paper graffiti

I think it’s great that people can make money from their blogs.  I applaud anyone who is able to take their love of writing and transform it into something lucrative.  It’s not an easy task, nor is it always a fun one, but making a living as a writer–of anything!–is very rewarding.

What I don’t applaud is the “get rich quick”-esque message that seems to be more and more prevalent in the blogosphere, and lately even my specific little corner of it.  I am so sick of hearing about “monetizing blogs” and “affiliate links” and other such things that I could scream, mostly because lately I’m not hearing them out of the mouths of people that I actually consider to be real bloggers.  Making money blogging is great, but I sometimes have a problem with blogging to make money.

Many of the blogs that I have seen lately that are specifically created for the purpose of making money are nothing more than linkbait.  There is no actual content, the content is merely a vehicle for as many links as possible that will gain hits.  In my mind, these so-called “bloggers” are no better than spammers.  Thankfully, they are easy to avoid and easy to spot, but even so they really bother me.

Creating content from scratch is hard.  REALLY HARD.  Being a writer is hard, even when you’re good at it and when you love it.  I almost feel like the linkbait bloggers are spitting in the faces of those of us who write merely for the joy of writing.  I’ve caught more than one of these spammy linkbaiters scraping my blog, which really gets my dander up.  If you can’t be bothered to create real content of your own, keep your grubby thieving hands off of mine!

Like I said, more power to ANYONE who can make even a little bit of money off of their LEGITIMATE blog, thanks to a partnership, ad revenue from high readership, or whatever situation works best for them.  Some of my favorite blogs and bloggers have done very well for themselves in these aspects and I am proud to call myself a reader and a fan.  I would personally love to be a full-time blogger, it sounds like so much fun!  But these other “bloggers” are in another category entirely, and I wish they’d just go away.

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