Hey, welcome to the weekly discussion thread. We're going to use your feedback and ideas to write a short article next week, and of course we'll cite you!
This week the question is the following: what ways are you using/considering to monetize your technical articles?
Please share all your thoughts, even things you haven't tried out but seen others do, etc. Ask questions and engage with the rest of the community.
I follow the principles of free and open knowledge, so I don't like the idea of monetize my articles. I prefer to charge for additional services like mentoring or a more direct communication channel.
That's valid as well of course, still counts as a way to monetize your writing IMO because it's only through your writing that you convince people to pay for these other services, am I right?
Yes, writing is the center of all of it. Also, I could publish books, make podcasts, or videos... those would be more elaborated and time consuming products. I think it'd be ok pay wall those.
But is the complexity of the end product what justifies the paywall in your view? Or is it something about its nature? For example, for me, anything that is purely educational and informative, as in general purpose knowledge, I make it for free. Now things that require me doing active research and/or providing my specific expertise, those are fair to charge for.
Yes, when I need to research deeper, invest in resources, and dedicate a significant amount of time, then I think it is fair to charge a fee for the product. But a weekly publication where I communicate my takes, experiences, and advices as a hobby is not the case. I think time, energy, and money are the main factors. There are bounds for the amount of time, energy, and money that a free product can consume from me.
After much consideration, I think I'm gonna offer a paid tier so folks can access Saturday/Sunday posts. This is what sits right with me:
Folks who are free will still get a thoughtful piece every day (sounds like I am bragging, but I'm literally just saying I'm putting a couple of hours of thinking into each daily post).
Folks who pay a monthly rate (probably $10 a month) can get Saturday and Sunday posts too.
I think most folks who pay for the service will do so because they want to support me, more so than getting those extra 2 days or whatever. Folks who are members of the Tech Writers Stack, let me know (once I pull the trigger) if you would like to get those weekend emails. I don't think the content will be substantially different from the weekday posts, but that could evolve over time.
This will probably work for me, but not for most folks. Fingers crossed!
Oh yeah, I have a website that's much more on the technical side (BJJ related) - www.bjjpath.com. I accept Stripe payments over there, completely on a voluntary basis. "Pay if you want."
Around 2005-2007, I wrote a handful of articles for a site called ONLamp. You might remember it. They paid $300 IIRC per article, and for the student I was, this was awesome.
Later, maybe around 2010-2012, when I was using Blogger, I made an experiment with AdSense. Then I stopped writing for a bit. And when I came back to look at my own blog a few weeks (months?) later, I was horrified by how spammy the site felt and how bad the ads were, so I disabled it right away and never turned it back on. Zero earnings.
Last year, while I was still at Microsoft, I onboarded the full-form RSS feed of my blog into the Microsoft Start Partners Hub pilot. This made me $100 for just one article that somehow went popular in that platform, which was kinda nice. Literally just pennies since then though.
Last week, I tried the Amazon affiliates link for the post I wrote about a book review. $15 total, which is almost 0, but it was nice to see that a couple dozen people will get to enjoy the same book I read.
I've enabled paid subscriptions in my new Substack, but only to "support my writing", which I doubt will get me any paid subscriber whatsoever. In any case, I don't like the idea to gate posts behind a paywall. But maybe I could/should for some? Maybe things like the "monthly links review" that I've started writing could be subscribers-only, given that these articles are not really worthy of "open knowledge", are very contextual, and are something you would expect from a periodic publication.
I follow the principles of free and open knowledge, so I don't like the idea of monetize my articles. I prefer to charge for additional services like mentoring or a more direct communication channel.
That's valid as well of course, still counts as a way to monetize your writing IMO because it's only through your writing that you convince people to pay for these other services, am I right?
Yes, writing is the center of all of it. Also, I could publish books, make podcasts, or videos... those would be more elaborated and time consuming products. I think it'd be ok pay wall those.
But is the complexity of the end product what justifies the paywall in your view? Or is it something about its nature? For example, for me, anything that is purely educational and informative, as in general purpose knowledge, I make it for free. Now things that require me doing active research and/or providing my specific expertise, those are fair to charge for.
Yes, when I need to research deeper, invest in resources, and dedicate a significant amount of time, then I think it is fair to charge a fee for the product. But a weekly publication where I communicate my takes, experiences, and advices as a hobby is not the case. I think time, energy, and money are the main factors. There are bounds for the amount of time, energy, and money that a free product can consume from me.
I like this, I'll quote it directly 😁
After much consideration, I think I'm gonna offer a paid tier so folks can access Saturday/Sunday posts. This is what sits right with me:
Folks who are free will still get a thoughtful piece every day (sounds like I am bragging, but I'm literally just saying I'm putting a couple of hours of thinking into each daily post).
Folks who pay a monthly rate (probably $10 a month) can get Saturday and Sunday posts too.
I think most folks who pay for the service will do so because they want to support me, more so than getting those extra 2 days or whatever. Folks who are members of the Tech Writers Stack, let me know (once I pull the trigger) if you would like to get those weekend emails. I don't think the content will be substantially different from the weekday posts, but that could evolve over time.
This will probably work for me, but not for most folks. Fingers crossed!
Oh yeah, I have a website that's much more on the technical side (BJJ related) - www.bjjpath.com. I accept Stripe payments over there, completely on a voluntary basis. "Pay if you want."
Around 2005-2007, I wrote a handful of articles for a site called ONLamp. You might remember it. They paid $300 IIRC per article, and for the student I was, this was awesome.
Later, maybe around 2010-2012, when I was using Blogger, I made an experiment with AdSense. Then I stopped writing for a bit. And when I came back to look at my own blog a few weeks (months?) later, I was horrified by how spammy the site felt and how bad the ads were, so I disabled it right away and never turned it back on. Zero earnings.
Last year, while I was still at Microsoft, I onboarded the full-form RSS feed of my blog into the Microsoft Start Partners Hub pilot. This made me $100 for just one article that somehow went popular in that platform, which was kinda nice. Literally just pennies since then though.
Last week, I tried the Amazon affiliates link for the post I wrote about a book review. $15 total, which is almost 0, but it was nice to see that a couple dozen people will get to enjoy the same book I read.
I've enabled paid subscriptions in my new Substack, but only to "support my writing", which I doubt will get me any paid subscriber whatsoever. In any case, I don't like the idea to gate posts behind a paywall. But maybe I could/should for some? Maybe things like the "monthly links review" that I've started writing could be subscribers-only, given that these articles are not really worthy of "open knowledge", are very contextual, and are something you would expect from a periodic publication.
This is an incredible story, thanks for sharing your experience ;)