Thank you Jory, for bringing to the surface a topic that I've been hearing and reading about amongst us bloggers for quite some time. My view is I want to do great quality work, and I want to be compensated well for it. The more that I can do with my own blogs, the less I must depend on any other organization to help feed me, clothe me, and take care of me when I retire.

When I see sites that have ads in every corner, flashing at me, I don't think the blog owner is selling out, I think the blog owner doesn't get the balance between commercializing her content and appealing to readers. I get turned off by too many ads, the way I get turned off by driving in LA - too many billboards. If you focus too much on pushing ads in your readers faces, and not enough on making the entire experience of visiting your blog enjoyable for those readers, most likely you'll lose your audience. Hard to monetize anything if you don't have an audience.

Elise Bauer
Simply Recipes
Learning Movable Type

God, what an excellent post, Jory. I, like many other bloggers I'm sure, struggled with this very same issue, before deciding to put ads on my blog.

Why did it feel like "selling out" and why did I care? It's not like with my blog(s) I have to uphold some standard of journalistic integrity. I talk about my life, my kids, what kind of eye cream and laundry detergent I use, how I fit in to my culture, what I'm cooking...and people enjoy it. So why NOT get paid?

Like you and Elise above both say: my ads (your ads, really) cover groceries for my family and my gas bill for the month. Because of the BlogHer ad network I can take care of my family while doing something I am passionate about. I have worked for 15 years to figure out "what I want to do when I grow up." Getting paid to do it is so NOT selling out. Quite the opposite, in fact. I feel like I would be selling myself short (my talents and abilities) if I DIDN'T get paid.

Stefania Pomponi Butler
Contributing Editor, Arts & Entertainment, BlogHer

I blog:
Link TextCityMama
Link TextKimchi Mamas

Thanks for a great post, Jory.

I don't have problems with corporate sponsors for the BlogHer conference--not at all, especially since they help, I imagine, to keep conference fees affordable for attendees.

What does raise my hackles is when a sponsor doesn't do their research and TOTALLY mischaracterizes (and, I think, in this case underestimates) their audience. I'm thinking in particular of the now much-maligned Be Janes. During the final keynote on Sunday, Live Spaces left fliers on our tables about a female mountain climber who is helping women in other countries find employment (and perhaps empowerment) as trekkers and porters. That message might have reached us, and if the folks from Microsoft and Be Jane had read the BlogHer site at all, they should have picked up on our interests and delivered that pitch instead of the bubbly, poorly targeted spiel they did.

I think the Be Jane presentation in particular, but other pitches as well--the Contrex water and the teeny tiny shirts provided by the condom folks come to mind--made many women at the conference feel as if all the corporate sponsors didn't understand what we're doing at all. For example, the Contrex folks certainly didn't anticipate my fellow edublogger whipping out a water testing kit to demonstrate how incredibly hard (mineral-rich) the water was (which can lead to kidney stones).

Obviously, some sponsors did get us. Good Storm and FilmLoop seemed to understand, for example, what we do as bloggers and where our collective concerns lie.

Leslie

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Research and Academia
Proprietor, The Clutter Museum and Museum Blogging

My dh makes a living on the net.
He has/had his own news website...it started off as a hobby and got big...really big.

By selling out, so to speak,...he was able to live off the 'net....support a family.

Blogs are going the way of the early websites.
Lots of people find ways to make their hobbies lucrative.

Nothing wrong with it.

Jory, thanks for this great post that sums up the issues so much better than my meandering post did on my blog, Alembic. The critiques of commercialism at BlogHer '06 bothered me quite a bit -- specially by folks who weren't there, too -- but I wasn't able to articulate very well the reasons. You have really summed up an number of key ponts in this passage for me:

"As a writer, and as a WOMAN, I think that getting paid is a message in itself. So many women throughout my working years have knowingly taken lower-paying work, discounted fees, no advances, initially as a means to something better, but then eventually as a way of life."

Many women have a strained relationship to money -- wouldn't that be a good topic to take up at the next BlogHer? When you think about it, it's truly amazing that in the span of a year a gathering of a couple of hundred women bloggers went to 750 women who are commanding the interest of a number of companies paying attention to what they have to say.

