Money fer nothin’

Glenn Reynolds (that would be the Instapundit if you don’t know) has a nice column up at TCS Daily wherein he looks at the profitability of blogging.

Making money off a blog requires a lot of traffic, and no matter how much the blogosphere grows, most blogs won’t have a lot of traffic, as Clay Shirky persuasively demonstrated a while back.

LaShawn Barber takes off from Glenn’s lead: I always tell potential bloggers not to go into political blogging seeking fame and/or fortune, because they will be disappointed. (Business blogging is a separate issue in the “fortune” department. There’s gold to be dug.) But if they want a soapbox or a place to practice their writing or an online journal or any number of things, a blog is good.

I had an email from a rather new-ish blogger just last week, wondering if there is money to be made in blogging. I told him basically – no, not really, at least not when you’re blogging at my level. But I didn’t get into blogging for the money, and I would caution anyone against it, just as I would caution my own children against pursuing careers in music “for the money.” For love, absolutely, but not “for money.”

That’s not to say I am not both humbled and a little thrilled when I see that someone has pushed the Amazon or Paypal button and left a donation – it IS thrilling, because it is a kind of validation that someone out there finds what you say to be of value, and wants to help you continue to say it. And that is precisely what is humbling about it, too. I make a little money (really, very little) from the blog, and a little more from writing professionally. My biggest problem is discipline. I enjoy the immediacy of blogging (and yes, I enjoy writing with a full head of steam) so much that I too often will spend a whole day blogging while deadlines come pressing. I am still learning to balance it all. The bottom line is that I am in no way getting rich (in fact, some months are pretty lean) but I am doing what I love, and love is the best reason to do anything.

I would never counsel someone to blog for money, just as I would never counsel my kids to study music for profit, because that’s a loser’s bet. But for love? Absolutely. When you are doing something for the sheer love of doing it, whether it is music, or dance, or writing, or knitting, or soldiering, or software-writing or window-cleaning – you will excel at that endeavor, and you will have a peacefulness in your heart that cannot be duplicated by the bottom line of a bank statement. If that sounds idealistic, well, it is. I have always believed that we are loved into being for a purpose – that there is something we are born to do, gifts we are meant to use.

There may be any number of things one can do well, but there is in each of us one thing we can do which so absorbs our minds, hearts and spirits that we can do it for hours and feel refreshed – as though we have been drinking at a cool, restful stream – when we are doing it, time ceases to matter because we are working outside of time – we are touching the eternal. To put it more simply: the thing you love to do is most likely the thing you were born to do, whether it brings profit or not. The neat trick is to learn to live peacefully on whatever material pittance that work might earn, and to offer the work (however imperfect) back up to your Creator.

There is a whole lifetime involved in this. It is the great secret.

UPDATE I: John Hawkins also pipes up about love of the blog.

UPDATE II: I certainly didn’t jump into this conversation intending for it to happen, but since yesterday my little Amazon thingie has registered almost $60.00 in donations. Thank you! I have lovely, generous folk reading these pages – I appreciate your kindness!