So you want to be a professional blogger

It's been ten days since I updated my Parents blog, and any lingering sadness I felt in saying good-bye to that Web site has been replaced with pure, unadulterated joy over being able to watch Tori Amos footage on YouTube after the kids are asleep without that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to get to work. I still visit the site now and then, and my stomach drops when I get an error message and realize today could be the day all those entries are lost to the blogosphere forever, but then I hit refresh and see Nathan's seven-month update and I check for more comments and then I disappear until the next time I remember to check. I've revamped my About page and Greatest Hits links to update URLs and tweak mention of that job to reflect past tense, and I created a new category for the 14 posts I received permission to repost here, each one featuring the original Parents timestamp so new readers dipping into the archives will read them in the correct order. In short, I'm moving on.

Anyway, now that the proverbial dust has settled a bit, I thought now would be a good time to talk about my experience with professional blogging. Though I'm enjoying the downtime now, I would definitely consider taking other freelance jobs in the future, and it'll be worthwhile to document what I enjoyed about writing for Parents and what I wish I'd handled differently.

 

Let's break up all this talky talk with pictures of my kids, shall we? They'll mostly be ones I posted on Parents that never made it here. This shot was featured with Kara's 15-month update earlier this year.

I was contacted by one of Parents' online editors in the summer of 2007, shortly after Amalah announced my pregnancy on a blog she wrote for Club Mom highlighting other mommy-type blogs. When I got the e-mail asking if I would be interested in blogging three times a week for X dollars a month (I'll talk about the money later), I was like, "Does Keifer Sutherland have a sexy voice?" (I was really into 24 at the time.) Of course I was interested. So we arranged a phone call after work one day for me to get more information. The logistics weren't set in stone, but the biggest take-away I got was that they wanted me to move my entire personal blog over to Parents.com. Even though they didn't want me posting about Tragic Love Friday or my shoe collection or any of the other zillion non-parenting topics I wrote about on a regular basis. Even though they were new to the blogging scene and didn't have a strategy in place as to how the blogs would be integrated into the rest of the visitors' Web site experience (or if they did, it was never communicated to us). Even though they had zero knowledge of appropriate blogging platforms and chose the most cumbersome tool alive for managing our sites.

For all of those reasons, I declined their offer. I had spent three long years getting to a place where I felt comfortable in my own Internet skin, and no amount of exposure was worth compromising that. I did, however, offer to write a completely separate mommy blog for Parents, an offer they accepted, and a few weeks later, I received my contract.

Here's where I fucked up.

Up until this point, I felt pretty confident in my ability to work through the negotiating process. I was proud of myself for ironing out the details in a way that best met my needs intead of accepting the original terms at face value. I wasn't afraid to ask questions or seek clarification on particulars that were unclear. So when I read that all of the content I would produce for Parents would be solely owned by the publisher to use pretty much however they wanted, for as long as they wanted (no time limit), I don't know why my level-headness went MIA, but it did, and I signed on the dotted line, anyway.

Wait. That's not true. If I'm being honest, I do know why. At that point, I was more invested in the financial aspect of the blog than I was when they first made the offer, as Luke and I talked about paying off the Cobalt before Kara was born, and I was afraid they'd think I wasn't worth hiring if I kept pestering them with questions. To my credit, I did make a phone call to the actual contract writer, to make sure the terms were as I interpreted them. They were. And a few months later I made sure that I retained rights to any photos before I posted a single one, because hell no did I want my baby's face included in any publications, advertising, etc. without my permission. But other than that, that was it. Ever the optimist, I kept an eye on how other online employers worked with bloggers when their own sites went down (i.e. Club Mom), and I was happy to see that bloggers were allowed to keep their archives, thinking, Why wouldn't Parents do the same? But just in case, I decided to write the blog in such a way that I wouldn't miss it when it was pulled offline. Anything I thought I'd want access to was saved for my personal blog. In my head, that translated into writing about the more nitty-gritty aspects of parenthood as well as what life was like as a working mom married to a stay-at-home dad.

Is that a shitty way to approach a job? Yes. Did it work? No. Sure, I covered a lot of minutiae that I'm okay writing off, but I also shared a lot of important stories at Parents, the most important one being Kara's birth story. To this day, that is the only set of entries I wish I had never published there in the first place. If I had been forced to choose four posts instead of 14 to carry over, those would have been the ones, hands-down. Plus, I became so busy with work and motherhood that I barely had time to post the occasional photo here, much less anything of substance. Parents had become my "real" blog, whether I wanted it to or not.

