February 26, 2005
kottke micropatrons
Jason Kottke, one of the world’s most-read bloggers, has quit his job and wants to make a living blogging full-time.
He shan’t take advertising, nor charge people money to read his stuff (Good plan. Who remembers Micropayments? That’s right. Nobody.).
Instead, he wants his readers to donate money, a-la Public Radio. “Kottke Micropatrons”. Groovy.
Ah, the ol’ “Quitting my day job to go do something insane” plan. Been there many times myelf.
If anyone is capable of pulling it off, he is, so I’m excited by him taking the plunge and I am wishing him Godspeed.
Rule of thumb with taking-the-plunge-wonderful-insane projects: Figure out the ABSOLUTE MINUMUM amount of money you will need to earn in order to make the project viable. Now divide that number by twelve. That’s usally how much you end up making.
Well, this should be an eye-opening experience for Mr. Kottke either way.
Personally, it comes off to me as “panhandling”. And no, this is not flaming hypocrisy on my part, as I provide the methodology to donate to our site specifically to offset the bandwidth load associated with our podcasts. In this case, Kottke is looking to solely subsist on blog donations.
And the lesson that will be learned either way, is how Kottke’s “brand identity” translates into hard dollars.
I like your “insane project” financial formula. True, that.
Still, it’s been done before. In recent history, the artist of the Something Positive webcomic said that if the people who kept whining about the lack of updates would pay one year of his current salary, he’d quit his job and work on the comic fulltime. Lo and behold, all the donations added up and he quit his job.
http://www.somethingpositive.net/faq.shtml#donation
Oh, I’m sure it happens all the time, Guy.
Frankly, I think selling suits is easier
I feel like a putz, but what are micropayments?
p.s.
Ah, the ol’ “Quitting my day job to go do something insane” plan. Been there many times myelf.
ditto… kinda doing it now actually!