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Here we are with Post #3 of this series. And I owe a big debt of thanks to Elizabeth Drouillard for helping me find a coherent way to express all the things I wanted to say. If you’re interested in the rest of the series, here’s Post #1 and Post #2.
As promised, in this post, I’ll talk about the non-monetary benefits of Free.
…But I want to dig a little deeper than merely listing the ways that Free benefits us, because I suspect that we’re all more or less aware of them. Instead, maybe it’s better to look at the non-money side of Free from two different perspectives: that of someone who produces Free, and that of someone who consumes Free.
Image by almccon, via Flickr
So, for producers of Free…
I’ll be the first to say that creating Free stuff and giving it to your community is both lots of fun and extremely rewarding. Free can bring us blog-friends. It can bring us opportunities to contribute to books, magazines and websites – sometimes, even, for pay. Free can bring us lots of readers and blog traffic. It also brings us a joy in sharing things we love making with like-minded souls.
(If you’re interested, I posted a while back about all the joys and opportunities this very blog has brought me.)
I think, too, that when you’re new to blogging or new to running a small crafty business, Free gives you the space and discipline to build your skills. The more Free tutorials you make, the better you’ll get at making tutorials, until eventually you’re good enough to offer this service professionally – or self-publish your work. The more you write for Free, the better you’ll get at writing. Ditto for photography, illustration, and any crafty skill you want to name.
Instead of toiling away in our studios waiting to be discovered, we have the opportunity to share our growth with others, and use their feedback to become better and better. That’s immensely powerful.
Image by richardoyork, via Flickr
…But it’s also very likely that, after you’ve been growing your skills via Free for a while, you’ll reach a point where one of two things happens:
• You simply run out of time or inclination to keep making Free, and move on to other interests.
• You find that you can’t keep putting your time into making Free, because it encroaches too much on the time you also need to make a living.
So, referring back to the first post in this series: early on, the time and effort you put into making Free are well-compensated by the growth you’re experiencing in your skills and community. The equation is balanced at first, and then it begins to unbalance.
Image by Iain Browne, via Flickr
I have tried to give a lot of Free to this community for nearly six years now. And I am here to tell you, there comes a point where you simply have to look at all the hours that are going into Free, and think about how you’re being compensated for all that effort. Sooner or later, no matter how wonderful the projects are, and no matter how fun it is to participate with your fellow crafters, you get worn out.
It’s hard to imagine this happening from such a joyous experience as sharing Free, and it may take years for it to happen to you, but eventually, it happens.
So the question is, what comes next?
Image by World of Oddy, via Flickr
Now, if you’re a consumer of Free…
Let’s face it, we’re ALL consumers of Free. How can we not be? Free is absolutely everywhere online. Are you using a free email service? A free blogging platform? A free email newsletter service? Did you learn to whip stitch or cast on for free from a YouTube video? Yeah, me too.
There’s so much Free, in fact, that it would be extremely hard for most of us to try and pay for all of the stuff we depend on for Free. That doesn’t make you or me or anyone else a bad person. We’re just living, I think, in a bubble of Free right now. The web at large is struggling to find the same balance I’m talking about – how to give something away while still finding enough compensation to keep it up.
Image by Sweet One, via Flickr
The other part of this discussion is that unfortunately, so much of what goes on behind the Free we enjoy is invisible to us. Imagine for a moment the last craft-blog tutorial you scanned through. There’s a lot of human effort there:
- The blogger had to design the project.
- The blogger had to make a prototype.
- Then, he or she had to set up and photograph each step of the process.
- Then came the writing of all the steps.
- And then, the editing – both of the photos and the text.
- And finally, uploading all that material to a blog and arranging it so it’s easy to follow.
Think about your free email service. Or your free blogging platform. Or the video that taught you how to use Twitter. Or Twitter itself. We may take in the content of a web page in a matter of seconds or minutes, but it’s also the product of hours and hours of someone else’s work.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of an army of people we’ll likely never know, we consumers of Free are absolutely wealthy in access to knowledge and inspiration. Do we want this era to continue?
Image by moriza, via Flickr
Well, then I think we consumers need to find ways to balance more equations. And this doesn’t have to happen with money all the time. You never know when the friendly comment you leave on someone’s blog will make the difference between them quitting blogging or continuing. You never know when your five dollar purchase in someone’s online store will make the difference in them being able to pay the gas bill this month. You never know when the link you share on Twitter or Facebook will set off a chain of events that might really help someone’s career. No matter who you are, you are a crucial part of this community.
In other words, if you’re still lurking on the web, then it’s time to stop. We’re all eagerly waiting for your friendly voice of support. You don’t have to say anything fancy, but if you’re getting something good from all this Free, please – speak up!
(I think it bears repeating here: there’s so much Free out there, none of us can possibly compensate every single bit we’re enjoying – even through non-money means. We all have to make some hard choices as to who we can support, and how.)
