’re still here?”

Are you mocking your readers now? Smirking that they’re too stupid to know the difference? If you are writing paid posts I was unaware of it, this makes your opinion on anything from now on mudd eh? Since you were being paid to say things in the past without disclosing this fact? How can I trust your word again?

Not much point in subbing here anymore I reckon?

“Put the add at the end of your post, just don’t make me come all the way to your site to view an ad, there is no point in that other than to waste my time so you can make a buck, and if I do it enough there is no point in subscribing.” - Which is why all my paid posts are immediately followed by a non-paid post. I’m trying to keep the inconvenience level at an absolute minimum for the readers, whilst fulfilling the criteria laid down by ppp

“I thought readership and writing were your main priorities here? Why are you willing to lose readers to earn a buck and call people with a differing opinion names (”pompous, megalomaniacal, self-important”)? Seems like a contradiction of priorities eh?” - You’re right Mark, that’s an unfair comment. I wrote it at 3am when I was pissed as hell. If I had my time again, I probably wouldn’t write that, but I think it would be wrong of me to delete it now, as the context of the thread, and hence all the comments, would change. When I’ve talked previously about enjoying my writing, I was referring to the fact that I was no longer going to be creating rubbish sites in the hope of getting the odd adsense click. I do enjoy my writing, and I like the fact that I can monetise it quickly and easily by taking paid posting opportunities.

“Are you mocking your readers now? Smirking that they’re too stupid to know the difference? If you are writing paid posts I was unaware of it, this makes your opinion on anything from now on mudd eh? Since you were being paid to say things in the past without disclosing this fact? How can I trust your word again?” - Firstly, I’ve never professed to be an expert at anything, so I’m not sure I’d trust my word anyway. Secondly, I’ve never hidden the fact that I’ve done paid posts. I’m pretty sure that this post would have given it away. All of my paid posts have been clearly tagged as such, go back and do a search on this blog for “payperpost” and you’ll see them. Of course I’m not mocking my readers, I’m not that stupid, and neither do I think my readers are.

“Not much point in subbing here anymore I reckon?” - Your call Mark, but I’d be sad to not have you hang around here anymore. Doesn’t mean I’ll change my mind on the subject though.

I’d like to see you make a gazillion, I just don’t think pay per post is the way to go here at PimpMyPageRank.

On a site where you don’t care about your readers, I recommend pay per post and smothered and covered in ads,etc, however,

On a site that you care about your readership, Stu is what the crowd is looking for 100%. That makes too much sense I suppose, an almost no brainer.

You like PPP, every commenter (em, subscriber) so far dislikes it.

No more time to talk like old gossips this evening, gots work to do.

Cheers,
Mark

Interesting Mark, and there’s a little piece of me (although I don’t want to admit it) that knows you’re (at least partly) right. Yep, you’re making far too much sense for my addled brain to comprehend.
The frustrating thing is that, although you say you’d like to see me make a gazillion, and you don’t think that payperpost is the way to go here, I’m buggered if I can work out a way to monetise this blog. I like this blog, it’s good fun, and I enjoy the satisfaction it brings me. I just need to take a good hard look at the direction I want it to head.

I must also take this opportunity to apologise to anyone I’ve dissed in this post and the subsequent comments. I’ve been a little unfair, asking for opinions, then crapping over anyone who’s given them. So I apologise for that. I do value my readers, and value your opinions.

Sorry all, I’ll try to take my bad moods out on my wife from now on

You regained your integrity by apologising for crapping on other peoples views. Good one.

Right, what Mark says is far more eloquent that I can come up with. I won’t repeat what he says - if you care about your (hard earned) blog readers you won’t poke them with a stick.

Why am I still here? Because I don’t read every post of yours, I drop in from time to time when a post looks interesting. I might well have read your PPP posts without realising. And, this makes it even worse in my eyes.

I will blog about it later, or maybe tomorrow. I have something positive to blog about first.

