Some Advice for Bloggers Kicked “Off the Dole” By Pajamas Media

Some days it’s catastrophic credit meltdowns. Some days it’s avian flu. And some days it’s global jihad that causes bloggers to wear out their keyboards typing, “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

This weekend, however, it was news of the impending demise of the Pajamas Media advertising arm that had at least one blogger proclaiming the fall of the digital sky. Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon offered the following explanation for dismantling the beleaguered ad network:

Actually that part of our business has been losing money from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole. I might too. [What’s their beef? I thought most of them were free marketeer libertarians or something.-ed. Go figure.]

Protein Wisdom blogger Jeff Goldstein is one of the aforementioned kickers and screamers:

What this means is that as of April 1, I am officially out of work. So save going to a pay model, this site will likely have to shut down.

Small price to pay for helping PJM pick up an audience and credibility during its “formative years.

Other PJM bloggers were less distressed. The Anchoress and Ace are disappointed, but ready to plan their next moves, and Allahpundit is taking the loss in stride (so one can only assume he’s been abducted and replaced by a non-Eeyore.) Neo-neocon isn’t surprised (and gets points for the Hitchhiker’s Guide reference), and Rob at Say Anything actually seemed sort of pleased to get out from under the PJM contract. No reaction yet from most other blogs in the Pajamas Media network.

I have a lot of sympathy for these bloggers. I’ve been self-employed in online marketing for almost four years, and the industry is often hair-rippingly frustrating and unpredictable. But that’s exactly why the “Pajamas Media or Bust” revenue model was ill-advised and simply not viable in the long term.

That said, there’s no need for Chicken Little impressions. The demise of the PJM ad network is not a reason for affected bloggers to hoard Ramen and dust off their camping gear. Instead, it is an opportunity for them to reassess their income goals and strategies.

There are three things the PJM network bloggers ought to consider immediately if they want their sites to generate decent income:

Ad Diversification

Putting all your eggs in a single advertising network’s basket is asking for trouble, even if that network is financially solvent. I know bloggers who have lost 100 percent of their income overnight, even when their ads are served by stable companies like Google. An accidental violation of their terms of service and you’re out the door, no second chances.

It’s time to decide: is your blog a hobby or a business? If it’s a business, it’s essential to diversify revenue sources, never relying on a single company to provide all of your earnings. Branch out to affiliate networks like Commission Junction, Copeac, and Neverblue and contextual ad services like Google Adsense. Pajamas Media and BlogAds are not the be all and end all. Also explore private ad sales and RSS feed monetization. There are as many opportunities to acquire advertisers as there are active blogs on the Internet if you make the effort to find them.

In other words, it’s time to hustle.

Experimentation

Especially if your blog is meeting your earnings expectations, it’s easy to grow complacent, and let’s face it, lazy when it comes to increasing revenue. Get too comfortable with how things are going and you’ll be the one writing a “Goodbye Cruel World” post announcing your blogging End of Days.

Experimentation is key. I’ve seen a blogger more than triple her revenue by implementing a seemingly negligible change in the color of a contextual ad. Contrary to common practice, I’ve watched the earnings for a site double by reducing the number of ad units on each page. And I’ve seen the ad click through rate increase 500 percent when a blogger switched to a different WordPress theme. If you aren’t experimenting and testing, you’re probably leaving money on the table.

Forget the Ads

Evaluate less direct ways of monetizing traffic. Consider Michelle Malkin’s eponymous blog. Obviously she’s running PJM ads, but her blog is also a high traffic advertisement for her books, articles, and speaking engagements, all of which contribute to the development of Michelle Malkin as a brand. The more popular her blog, the more in demand she is for news segments and the more copies she’ll sell each time she publishes a book. Sure, not every blogger is as telegenic as Michelle Malkin, but talented writers with large, devoted audiences have plenty of opportunities in print media if they seek them out.

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GayPatriot, Neo-neocon, and Rightwing Nuthouse, all PJM network bloggers, offer some of the most thoughtful political analysis on the right side of the blogosphere. While those are among my favorites, many of the affected bloggers have huge followings and would be sorely missed if they closed up shop without first taking the business side of blogging seriously. Here’s hoping they turn this potential financial blow into an opportunity for even greater success.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on February 2, 2009

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Michael Steele Accepts RNC Chairmanship

Today is a good day to be a Republican.

Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele has been selected as the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. After six ballots, Steele won the election with 91 votes, beating out incumbent Mike Duncan, Ken Blackwell, Katon “All White Country Club” Dawson, and Saul “Gay Baiter” Anuzis.

Steele is an inclusive, big tent Republican who has what it takes to lead the Party with integrity and focus. He brings the enthusiasm, experience, and personality necessary to unify and strengthen the Republican Party.

Congratulations to Chairman Michael Steele and kudos to the RNC members who elected a fine man and the right candidate for the job.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on January 30, 2009

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Will Republicans Get An Inclusive RNC Chair?

At the height of Palinmania, liberal feminist author Rebecca Walker wrote a piece for The Huffington Post boldly calling for a bigger feminist tent. She criticized the “habitual distancing of women [like Sarah Palin] who don’t serve the progressive feminist agenda” and addressed “the necessity of finding commonality with women who don’t hold progressive views.”

You can imagine how well that went over with the “progressive” HuffPo crowd.

Many commenters dismissed Walker’s ideas. They reveled childishly in the opportunity to smear Palin with the usual chorus of “she’s not a real woman” and “she doesn’t get to call herself a feminist.” Also included, a generous sprinkling of “she’s a terrible mother,” “conservative women are tools of the patriarchy,” and the ever popular insult, “Bush in a skirt.”

I’m reminded of the venomous responses to Walker’s HuffPo post as I consider the current state of the RNC Chair race. Many of the 168 voting Committee members are clamoring for a uniformly conservative Party that brands social moderates, libertarians, and centrists as ideologically impure. Even those who pay lip service to Ronald Reagan’s notion of a big GOP tent seem comfortable marginalizing Republicans whose conservative bona fides don’t measure up to their questionable standards.

Minnesota GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis donned his RINO-huntin’ gear early in the race for national Chair and set his sights on Michael Steele, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. James Richardson explains:

Shortly after launching his campaign for RNC Chairman in mid-November, Saul Anuzis, the beleaguered MIGOP Chairman, began circulating news of LGBT (read: moderate) support for former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele to prominent social conservative committee members.

Steele’s past work with Christine Todd Whitman’s centrist Republican Leadership Council, his dissenters argue, disqualifies him to lead the Republican Party as the faithful opposition to President Obama’s social agenda and economic recovery plan.

Later, when the Log Cabin Republicans reached out to each of the RNC candidates, an Anuzis operative named Katie Packer responded on his behalf, calling him “a reasonable individual who does not seek to grow the party by dividing it.”

Right. So first Anuzis uses gay support as a not-so-subtle litmus test to indicate an opponent’s failings, and then his rep cozies up to the Log Cabin Republicans. But wait, there’s more:

After news of Team Anuzis’ correspondence broke, Saul quickly distanced himself from Packer and said he had approved no such outreach, nor did he seek Log Cabin’s endorsement. Still working to build inroads in the social conservative community, Saul simply couldn’t afford the perception that he was seeking to “grow the party” with the help of, gasp, gay and moderate Republicans.

I understand that many Americans, President Obama included, do not support full equality for gays and lesbians, but is it really required political posturing for an RNC Chair candidate to publicly distance himself from gay outreach? Is Anuzis worried his RNC buddies will think he picked up GRIDS cooties from contact with the gays?

Last November, Senator McCain won more of the gay vote than any other Republican presidential candidate has ever received – 1.3 million votes and 27% of the LGBT vote, according to exit polls. Let’s hope we can continue that trend with an RNC Chair who understands and believes in a big Republican tent, not one who makes nice to gay Republicans and moderates in private while publicly rejecting their support and excluding them from Party politics.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on January 30, 2009

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Are Liberal Gays Losing Their Hope-on for Obama?