Image by El Negro Magnifico, via Flickr
…But with that said, if you’ll forgive me, I want to say something just a little incendiary.
As I mentioned earlier, producers of Free, over time, become worn out. Realistically, if all the producers who are struggling with the sustainability of Free right now simply quit blogging tomorrow, there’d be a whole new crop of producers who are more than happy to crank out Free. When they’re exhausted, there’ll be another crop. And, for better or worse, there will always be healthy numbers of internet consumers who are happy to eat up all this Free and give nothing in return – while being totally unaware that there’s anything wrong with that.
And so I have to ask: do we really want our banquet of Free to come from the backs of whoever hasn’t been worn out yet?
Image by loudestnoise, via Flickr
What about sharing for the sake of sharing, then?
First of all, I believe strongly in sharing for the sake of sharing. The last thing I want is for all the Free to start disappearing behind paywalls.
Ideally, I’d love to see more producers being able to keep up streams of Free alongside streams of Paid – a self-sustaining cycle of sharing and support, if you will.
I’ve heard from a number of consumers of Free in comments and emails as a result of this series. Interestingly, they have very different opinions as to how the Paid might happen:
• Some say the only way to do Paid is to offer products and services to crafters, but keep all blog content Free.
• Others say the best option is to chip in little bits at a time, via blog donation buttons or micropayments.
• Still others say that crafters may not have anything that other crafters want to buy, and so the best option is to find non-crafters who will pay for products and services.
• And still others say that nobody should be trying to get paid for blogging, and sharing for the sake of sharing will eventually lead to paid opportunities from corporations.
Image by freakgirl, via Flickr
So clearly, there won’t be any single solution to the problem of balancing the equation. What might help, though, is for more of us producers to be honest about what we need in order to keep producing – and then speak up about it. Since each of us needs slightly different compensation, I think this would really help more consumers understand how to best support the people who give value for Free.
As usual, I find myself at the end of this post struggling with how much more there is to say. But again, I think we need to keep this discussion chunked down. So here are my questions for you this time:
• If you’re a producer, what, honestly, would you need from your readers in order to keep your stream of Free sustainable?
• And if you’re a consumer, in what ways (non-monetary or otherwise) WOULD you be willing to support the handful of blogs you love most?
At this point, my Free is sustainable. I offer a few free tutorials a year and in return that brings traffic to my blog and customers who purchase my patterns and goods from my Etsy shop, as well as clients for my quilting business. It’s not enough to support my family, but it is enough to sustain my fabric habit and continue to provide more Free to the blog.
I love the Free that is out there and allows me to learn more and in return I offer free back for just that reason. But there is only so much i’m willing to offer for free. A project that takes more of my time and energy and product to produce becomes a pattern for the shop. But those things that are easy, and possibly supporting to the paid patterns, are what I offer for free.
I think it all boils down to being a personal decision and one that everyone needs to take a serious moment to ponder and evaluate. Blogging use to be about personal fulfillment and now it seems to have turned to more of a business aspect, so in that respect, a business plan/outline may need to be made for a blogger so that they can clearly define their goals for their blog and where to draw the line at Free. Free can be draining.
I feel like I have a good balance right now, but there are times the scales feel tipped and I step back and reevaluate. I love the opportunities that Free has lead me to, and I love that I feel balanced as well.
I think from the consumer aspect ways i’m willing to support blogs I love is through clicking on their advertisers and purchasing (making sure they know how I got there) as well as purchasing from the blogs own shop (assuming they are products I want to purchase, of course). I also make sure to share with others my enjoyment in a blog and in return that may bring more business to them as well. And if it’s a blog that isn’t in this for money, but still needs some sustainability, hopefully links and comments will be the fulfillment they need to continue to offer Free.
Thank you, Christina – sounds like you’re doing a great job keeping an eye on that balance point. I like your point that it’s also a moving target. The things that are satisfying about blogging early on may not be the same things after several years. And this is totally okay. You’re right, it is something every blogger should think deeply about once they’ve gotten their “blogging legs” under them.
Diane, after I read your blog entry #2 in this series of free and sustainable, I promptly clicked on your links and purchased the zine from Torta Gialia. I love the creative way that she made the zine. But, the bigger take-away from your post was that I have the ability to make some artist/crafter’s life a little easier by purchasing from them. I’m not a big shopper, but I do love the written word, so I’ve gone in search of zines that interest me and I’m trying to put a few dollars into someone’s pocket. In addition, I do comment on a lot of blogs that I like and in return some of them have commented on mine. I discovered a blog the other day and the person’s artwork was just fabulous and I thought “she needs to be featured in one of the Stampington magazines”. I did a google search to see if she was featured in any magazines and sadly, I could not find any. So I am going to write (or e-mail) the magazine and tell them that they really need to go check out this girl and feature her. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I am going to promote her. I hope that counts as helping out the free and sustainable artists/crafters. I have also decided that I will actively seek out products to purchase this year. So far I have purchased seven zines and a pair of earrings. I will try to do my part. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Wow, Youngbydesign, that’s incredibly kind of you to take such an active interest in another artist’s welfare! Definitely, you never know when an effort like this will have a profound effect on someone’s crafty career.
