A private blogger not blogging for money

Not for the money

As recently as Tuesday, I was asked once again if I was generating any income from my blog, to which I answered no. I could say that I have been asked this question consistently from around the third year of my blog being in existence.

There was a time I thought I could generate passive income by allowing advertisements on my blog, but more than just upsetting the general look-and-feel of the blog with adverts interspersed in places I would rather they did not, it was nigh on impossible to control and manage the content being shared from my blog space, I had no alternative but to remove the feature.

On another note, I do not consider myself that much of a self-promoter or influencer that depends on the oxygen of traffic, footfall, likes, and comments to survive. I write because I like writing about things, that I have an audience that is just one of good fortune and interest rather than some deliberate effort to please or attract custom.

Always worth my while

However, I have found myself in certain forums where I have talked about my blog and from that garnered interest from others to read and view my musings. A blog in its 20^th year is probably more than a novelty, to me, it is also a thing of pride that it started during a time when everyone seemed to have something to say until they got disinterested or distracted by some other trend. I continued regardless.

I can even remember there was a time that a website titled, ‘How Much Is My Blog Worth?’ existed, you keyed in your blog URL and it produced some arbitrary figure, at least for my amusement more than anything else. In some cases, I have been asked to write for others, a task that has proved quite onerous compared to what I would generally publish on my blog.

It is my space

It is the autonomy and control that I enjoy, no one can review, edit, or alter what I have written on my blog, and as I am not beholden to anyone in terms of monetary or market demands, the freedom to express myself in the frame of reference of how I see and understand things is untrammelled. That does not mean I am licentious and reckless, as I can appreciate how publishing over 20 years might just have some historical viewpoint that might offend someone.

I have also been advised that from all that I have already written, I probably have enough to publish books on different themes, subjects, life and so on. Though my seeming ability to knock out blogs does not seem to have transferred to the needed skill to write long-form stories you would find in a novel. My autobiography languishes in bits and pieces strung together on a premise I cannot begin to assess well enough for any coherence.

To take the words of Tina Turner and adapt them to my situation, I am just a Private Blogger not blogging for money but doing just what I want to do. Then again, I am open to ideas, including those towards commemorating 20 years of blogging in December 2023.