It’s getting tough to keep up with the spastic narrative of love, hate, passion, and betrayal that reflects gay liberal sentiment toward President-elect Barack Obama. On any given day he could be messiah or pariah, depending on anything from the gay-friendliness of his cabinet to how often he drops the word “gay” into speeches. The liberal blogosphere is constantly abuzz with speculation as to whether this man on whom so many staked their hopes and dreams will be the progressive savior of the liberal gay community. Will he offer change they can believe in, or just More of the Sameâ„¢?

This schizophrenic attitude was most apparent among Barack Obama’s fair weather friends in the liberal gay community when they became outraged at his choice of Proposition 8 supporter Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation. For days they decried his betrayal of progressives, lamented their failure to achieve genuine political clout, and railed against Obama’s cunning duplicity. They employed the foul language and vitriol normally reserved for Rethuglicans, godbag fundies, and anyone with the last name Bush or Cheney.

And then hopey days were here again.

With the announcement that gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson would be delivering the invocation at the beginning of Inauguration Week, the fickle far left warmed to Obama as quickly as they had turned on him. They grew giddy when Whitehouse Press Secretary Robert Gibbs promised a forthcoming repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and gay activist leaders seemed appeased by the Obama transition team’s ramped up LGBT outreach efforts.

Ideological treason forgiven, it would seem.

But not so fast. Even as Obama was giving gay folks a cursory shout out during his speech at the Lincoln Memorial Sunday afternoon, a renewed movement to kick Obama to the proverbial curb arose when it surfaced that Gene Robinson’s invocation was not televised with the rest of the festivities. Even most of those present on the National Mall were unable to hear his prayer due to speaker malfunctions, and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC was never introduced or identified by name when they sang with Josh Groban at the event.

Hoodwinked and bamboozled again!

Obama was for gays before he was against them and he’ll be for them again soon, his aides will explain. But how long will gays and lesbians ride this emotional roller coaster before they grow sick of the bones they’re occasionally thrown? How long until they realize the Defense of Marriage Act isn’t going anywhere on Obama’s watch and he won’t be revamping the federal tax code to benefit same-sex couples any time soon? How long until all that cultish hope evaporates permanently and liberal gays realize that rumors of impending change have been greatly exaggerated?

Published by Jenn Q. Public on January 19, 2009

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Unlicensed Reporter Heading to Israel

Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher, derided by the angry far left for being an “unlicensed plumber,” is now an unlicensed war correspondent for Pajamas TV. The AP reports:

The Ohio man, who became famous during the U.S. presidential campaign after asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for a conservative Web site called pjtv.com.

Dubbed “Joe the Plumber” by McCain’s campaign, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher was held up as an example of an American worker who would be hurt economically by Obama’s election.

Wurzelbacher says he’ll spend 10 days covering the fighting and explaining why Israeli forces are mounting attacks against Hamas.

He tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants “go over there and let their ‘Average Joes’ share their story.”

Michelle Malkin has begun the countdown to death wishes aimed at Joe The Plumber from his far left “admirers.” I’m taking bets on who will be the first to suggest he’s heading to Israel to help Bristol Palin cover up the exact date of Tripp Palin’s birth.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on January 7, 2009

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Not My Cup of Tea …

… but New York based SerendipiTea is hoping that if President-elect Barack Obama sends thrills up your leg, their new Inaugural Blend will be yours. Predictably (and offensively) enough, “OBAMA 44 ~ Inaugural Blend ” is a Kenyan black tea with a taste of all American apple pie and just a hint of Hawaii. Here’s the promotional email I received yesterday:

SerendipiTea & TEA A Magazine Commemorate History

OBAMA 44 ~ Inaugural Blend
Kenyan Black Tea, Apple, Mango & Cinnamon

Commemorate this Historic 2009 Inauguration with a Tea toast for a Change.
Enjoy a brisk, clear cup of straight-forward Kenyan Black
blended with a taste of All-American Apple Pie
& a hint of Hawaii (Apples, go-Mango & Cinnamon).
For the maverick lurking within, add a drop of Milk or Soy….
Then settle in to observe or jump for joy.
$10.00/4 oz Box Retail approx. 50 cups

Just don’t brew your Inaugural Blend for too long – it might lead to bitterness.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on January 7, 2009

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