Why do you need to monetise this blog?
I’m pretty sure that most readers would like to read about YOU, YOUR life, YOUR experiences on and off the net, YOUR health issues, YOUR business ideas, YOUR etc etc etc…

Stu - you said “I’m buggered if I can work out a way to monetise this blog.”

I’m still unsure why you are not pursuing building blogs for other people - you clearly can manage you own and you’ve built the one with the podcast for your friend. This tells me that you could do it for other people on a paid basis.

Adsense and PPP is only ever going to be enriching for a tiny percentage of the people who do it (I mean earning decent money).

PPP will only ever make the people who run the system well off - you’re arguing with your readership over $5 a post - I bet you could get a paper round that pays more.

My advice would be - if you want to make money then move up the value chain from where you are at the moment.

What happened to blogwhore.net? You’ve only run that for two or three weeks - perhaps if you invested more time and effort promoting it then it could become a stable income generator for you. Success never comes overnight.

Wow a whole post about my “pompous, megalomaniacal, self-important ass”!

Let me start off by posting the same thing I did over at Building My Empire where this originated.

I find this sort of attitude amazing. I think a lot of blog readers are a little too full of their own self-importance. Want to stop reading my blog because you’re not happy with me writing a paid post? Fine - don’t let the door hit our ass on the way out.

I just don’t understand what it is about some blog readers who think that they’re important enough to dictate to bloggers what they can and can’t do with their blogs.

Whoa! Somebody took my tone wrong!

I was simply emphasizing that someone thinking this is going to cover their apartment bills and that their blog will still have the same appeal is mistaken.

Posting 100 entries a month on totally unrelated crap is not appealing.

So Stu, you can do whatever the heck you want, I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just pointing out that someone could seriously destroy a readership they’ve built over years in only a few weeks.

If you’re in it for the money (which apparently someone would be to use payperpost) there are much better ways to go about it that are productive and on topic.

That is all.

And let me add a few things. I’m a stay at home dad as well. I haven’t worked a “real” job in about 7 years or so through entrepreneurial efforts, freelance etc. No, I’m not some rich guy. I’m a full time blogger right now. I’ve been blogging for about 4 years. I’m in the same boat as you are except for the kidney issue (which I truly hope you get resolved).

Am I better than other bloggers? No way! Do I have a right to judge you for what you do with your blog? No Way! All I do is try to help others through blogs like mine that you linked to above and give them helpful tips from my experiences over the years as a blogger and using online advertising.

My comment was simply to point out that abusing something like payperpost could simply destroy any future potential a site may have.

Sure, you can do what you want, but as many commenters stated above they’d lose respect for you as a valued source of information if you positively endorse products that you’ve never used for a buck or two. In this “business” all you have is your rep.

When other bloggers who link to you remove you from their daily read because they no longer find you reputable it’s not just “losing 1 reader” it’s losing all future potential readers they could have sent via their links or through their pointing out your expertise or research efforts in something.

I just found your blog the other day while I was surfing around, probably from a link by the Empress, and after only two days I’ve been taken out of context, attacked and taken to task.

I understand you’re frustrated and looking for ways to monetize your site, but don’t think someone is trying to infringe on your rights simply because they are pointing out the drawbacks to something you tend to think may be the right path.

Am I mad at you? Is this an angry comment? Nope, don’t take it that way, it was meant to be helpful as was my original comment.

Thanks for your concise, well thought out comment Digger.

You make excellent points. I did say at the beginning of the post that it wasn’t a personal go at you, and I’m genuinely sorry if you took it that way. They do say that perception is reality, so I guess I need to be more careful with my words.

I must clear something up about the type of paid posts I’ve taken. You said that people would “lose respect for you as a valued source of information if you positively endorse products that you’ve never used for a buck or two”. I’ve never shilled for a product I haven’t used. I’ve been careful to take opportunities which have been writing my thoughts about a website or web based service. I’ve tried every one that I’ve written about, and given honest opinions about them.

In closing, I hope you can forgive me for my poor choice of words Digger, I think I’ve got a bit of work to do to win back some friends after this little outburst.