It wasn't until this year that I learned at least one other blogger--and probably the only one, from what I can tell--made a different deal, one that involved a smaller paycheck but transferred full ownership of her entire Parents archive to her. Mad props to this woman for having the wherewithal to have the contract reviewed by one of her lawyer friends and the foresight to know she would want full control of those entries, whether she reposted them to her personal blog or let them collect dust on a hard drive, never to be seen again. Hindsight is 20/20, peeps. For reals.

 

Nathan at six weeks old back when he was screaming all the live-long day. Sometimes the football hold was the only way to console him.

I ended up blogging for 25 months on Parents.com and survived two rounds of downsizing. In terms of stats, I was never the highest-ranked--sometimes I was number two, sometimes four, depending on whether you were looking at the number of visitors or overall page views--but my traffic was always consistent and respectable. I had a good run, and I'm glad I accepted the job. But I wish I'd had a better sense of the big picture and felt more empowered to not sign a contract I wasn't happy with. And as it turns out, Parents is not giving us full access to our archives. I suppose I should be grateful they were willing to work out a separate permissions agreement at all, but really, why not just offer up the whole shebang? What value will any of those blog entries be out of context? But that's the contract I signed, so them's the breaks. 

I'm sure it's not just the bloggers with regrets over how the sites were managed. When The Powers That Be look back on how they handled this, I imagine they'll kick themselves for a lot of things. Bloggers were always paid a flat fee per month no matter what their ranking, and we were allowed to post whenever we wanted so long as we had three physical entries to show for the week. There was no incentive for us to be especially creative with our entries or bring in more traffic or even post during the week, when more people were online. I know I was especially terrible about that; at least half of my entries were posted on the weekend because that's when I had the time. They also didn't care about comments, at least in the beginning. When I first complained about the clunky log-in process required to leave a comment and how that resulted in fewer comments overall, I was basically told the paycheck would have to be enough. Everyone at Parents was nice enough to work with, so I don't think she meant to sound snotty; however, it was clear she and the rest of the online team didn't have a firm grasp on just how important comments are to building a strong blog community.

Lastly, I want to talk about the money. There's not a lot of money talk in Internetland regarding how much bloggers should be paid for their writing, and since my contract didn't say I couldn't reveal the amount of my check, I am stating it here. I was paid $750 a month to blog three times a week--six cents more than the amount of my mortgage--with no requirements regarding length or subject matter, so long as it related to motherhood. I could post an entry with three pictures on my lunch hour at work or I could brain dump a page and a half in Word at midnight on a Saturday in my pajamas. Despite the less than ideal contract terms, I do think we were paid fairly for work we were asked to put in, and I'm thankful they saw enough value in us to offer such a high amount right from the get-go. We shouldn't be afraid to say our blog real estate is worth something, whether somebody wants to post an ad on your site or you're being asked to write a review or you're invited to blog for a site other than your own. As Mom-101, one of my very favorite bloggers, likes to say, these companies aren't doing us any favors, and we have a right and responsibility to know what we're worth.

So! There it is. My first paid blogging gig. The money was good, but the lessons learned were priceless.

Comments

[Bren]

Can I just say that I for one am really very glad you took the job at Parents. I think I said this before but it was your Parents blog that got me into reading (many) others (as well as your entire archive! Hope you got something for all my page views!). I still look forward to your posts - regardless of how long or short, pictures or none because you are simply someone I enjoy reading!

[Liz]

I admit I rarely read your parents blog because 1)it didn't cooperate with Google Reader and 2) the log in for comments issue you noted above. BUT I was very impressed that you got paid to blog. So many people would LOVE to get paid to do something they enjoy and do anyway. So you're lucky. But the archives situation is a bummer.

[eva]

I often didn't comment on Parents but read all of your entries there just like I do here! That said, I have always preferred this blog to your Parents blog :)

It is so interesting to know the numbers. Why we find income-speak so taboo is beyond me. I always wondered exactly how much your Parents gig paid, since you mentioned many times that the additional income was so helpful. I'm glad it came along at such an expensive point in your life, and that I didn't miss a singly entry!

You could definitely work for a site helping them figure things out a bit better...if they'd had you in the planning and development department maybe their blogs would have survived!

ps - I found you through the club mom shout-out courtesy of Amalah too!

