Using Donations To Support Your Blog

Yea, or nay? Good alternative to annoying readers with affiliate marketing junk, or just a horrible, horrible thing to do?

Here's my blog. Does it look terrible? Have at it!

Using donations to support a blog is cool in my book.

I would try to draw as clear a line as possible between

a) producing something in a blog format that is, as a project, in part or as a whole, financed by readers' voluntary contributions;

b) asking for donations from people who like you, and doing so in a personal blog.

The former is payment; the second is about gifts, charity or the like. Both are fine, but I wouldn't mix them. (At least in Germany, the former would attract tax duties that the second doesn't, btw.)

As for your blog, it looks good, but it doesn't make it easy to figure out what it is and what it offers. The two headlines aren't really part of the dominant visual design that follows, and so are easily skipped. But even if they're not skipped, the description ("A Writer, On Writing: Tools, Techniques, Triumphs and Troubles; And on Vaping: Reviews, News, and Commentary") is rather long and diverse, and many of its parts are kind of vague. That might or might not come down to a more basic consideration about the blog: Is there any reason why the same readers should be interested in stuff about the tools of writing and stuff about vaping? If the only connection is that it's written by the same guy, you've made the decision that this is basically a personal blog, where reagular readers are mainly interested in you and everything you do, which is fine if that is what you're going for.

If, on the other hand, you want to offer stuff on writing; and stuff on vaping; and several more; to be considered each on its merit, and to attract audiences interested in any one of these, I would suggest some visual curation that takes care of that. Perhaps you want to have different blogs; but a simpler way would be to have categories that are clearly distinct at first glance on the opening page. Another way might be to introduce different landing pages for each.

Here's an example of a blog with all kinds of different stuff connected by the writer's persona, that does this additional curation quite well IMO:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/

You get a clean interface, that immediately presents not one but two menus: The horizontal one thinks of readers interested in the person (here are all of his books, here is his life story, etc.); the vertical one, much more elaborate through its use of images, tells you what kinds of things you can read here, and leads you straight to them. In any case, the greatest part of the screen is still taken up by the most current blog post or posts, depending on their length, so you can always jump right in and sample the prose.

That is one more aspect you could consider: Since IIUC you're primarily a writer and not a graphic artist, you might want to give people a taste of your writing rather than cover it with very large pictures. Having pictures is good, but their current dominance makes the page look more like a magazine, where the promised topics are more important than the promised writing style.

It's not for me.
I don't care what others do.

A blog is simply a diary or journal.

Before the internet, did people charge other people to read their diary?

In fact, before the internet did people even make their journals public? (Other than for autobiographical purposes, of course.)

I think whether it makes sense for a blog to invite donations depends on three things:

1. Will a large number of people find the content informative, not merely interesting?

2. Will the content touch people's lives in a meaningful way?

3. Is the content unique enough that people will feel it's something they can't replace anywhere else?

The vast majority of blogs probably don't meet these criteria. "This is what I think about the latest episode of Heroes" blogs don't generally serve much of a purpose. A blog about cigarette alternatives meets 1 and 2, and certainly can meet 3 if it's comprehensive enough.

I still think you'd be better off splitting the vaping content into its own blog with its own brand identity, and focusing on monetizing that.

A comparatively small number of blogs are simply that.

When they published it? Yes, definitely. But inviting donations isn't the same thing as charging people, anyway.

Why other than that? A diary blog is autobiographical. And if the purposes are new, don't we need new answers on whether they should be monetized?

In the case of my blog, yes. Product reviews are definitely informative.

Yes, I believe so.

There are a few other reviewers out there, but very few of them in text format.

I've actually done that, but to set it up to the same standard of presentation as the original blog takes money (the theme used on the main blog is a premium theme that ran me about $75), hence the invitation for donations.

I see you've used a picture from your crystal meth days. Gross

Ah this thread.

I see no problem as you review products that cost you money to buy.

I don't have any meth days. Are you ever going to get tired of failing? Because that little "gem" has never worked, and it's never going to.

Actually, I think the reviews are of products that are provided gratis by the manufacturer. That actually raises an ethical issue in my mind, but I don't much care.

If you want to beg, go for it. Just don't pretend it's anything else.

Nice of you to show us your dealer to try to help us understand why you'd do such a thing. He certainly looks less than pleased by your efforts, though.

I have no intention of begging.

No pretending required.

If that's Lubak's dealer, why did you use his picture as your avatar here about 18 months back? Did you also have an arrangement with that fucker?

What makes you think I'm not Lubak's dealer? And I can tell you, when he tried to blow me, I wasn't sure for a second that that's what he was doing. Between the helmet and the drool cup, I thought he was trying to vomit on my jeans.

The real question is when will you start offering blowies for blog donations?

You really are pitifully boring, y'know that? I mean, for fuck's sake, dude, you've been at this how long and you're still using the same old stale shit? I feel bad for your parents.

He should eliminate the middleman. No blog, just blowjobs for cash or drugs.

So what are people's thoughts on NoiseTrade? That whole site is donation-driven.

Huh wut

www.noisetrade.com

Or just the blog.

Good point, you'd probably have more difficulty getting somebody to accept a blowjob from you, let alone one that cost money.

Blog type content was definitely monetized in the past, through things like newspaper and magazine columns.

You are failing to amuse me.

ETA: I'm sure people are hissing like cats, behind the scenes, that I've been trolling in this thread, conveniently ignoring Lubak's having got that ball rolling. Right gul?

I sure did, I like that you're whining like a bitch about it!

A little "donation request" link on the blog won't hurt. Most people will ignore it, but it shouldn't offend people. The ones who feel that the content is unique and worthwhile may shoot you a few bucks.