…And I’m so glad you ordered Linda’s zine. I love her work so much – the new issue on knot-tying is sooooo cool!
Wait, what, there’s a zine on knot-tying! Rushes off to look.
It’s not only female bloggers, but females in the workforce that undervalue themselves. I am no expert, but I assume it has to do with our socialization as accommodating creatures. So, when someone asks us to do something like write a tutorial or work for less than industry standard wages, we want to be accommodating. We should be thinking things like, “There is interest in this tutorial/pattern, which makes it valuable. What is it worth?” or “They are low balling me because their primary concern is the businesses bottom line. My primary concern is providing for my family, so I should negotiate in a way that results in me getting paid what I’m worth.”
I myself am guilty of doing things to accommodate requests without thinking about the cost to me in time and money. My personal goal is to move from the knee-jerk reaction of “YES!” when someone wants something from me to “Let me think about that” and actually consider things from *my* perspective instead of feeling the pull to please someone else.
I was wondering how much of this might be women not valuing their time/skills, too. I’m sure there is some of this. But I also know it’s common for most entrepreneurs to undercharge for their services, male and female alike, in the beginning. Blogs aren’t always attached to businesses, but it could be the same newbie learning curve?
Mmmm… that’s certainly valid, too. Since so few of us started out with eyes toward business, when business opportunities came calling unexpectedly, the impulse was to say, “Gee, I’m so thrilled you even noticed me, here’s the moon for a penny!”
Lord knows, I did that plenty of times early on. :-/
Amen! I wonder, too, how much the heady amazing goodness of that first realization that other people may be paying attention to our work plays a role. I just about lost it the first time a book editor approached me for free work – OMG! In all the world, a real publishing company noticed ME!! The thrill and the gratitude can make us completely forget we’re negotiating for a professional service.
Well, it looks like my response to your comment above would be more appropriate for this one. :) I think we should be more forthcoming about how long our content takes to make. I get the occasional comments like, “This must have taken hours for you to do …” But I also hear from people who think I’m a magical craft wizard that waves a wand and projects appear.
Unless a person has taken the time to photograph and write a tutorial themselves, they might have no idea just HOW LONG one takes … and that it’s a very special talent to be able to write them in the first place.
Another challenge I face as a crafty woman is the tradition of sharing (and my burning need for it) when it comes to making things. I want to learn and grow and it’s easiest when I’m in contact with other people. My initial reaction to charging someone to interact with me in a way I crave feels so weird. I need to think of it more like a job I love. Just because you love your job, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get paid for it. Right?
It’s wonderful that we are discussing this out in the open, and I hope it catches on and spreads to everyone’s consciousness. Hopefully there will come a time when it’s natural for us to assume that the women who bring value to the craft blog kingdom should see financial rewards (whether through ads or sales) instead of thinking “she’s just blogging for the ad revenue or to make sales.”
And, you are totally right, we are our own bosses! We need to remember that. Certainly there are inbalances in our community (and the world) that we have no control over, but it’s pretty hard to take advantage of someone without their complicity. There’s a Midwestern quote I grew up with … “If you lie down on the porch, people will use you as a doormat.” We need to keep telling each other to stop lying down. :)
Thanks for joining the conversation, Cara. You raise a good point about realistic expectations, in that it’s probably very unlikely in the present climate for any craft blogger to make a 100% viable living solely off the existence of her blog. Multiple income streams are key, though many of them may relate back to the blog. Still, I also don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to seek fair compensation for the value we put into the community.
In terms of donation buttons, it’s part of the complexity of this discussion. Some readers love them, some hate them. In the end, if you don’t provide enough different people with enough different ways to participate in supporting your work, you end up missing opportunities.
Thanks, Jen – though I must say, any organization in this post is due to Elizabeth’s clear eye and helpful suggestions. This stuff really DOES cause the mind to swirl, and it’s all so complicated. But I’m really happy we’re all talking. That’s the first step to making some sense of all this.
Thank you for joining the discussion over here, Jessika! I loved your post – just commented over there, in fact.
I love this idea of Free as an ecosystem – that it has to be nourished in some way. I’m actually starting to get re-energized, thinking about how that applies to this blog.
This has come up in another section of these comments, but that balance point you’re describing is really a moving target. So all of us will likely need to re-evaluate our equations/ecosystems from time to time, and take our blogs in the direction that best supports our needs at any given time. Life is all about phases, and so should blogs be, right?
