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Early twenty-first century English speakers have an ear for ugly words.  For example, having created the most significant advance in democratizing publishing since moveable type, we made up the ugliest word we could for it: "the blog".

"The blog".  I saw that movie when I was a kid. Steve McQueen was in it. I worried about the blog getting the poor little dog.

Not content to write our online journals using an ugly word, at some point many of us have the capitalist afterthought that we want to make money with our "blogs".  Dutiful speakers of early 21st century English that we are, we’ll need an ugly word for that, too. So we say we need to monetize our blog.

To it’s credit, at least "monetize" captures the general idea that we we’re just sitting here typing, minding our own not-yet-a-business, when suddenly we needed to grab some AdSense code and paste it in here somewhere, so we could be monetized.

Show me the monety.

My Excuse for Using the "M" Word

"The machines are watching what we write." Forty years ago that sentence would have been a paranoid fantasy. Today it’s just a description of the search engines. Because the machines are watching what we write, I have to use the word "monetize", because I’m hoping that someone looking to monetize their blog will come by and read me.

I say monetize, therefore I am monetized.

I don’t have to like it.

"When Should You Monetize Your Blog?" and Other Pseudo-Questions

George Orwell was famous (partly) for telling us that sloppy language could lead us to think sloppily. We hear about monetizing our blogs, and wonder at what point we should start monetizing them?

I do think you should make money off your blogging efforts. You should have a living made partly or largely from professional writing online, just like I do. That’s what this blog is about, to explore different ways of doing that. The problem with "monetizing" as a word and a concept is that it implies that you started out doing something that wasn’t worth money, and Adsense or some other magic wand is going to transform your lonely prose into something people will throw money at.

I would encourage you to think this way instead.  The following may sound like a group of New Age affirmations that only Stuart Smalley could love, but try them on for a moment and tell me if they help:

• I have something to write that’s worth reading, or if I don’t, I can improve.
• I can sell something worth buying, and get paid for it. If I don’t know how to sell or what to sell, I can learn how to sell or find something to sell.
• The blog I’m dreaming about / starting up / working on now is a vehicle for making that happen.
• I will keep at it until I am successful.

Am I saying you shouldn’t use AdSense? Not at all — if that’s a good way for you to sell, then go for it! Advertising is certainly something you can sell and some people make big money at it. I think most people will make more money, however, if they consider a mix of "ads" for their own products and services, or private ad transactions and affiliate programs. John Chow got rid of AdSense and reported $14,450 in private ad sales revenue for February. To give AdSense its due, Darren Rowse, who’s no slouch either, recently reported that AdSense is his overall winner. Up until recently, my own business model had about three notes in it: Blog. Sell house. Blog. Hire agents to sell house. Blog.

Now I’ve added these notes:  Write. Learn. Write. Sell.

The only way to fail is to stop trying.

Thanks

In a future post, I’ll talk about how some of these ideas have played out on this blog and in my own life and work so far, and some of the stupid fears that have limited me. If others have similar examples from their own lives and work and want to share I’d love to hear about them.

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