Pajamas Media Bloggers go bye-bye

I was only mildly surprised to receive an email from Pajamas Media today which said, in essence, “so long, it’s been good to know you, effective March 31,” when PJM will end its Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network.

I sort of saw it coming. I’d noticed that PJM was tightening, creating its identity around a crew of established conservative “name” writers and the bigger bloggers, rather than the sprawling mass of bloggers. It was predictable because no entity can remain an amorphous blog blob forever, eventually a thing must become more of what it is, or cease to be.

Also, I noticed that a great deal of PJM’s energy was going toward the PJTV end of it. Not my bag, to be honest. My boredom with “talking head” format, coupled with my deteriorating attention span leads me more to text than video, but I can see where many may believe (perhaps rightly) that text is on the way out and aural/video meets the need for speed and easy digestion.

Sound bites are destroying our ability to hear, converse or think, but we can’t get enough of them. Unfortunately, yer girl ain’t made for camera lenses. Aside from the fact that I am unable to “smile for the camera” without looking terrified, I’m also dead chubby and I understand the camera adds 10 or 70 lbs. And of course, the Lord’s overgenerous endowment in my chestal area makes any notion of camera work unthinkable, particularly in HD where the girls might terrify some*.

I’m not complaining; I’ve had a good run on PJM. They were very accommodating to me when I needed to either stop being a PJM “exclusive” or stop being a blogger altogether, and I have very much enjoyed writing features for them – some of which I’ve been pretty proud of (and I hope have enhanced, rather than dulled PJM’s reputation) – and I suspect I will still submit a piece to PJM, now and again, particularly on issues of religion – which is one area the gang does not have covered, and where I do think I had something to offer.

It is a little of a bummer, though. I’d finally reached a point where I was breaking $1,000 a quarter in earnings. Yes, it’s a pittance and laughable, but frankly, it was the difference between staying alive as a (mostly) full-time blogger posting daily, or having to find other work and post just a few times a week. I’ll have to re-think the blog a bit, now, and figure out how to either make up for the lost revenue or substantially cut my blogging time, in order to work at something else.

I have, since the election, seriously thought about focusing exclusively on religion, but politics always lures me back because it is maddening and fascinating and my hot Irish head needs things to cavil about. And I do think that occasionally – once in a while – I actually offer up a unique thought or make a salient point. Let’s face it, no one blogs for money; one blogs for the love of writing and the indisputable conceit that one has something worthwhile to say.

I’m not going to look at this news as a bad thing, just a change…now I have to discover what is the next thing I’m supposed to do. If you’ll pray for me that I can recognise what that might be, I’d appreciate it.

Protein Wisdom is pretty distraught over this, and Ace must also find some revenue or be forced to change. They get a lot more traffic than I do, so I’m sure this is a significant loss to them.

Change is not a terrible thing. Stagnation is, and even water, when it is still too long, becomes stagnant and hard. It’s important to be open, so I will embrace this change with optimism, and trust that something better is in store for me down the line. I’m pretty sure it’s not this.

Someone said that “class is knowing when it’s time to leave before you’re thrown out.” That sounds more like my Auntie Lillie than Ann Landers. Clearly, I didn’t manage that, but I do think it’s the better part of wisdom to, when you see something come to an end, be grateful you had a part in it at all, make your curtsy, and part with mutual well-wishes and a bit of hope.

But, as the great Ruth Hussey announced in The Philadelphia Story, when she assumed her job was gone, “belts will be worn tighter this year!”

I do wish I could get back to podcasting, though. I grew to enjoy that.

*That was a joke, but one I regret. Should have known better than to go there. Serves me right for writing late.

Welcome: Instapundit and Althouse readers. Please look around. Today we’re talking about the election in Iraq and how President Obama, the CIC, did not see fit to comment on or praise his troops who served there. We’re also talking about the terrible ice storm that has crippled parts of the midwest and devastated Kentucky, and which the press is pointedly NOT blaming on Obama, in contrast to Bush and Katrina. More on that here