Hi Ash, you’ve pricked my interest in this path again. I’d like to discuss this with you further.

I’ll fire off an email to you tomorrow morning - it’s been a draining day.

I look forward to hearing from you. I am quite busy at the moment, but will definitely reply to any e-mail you send me, if not straight away.

Ohhh can I add something here
I think you want to use PayPerPost - do so wisely. Which I know you would - but there are some out there who would be more than willing to flog just about anything on their site for a few dollars… I mean for them… why not?

I don’t mind doing an occassional PPP myself - flogging things that are relavent - and give me the option to be honest about the product. If all they want is hype… and the product sucks - no… I won’t flog it for any amount of cash.

I think for the most part PPP is a hard path because you’ll upset your readers, etc… and in the end is it worth the $5 you get for the article? That’s up to you. It’s your blog.

… as Ashley mentioned - success doesn’t come overnight. (I have to remember that one ).

Good luck eh.

Hey Stu, I love you man!

I think we both came off as accusatory in our posts/comments.

I didn’t intend to suggest that you personally were doing it. I was just trying to caution others to use discretion if they do try ppp and not to go overboard because it could cost them more than it’s worth.

Hope things are going well in Australia. I haven’t been there in awhile. I hit Sydney and Townsville about 15 years ago in the Navy. Great country, especially Townsville. I hope to make it back some day.

Take care.

Stu,
For what it’s worth, I think this all comes down to personal responsibility. If you want to run paid posts, or any other ad, that’s up to you. If a subscriber doesn’t like it, they should leave - isn’t that the key explicit benefit of RSS subscriptions: the subscriber can’t be spammed and can delete the subscription at any time?

If you then notice the declining subscribers, fewer comments, fewer trackbacks, etc, then you can either scrap the blog, or stop running ads and claw back the subscribers. You’re call either way. It’s your blog.

It IS difficult to monetise a blog on this type of topic, since if you run a post about a product, people scream “SPAM! ADS! DOLLAR WHORE!” or whatever. Whereas if you offered an email product in the same way, the fact that you need to monetise it is accepted, as long as you don’t go overboard on the ads and let people unsubscribe when they like. On other topics, where people are less aware of advertising methods and techniques, you can write reviews or whatever you want to call them, with an affiliate link, and the subscriber who buys that product is probably none-the-wiser.

But not us “internet marketers”. Oh no. If someone actually tries to earn an income from their blog, then they get shat on from a great height.

It comes down to one question: what purpose does your blog fill for you?

- If it’s direct income (ie, income from the content), then advertise away.

- If it’s reputation, which by definition is dependent on your subscriber’s opinion of you, then you have to give the subscribers what they want.

- If it’s indirect income (build reputation by offering valuable content, and then point people towards your products/services/affiliate links if they want to find out more), then it’s a tricky road.

- If it’s for bouncing ideas off the wall, then don’t advertise.

You decide Stu.

Andy

[...] Well I’ve certainly managed to upset a few people, and work myself into a bit of a lather in the process. [...]

I’ll give ya’ one thing Stu…when you go in a direction, you go strong!

I think the reaction you got is more a symptom of that “in your face” style than trying to pay the bills with something you love. You got some folks riled up and they started lobbing grenades back at you — most with exaggerations that suggested you either write for the love of it or you write for the money. I don’t think it’s that black and white.

In fact, I think a viable CGM revenue model like PPP will expose 10X as many people to the CGM universe and they’ll stick around because they like the psychic rewards of self-expression as much or more than the cash. More ideas, more knowledge, more perspectives — that is “change the world” stuff and I look forward to your commentary as we all watch it unfold…knowing you’ll “go strong” again when reality doesn’t turn out as black and white as some commenters suggest!