Really Jory, great post. It's like damned if you do, damned if you don't. I heard that woman stand up in the mommyblogging panel and shriek that advertisers hate us! They're ignoring us! And yet when they pay attention, we've all "gone commercial."

You can resent the advertisers or you can wield your power. I say, buy more Dove soap, ladies.

mom101

I wrote a lengthier comment here praising your post Jory, but for some reason it didn't appear. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for a great post and for articulating what my post on Alembic meandered on about.

As for the silliness of the Be Janes adn teeny T-shirts ... I bet that performance is not likely tobe repeated next year. We are learning, and the sponsors are learning, too.

I especially like what you said about working with the companies who want to learn how to use social media to their benefit. It's those sorts of relationships that really afford us an opportunity to instigate change, particularly in areas where it would be least expected (and perhaps, most welcomed).

mothergoosemouse

Very thought provoking. In my opinion the bloggers who are really selling themselves out are the ones who are willing to blog without pay for sites that make money. I see this a lot on food sites, and it makes me feel those bloggers are undervaluing themselves. I had a site that "offered me a position" as a writer and when I inquired about pay they seemed shocked that I would expect to get paid.

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

Interesting question and it is making me realize that I make distinctions. I gladly have donated a great deal of time, effort, energy and talent to the BlogHer community because I believe in it and because I am hoping that by volunteering I can help BlogHer grow to the point where it becomes a profitable, money-making venture that can employ women.

If it were a funded, established business that built community as part of its business model (like iVillage) I would be more hesitant to donate my time so that profit could be made from my work without compensation to me. That would feel like I was undervaluing myself and "selling-out."

And you are absolutely right - I think the value of communities to corporations is a fascinating topic and one that should be explored much further.

Thanks!

Hear Hear Jory!

It's taken me a long time to get to the point I am at in my life - that I feel like I would be selling out if I did NOT do everything within my power to ensure I am laying a strong foundation for financial success in my life. (Of course, keeping integrity in line, as you so rightly point out). Of course, with the blog and site so young, I'm not raking in the dough. But my financial goals are driving my business decisions as long as they don't compromise my ultimate goals - contribution, adding value, and making a difference.

I feel like I would be selling out to my limiting beliefs, my insecurities, my fears of lack and failure, and would push away all of the gifts this life has to offer us if I didn't put my foot down and ask for what I am worth - and I'm thrilled to see that you have done the same with your book deal.

With great power comes great responsibility - and you have responsibilities to this community as well as to yourself. If you cave on either you cave on both!!

Thanks again for putting a critical topic front and center for us!

Wendy

Founder of eSelfHelp.com and eMomsatHome.com.

Passionate about self help, adding value, and living a balanced and extraordinary life.

When I became the vice president of a web development firm I knew I would be forced to "sell-out" on many issues, primarily helping to market a company which has stated its main main goal as "taking over web design." This job status has required me to act in a manner becoming of a vice president (so I essentially sell the company at every turn). Often I feel as though I AM the job, the job IS ME. But you know what? If I take this to heart I can accept my new role because that means I am passionate about what I do. There is nothing wrong with passion. If I was complaining constantly about the role this corporation has in my life, but I was still helping to market and sell the brand, then I would be at fault. I would be the definition of "sell-out." But as it stands, I enjoy this company more and more everyday, especially since I notice the change I can effect in our operations, and thus I consider myself I part of the company at the very core.

So Wendy and everyone else struggling to define themselves through their work, more power to you!

Alex (vice president of www.webmastersintl.com)

I am not a woman, but I consider myself pro-feminist and my significant other would oblige.

And, further, I think men can be not only pro-feminist, but actually feminists themselves.

I have had a post brewing in me for ages about money. I'm heading off in a few minutes to a quarterly executive board meeting for the California Democratic Party, where I represent my assembly district. I am often really unhappy with the vibe I get at such meetings when it comes to money.

It's very "money is the root of all evil" (and coming often form folks who are pretty well-heeled.) And it very often has this patronizing attitude that "working class" people are somehow ennobled by being less well-off than wealthier people.

I really think it's possible to be paid to do something you believe in. I really think money doesn't always corrupt.

And some day soon I hope to have some money and prove it!!!

(And some day I'll write that long post about money too.)

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz