The Blogger Mom, In Your Face
Apr 12 2008
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on Thursday, April 10, 2008 called The Blogger Mom, In Your Face written by Sue Shellenbarger featuring none other than the most well known mom blogger on the Internet today: Dooce. She has been blogging for close to 7 years now…before most people (including myself) even knew what a blog was! I got the opportunity to meet Heather Armstrong (a.k.a Dooce) at SXSW and exchange a few words with her after she finished her panel. She is such a down to earth person.
I think it’s great that the WSJ has chosen to highlight a mommy blogger who according to the article might be making as much as $40,000 per month on ad revenue for her blog! Wow!! It’s not without its downfalls though because full time blogging for that kind of money is a crazy, often stressful job. I blog very part time (3 or so posts per week) so I can’t say I can relate to the stress of full time professional blogging, but I can certainly imagine it…especially if I had to post original, often personal content every day like Dooce does.
According to the WSJ article, “Among the Web’s 200,000-plus bloggers on parenting and family, few have succeeded to the extent of Ms. Armstrong; countless at-home parents would love to be in her position. But less obvious is the behind-the-scenes price an at-home mom pays to shoulder her way to prominence in the blogosphere — giving up her privacy, sustained time off and any remnants of work-family boundaries at all.”
Sue Shellenbarger did a fantastic job with this article by illustrating both the ups and downs of professional blogging, unlike the recent New York Times article called In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop which emphasized primarily the negative aspects of blogging as a profession and inferred that full time blogging can be fatal. If they had mentioned how many journalists had died in the same period, then I think it might have made the article a bit less biased against blogging. Check out Marc Andreessen’s funny take on this article called The New York Times Covers Blogging including statements like “Bloggers Have Bad Breath,” “Bloggers Have Herpes,” “Hitler Probably Blogged,” and “The Bloggers Have WMD.”
Other mommy bloggers that were highlighted in the WSJ article are:
5minutesformom.com
designmom.com
parenthacks.com
scribbit.blogspot.com
fussy.org
notesfromthetrenches.com
stirrup-queens.blogspot.com
izzymom.com
suburbanbliss.net
Asha Dornfest at Parent Hacks linked to a guest post on my blog about traveling with a baby and I saw a significant amount of traffic because of her mention, which goes to show that she definitely deserves to be on this list!
If you think there are a lot of mommy bloggers, you should check out Twitter because there are a ton of mommy tweeters out there. In fact, Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home just did a post listing the Moms on Twitter and the list is still growing!
I have to say it’s much easier sometimes to come up with 140 character or less tweets than full blog posts! I wonder if we can monetize our tweets. Anyone want to pay me $10, $5, $1, 25 cents for a tweet? 😀 Twitter are you listening reading?
Oh and if you haven’t already done so, please subscribe to my feed because if I survive the next 5 years of motherhood, maybe I’ll end up being one of the top mommy/entrepreneur bloggers! Unlike Dooce, however, I will have to hire someone other than my husband to help me figure out how to monetize my blog…
Author: Aruni | Filed under: blogging, mom, mother, twitter, working mom, working mother | Tags: 5 minutes for mom, asha dornfest, blogging, design mom, dooce, fussy, izzy mom, izzymom, mommy blogger, new york times, notes from the trenches, NY Times, parenthacks, scribbit, stirrup queens, subarbanbliss, sue shellenbarger, twitter, Wall Street Journal, WSJ | 4 Comments »
That is really fascinating. I love Dooce, and wow – to make $40K a month would be nice, but I don’t think it’s worth it to give up my family’s privacy. For me, there are lines to be drawn.
It’s good – and sobering – to be reminded of the flip side of blogging.
Simple Mom’s last blog post..In box: Empty! Now – My 5-Steps to Email Efficiency
Dooce is an anomaly in the world of blogging, let alone momblogs, because of how long she’s been at it, the money she makes, the traffic she gets and the fact that though she is a momblog she appeals to readers far outside her niche.
But I was gratified to see the article and how fair it was (as you pointed out) and how it gave a bit of validation to a great blogging community.
Michelle at Scribbit’s last blog post..DK and Barefoot Books Giveaway
@Simple Mom – I have to agree about not wating to give up your family’s privacy. I think it would stress me out to no end having everyone know my business!
@Michelle at Scribbit – Just as you said Dooce is an anomaly in the blogging world, it is good to remember that people like Bill Gates and Michael Dell are also anomalies in the business/tech world. She has certainly put her time in to make it to the top. In 5 years it will be interesting to see if she’s still at the top or if it’s someone else.
@Michelle at Scribbit – forgot to say congrats for making the list yourself! That must feel really neat!