Thanks Dan!
I think I get my “go hard or go home” mentality from the fact that I played a lot of sport in my younger days.
There’s not a whole lot I can add to what you’ve written, except to say that people should probably buckle up, ‘coz it’s gonna be a bumpy ride for a while. I think that the blogosphere could well end up split into two camps over this - the “pro” bloggers, who will deride and disdain anyone who uses ppp, and the people living in the real world, who’ll take advantage of the opportunity to get a few bucks for doing something they were doing anyway.

The thing I find most bizarre about the hurricane which seems to have swept through my little corner of the intarweb of late, is that people who are blogging about making money are getting uptight about a blogger trying to make money. I think it stems from a bit of an attitude of “You and I can make money off every other sucker on the internet, but don’t try to make money off me!”

But as many have said, there’s little point offending your readership, and if I’ve learned nothing else in the last couple of days, I’ve learned that my readers don’t want to see paid posts. I’m not guaranteeing that there will never be paid posts here in the future (hell, I’m not guaranteeing that I won’t turn this place into a cyber-brothel, either!), I think I’ll just lay low on that one for a while.

Cheers Dan, thanks for dropping by!

[...] So it seems I’ve created a bit of a brouhaha over at pimpmypagerank.com, with many bloggers not happy about the whole payperpost saga. [...]

[...] After all the brouhaha around here the last few days, I got an email from paypal today saying that I’d been paid by payperpost for doing some blog advertising. [...]

Damn, this is hard work.

You still haven’t latched on that “blogging about making money” and “using that blog to make money” are two entirely different concepts. Of course it is possible to do them both well, and it is possible to do them badly.

I’m unsubscribing now, I’ll return when you get over yourself

OOOooooh - does that mean I’m allowed to do paid posts now that I don’t have to worry about offending you?

“I’m unsubscribing now, I’ll return when you get over yourself”

Don’t take it personally (actually, take it personally, why should I care how you take it, I’m way past giving a toss what you, in particular, have to say on this topic), read the headline sunshine.

It’s a personal blog for Christ’s sake, some of it is about making money online, some of it is about other things, I’m fed up to the gills with your sanctimonious attitude, who the hell are you to tell me that I’ve “regained (my) integrity by apologising for crapping on other peoples views”? When did you become the arbitrer of that? Yes I decided to do that of my own volition, no I don’t need you to tell me whether it was a good thing to do or not. Do you really think that I’m so feeble minded as to require burty’s approval for that move?
I’m thrilled for you that you’re well on your way to making a killing online, great. What this does not do is make you the person who decides what others can do online.

Go away now, and take your carping negative attitude with you.
If anybody wants to have a reasoned, coherent discussion of the topic at hand, feel free to hang around.

Do you see the little smiley face? Doh. Well, at least I have brought out your true attitude. You have an attitude problem, and a chip on your shoulder.

How many times have I said “it’s your blog, do as you like”? You are so short-sighted that you must have missed that. If I don’t like what you do, I’ll stop reading.

Before I made a joke, which went whooosh over your head, but that’s to be expected - you are atypical of the sort of person who only sees things at face value. It’s a pity that you place a value on yourself of $5, but perhaps that’s just about right? Going by your latest barbwire comment, I would say so.

You might be interested to check out an unofficial(not sponsored by PPP) PayPerPost forum that I started.

I just started it yesterday, but we already have 12 users and over 160 posts.

Burty - you can’t poke someone in the eye with a fork, then tell them you didn’t mean anything by it because you were smiling at the time.

As far as placing a value on myself, this is the type of comment I would expect from someone who can’t see the forest for the trees. You just don’t seem to get that just because someone places values differently from you, that doesn’t necessarily make those values wrong.

I’ve managed to scrape together around an extra $100 in the last month or so from paid posts. In your world of $50k a year, that may not sound much, but have a chat with the people scrounging $10 or $20 worth of AdSense clicks a month, and ask them whether that would make a difference to them.

You’re welcome to come and go as you please here, I write my blogs for both my, and my readers, benefit. I have learned though, in the last few days, that I’m not going to please everyone, and that’s OK. If I feel like a paid posting opportunity suits this blog, I’m going to write it, I’ll make it clear that it’s a paid post, in the same way I have in the past, if people don’t like it, they’re welcome to unsubscribe.