[r+k+mama]

I really liked your Parents blog, but always liked your personal blog better because here you seemed like a real person. (Did that make sense?) I guess I just felt you were speaking from your heart here and speaking more to an audience on the Parent's blog- which makes total sense.
I also like this blog better because you swear. I loves me some sassy Bree :)

[Christina]

I didn't comment much either but read every single post. I loved that it was a way to keep up w/ you while you were away from your personal blog, but I missed you here! I want to know more than just who is up with a cold, I missed the regular Freema!
I'm sad that your family lost that income- that part sucks- I'm happy that your back "over here" where I much prefer your true style!

[Jen L.]

I'm so glad you shared the ins and outs of this experience with us. I'm with the others--I read every single entry over on Parents, but always felt like I was getting more of the real Bree here. This is your home.

[Operation Pink Herring]

Thank you so much for sharing all this! I find it incredibly interesting, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Major props for not just signing the contract as-is... I wouldn't have even realized that requesting revisions was an option.

[katie]

I Had never head a blod before in my life until i came across your parents. YOU are the reason I read alot of blogs now, I commented once in a while, but by the end I felt like you were a friend even though Ive never met you! I was so happy when I found this blog and I really enjoy it! I wanted to ask you, how do you like living in Indianaplois (thats where you live isnt it?) I live in Toledo, Oh and we HAVE it, its just not a great place for kids and Ive heard alot of great things about Indi. Look forward to reading you!

[Cookie]

Your Parents blog was one of the first I started reading and why I now read a lot of other blogs and keep one of my own. Although I wish I had started a lot sooner. I also discovered your personal blog through your Parents blog. I love your writing at Parents, but always wanted to know more than just what was going on with your children, as much as I like to hear what's going on with your children. As a working parent of young children I often feel isolated, and the blogging community really helps me to feel like I'm not alone. And it's all because I discovered your blog on Parents.

[AJU5's Mom]

Like others, I read the Parents blog regularly, but commenting there was just weird. it didn't feel as natural as it does here for some reason (maybe due to the lack of others commenting). And, I would have never thought they wouldn't let you have your archives. I could see restrictions (like not posting them), but I would have thought they would have given you a copy just for you!

[Frema]

AJU5'S Mom: When I say "access," I mean access to post on my personal blog. I typed all of my entries in Word before publishing them, so technically speaking, I do have access to the actual words. I just can't do anything with most of them!

[Christy]

As another Parents blogger and former ClubMom blogger you couldnt have published a more relevant post.

I am NOT the blogger who thought to retain rights of my archives and I'm STILL trying to convince the legal team there to reconsider ownership. Every morning I wake up and eagerly check email since I'm 4 hours behind NY here in AK, excepting AT LEAST a response, like we got your email and we'll get back to you. But nothing.

During my two years with Parents it was my only blog so two years of stories, including Elias's first independent steps at age 5, my miscarriage, and all the ups and downs inbetween--how do I choose which to take with me?. I still havent read through to pick out the 10-15 b/c I just what them all. And I'm ranting in your comment section right now, Frema, b/c you opened up a vein.

In my latest email to Parents i shared that one of my readers had asked if I'd have access to my archives so she could share some of the posts with her son, who also has CP, when he is older...I mean isn't there more value in that than in a corporation retaining rights to words they will never again use?!? Since ClubMom handed over our rights when they folded I just assumed the same would be true and I know I'm the idiot who signed the contract and a contract is a contract but WTF!

Ok thanks for letting me dump. Like you I will miss the salary, especially since with my high-risk pregnancy i lost my dayjob too, but I do NOT miss the annoying pop-up ads, log-ins, or frustrating writing "tools". And yes, I like that I can write when I want to and not because I have to...

I suppose I should wade through my archives now so I can at least bring some with me. Sorry for the ramble. THANKS for writing this post.

[Trilby]

I stumbled across you on Parents and I'm so glad I did. I enjoyed your writing over there and followed a link to this blog. I'm glad you shared some of the ins and outs of your experience at Parents with your loyal readers. :)

[Erika]

I am crying over your mortgage payment. Mine is almost 4 times that. You guys definitely did it right!

[Jenny]

Ditto to everything above...never registering on Parents in order to comment because of the hassle, the fact that you are more yourself on this blog...
So sorry to know of how much you had to lose - that have been SUCH a relief to know each month that check perfectly covered your mortgage. You should have had Parents send it directly to your lender! ;)
Glad you're back here more regularly!

[daddyd]

Over all the Parent's job was a real learning experiment. The best course of action can, not most of the time, be picked the first time. There will be errors to be learned from over the course of time. Good job on the Parent's blog. Its time has come and gone. They made that choice. I think that they made a bad business choice. But that is too bad for them. You are moving on and your readers are going with you.