October 20, 2005

Curious, George: Professional blogging pay rates. I've got a chance to get paid to write a blog for a growing poker website. Thing is, I have no idea how much I should charge for my services. How much do professional bloggers get paid? How much should I ask for, given that this gig would probably take about 10 hours a week? Would I be wise to take less cash upfront and get paid a share of the blog's revenue, or by pageviews/hits?

Following are some pieces to provide what background I could find: 1. A piece from USC-Annenberg's Online Journalism Review. 2. Gawker Bucks vs. Journalism Bucks. 3. From Wired: Can bloggers strike it rich?

  • Ask Moooshy. /ducks
  • What does Mooshy have to do with it? The reference doesn't make sense to me, Argh. Unless I wrote one of the pieces I linked to, but don't remember doing so.
  • Nevermind, look here instead.
  • Or you could inquire about this job and see what they're paying
  • I also googled "blogger wanted" and got some hits for people looking to hire bloggers. You could see what they're paying as a reference. Me, I'd go for revenue sharing and a base salary. (and don't forget to sign up a Mofi sock puppet so you can self link)
  • 1000 dollars per month.
  • Do you get all the ad revenues if AdSense is running on the blog?
  • The details are totally up for discussion. I doubt I'd get all the ad revenues, though. I think the move is to propose a flat monthly fee or an ad revenue share, whichever is more in a given month. That's the way I'm leaning towards approaching the conversation, in any case.
  • This is a dotcom? You should be happy with retaining copyright.
  • What's your relationship with the company? Do you know them well and are they trustworthy? That would certainly be a factor in deciding whether you would want a revenue share. And of course how much traffic the site currently gets. But then you've probably already thought about this. Another possibility would be services in kind, I suppose. Do players actually play on the site? If so one possibility would be to be paid partly in virtual chips. (assuming that you could parlay this into real cash and would want to).
  • Also, it would be good to know what the financial state of the company is. Are they making money? Breaking even? Are you the only blogger who's going to be on the site?