We’ll see what happens to readership numbers, maybe they’ll drop, maybe they won’t, but I’m not going to die without finding out. I’l happily take the hundred or so dollars I’ll make a month from PPP, take my wife out for a nice meal, or buy my kids something nice, hell, I might even be able to buy my three year old the Wiggles Big Red Car he so desperately wants, but I can’t afford to give him.

So please don’t talk to me about selling out. I’d write a paid post in a minute if it meant I could do something nice for my (long suffering) wife or kids, because ultimately, a smile from one of them will quickly wipe out any bad feelings I might have knowing that I’ve upset some blogger who’s making more money online than I could ever dream of on the other side of the planet.

Stu. Did you get my e-mail?

Ash - I did get your email, sorry, it’s been a bit of a nightmare here around these parts of the world the last couple of days, I’ll fire off an email to you this morning.

Thanks for your patience mate

[...] Up until a few months ago, bloggers had available three main options to try to cash in on their effort. Leaving out the moral arguments as to whether monetising blogs is the right thing to do or not, the options were as follows: [...]

[...] Firstly, Burts posting needs to be read in the context of this post here, and the ensuing bunfight in the comments section. Yes, Burts post is about me, and this blog (in part, at least, he could be talking about other bloggers as well, I wouldn’t know) Burt lists the three main problems he has with payperpost, so let’s take a look at each of them individually: [...]

I see no difference in “wading through” posts than wading through excessive Adsense ads which have no relevance to me, yet I do because I enjoy reading some blogs which use Adsense like it’s a religion. 90% of sites using such ads are not always aesthetically pleasing, but I have yet to stop reading a blog because I knew the person was trying to make a buck with ads. If someone wants to stop reading my blog because I so happen to write posts for money- then, by all means I’m not stopping them. I at least attempt to choose opportunities that may be interesting to a reader; showing a new product, reviewing a site etc. This is where Adsense falls short for most blog owners, it doesn’t always show ads geared to their readers. I have not hidden the fact some posts are for cash. At least the posts can easily be skipped by a reader, whereas banners or text links flashing in one’s face cannot.

Thanks for dropping by Beth!

You make some good points, although I think it depends a lot on the type of blog too. Readers of blogs about making money online seem to be particularly sensitive to this type of advertising, as disclosure is the big issue. (As my experience here would show, although it doesn’t seem to have hurt traffic here, and my feed subscriber numbers are up in the last couple of weeks)

If you have a personal blog, like yours, I can see no problem doing the paid posts, as long as you’re up-front on the issue.

I like your blog, by the way!

There are blogs that charge you for full access to their content–and people pay it if they find it worthwhile. If putting in text links or Adsense helps you pay your bills so you don’t have to charge me, hell there’s 4 inches of space on either side of this column.

[...] The quote above comes from the comments at PimpMyPagerank on a post titled Get Over Yourself! where there is quite a PPP debate going on. I agree with the quote, of course - ‘abusing’ PayPerPost is detrimental to the success of the blog. [...]

[...] I’m guessing it’s probably a combination of the two, and either of these choices bring me back to my point of credibility being a factor in readers acceptance of paid posting. Since my blowup over the whole pyperpost controversy, I actually have seen a small decline in traffic and subscriber numbers. I can’t do anything about it now, as the damage is done, I’ll just be working extra hard to try to win those readers back, and attract new ones. [...]

[...] Those who have been reading this blog for a while will know that I fought pretty hard over my right to use paid posts anywhere I like. I battled over the disclosure issue, and lost readers over the issue. [...]

[...] For Gods sake, get over yourself -  Yes I know, this is one of mine. It’s not here so much for the post itself, which is pretty lame, but the comments it generated suprised me a lot. This thread gives a good insight into what people were thinking about “payperpost” around the time of its launch. Well worth the time to read if you want to know how aggressive people (including myself, I’m ashamed to admit) can get if they really believe in something. [...]