After reading your blog post, I discussed it with my husband last night in some depth. I was basically saying that after reading all the comments I came away with the feeling that crafty people aren’t prepared to pay for online content (blogs, tutorials, instructions etc) but are prepared to go into a book shop / quilt shop etc and pay for patterns, instructions etc. Partly not prepared to pay for online content because there’s so much out online that’s free so they have lots of choice. He rightly made the comment in reply though that in plenty of other industries we are prepared to pay – we the individual consumer pays for itunes – song downloads – in the university sector we pay for specialist journal articles – so why aren’t crafters prepared to pay???
Well, then after all that I thought I’d do a spot of relaxing knitting, couldn’t find my knitted flower pattern I had so thought I’d hop online to find something. I then couldn’t find any quality knitted flower patterns – there are heaps out there but nothing that screamed ‘quality’ to me. I did find a few books on amazon (but have to wait for postage) but no ebooks, nothing I could pay for, download and use last night. Nothing in fact like itunes where I have some cataloguing system, rating system as to quality, no easy payment system, no reasonable pricing or packaging of the product, and no efficient delivery system. Maybe us crafty sorts – hobby people and business people – should focus on less (and focus less on screaming into the cacophony that is the internet) and more on quality?
Hmmm… I agree with you in theory, Jen – I do think quality is hugely important. But design quality is one thing, and the kind of user interface quality you’re describing is another. I’d love my online store to run exactly like iTunes, but I would sure need to invest a lot in website development to get it there. That’s simply out of my league, so I have to do the best with what I have.
If you’re mentioning ebooks in the context of not being able to find crafty ones on Amazon, at least some of that has to do with where ebook file formats currently stand. The ones that work on Kindle are “reflowable format” files – they reformat the text of an ebook to fit whatever size screen it’s being read on. That doesn’t work well for craft instruction books, because it throws text/image alignments out of whack. Craft books so often need precise placement of image to text, and this very new technology doesn’t yet support that. Of course, it will sometime in future.
Do you know about ravelry.com? They have a fantastic pattern search feature and you can find patterns directly from the designers. Some are free and some are pay. Plus there is a whole community built up around the site if you have questions about the pattern or just want to read people’s comments about their experience with the pattern. Sounds like it’s exactly what you’re looking for.
Do you know about ravelry.com? They have a fantastic pattern search feature and you can find patterns directly from the designers. Some are free and some are pay. Plus there is a whole community built up around the site if you have questions about the pattern or just want to read people’s comments about their experience with the pattern. Sounds like it’s exactly what you’re looking for.
oh wow, the conversation is even more ginormous since last night. at any rate, i’m dying to pitch in my 2 cents.
my supply of free (i’m talking real life meat space free, not interwebby free) was recently used up and it’s made me very grumpy and bitter. which is to say, or rather reinforce what has already been said, it is so very important to do *something* for those who make free that you appreciate. it would probably be awesome for individual bloggers to make their particular wants known on their blogs so you would know if they just want a nice comment or some $, but i’d assume any gesture of kindness would be appreciated.
i liked the mention of a good way of supporting a blog (etsy seller, whatever, etc.) is to share links on twitter/facebook/email/wherever since that helps bring in a wider audience which leads to more compensation. it’s an easy thing to do, it doesn’t cost anything, and it can lead to important things for the crafter/blogger if the stars align just right. example: i do a lot of art events and non-profit stuff. i post about it on facebook (and probably drive my friends nuts). i have exactly one friend who is kind enough to repost what i have put out there so that his 700+ friends read about it. it makes me feel so cared for every time he does it, yet he’s the only one. (yes, i extend the courtesy to many of my artsy friends, but they suck at reciprocating.) i am a huge fan of saying thanks for free by spreading the word.
i definitely hope that whenever a blog ends, a shop closes, or a group dissolves, it’s because the person simply was ready to move on to a new stage in life and not because they were frustrated and tired.
Thanks for coming back in for more, Sam! This discussion IS getting huge, and I’m so glad – a huge topic like this needs lots of dicsussing.
If you’re okay with it, I’d like to play a little devil’s advocate in terms of spreading the word… I’m all for it in theory, but I’m also for curating the stream of content you put out on Twitter, FB, and a blog. So, with too many mentions of friends’ events, online shops, products, etc, I think you run some risk of making your readers tune you out – and then the potential promotional value is lost.
Believe me, back in my days doing live events here in PDX, I experienced a lot of the same frustrations you’re experiencing. So I completely feel your pain here. And I believe in helping friends spread the word whenever possible.
But I’m also a fan of being a curator for the people who put their time and attention to my streams of information online. I feel it’s my responsibility to point them to things they’d be most likely to find interesting. And sadly, not every deserving online friend’s product or project will fit that shape.
…For what that’s worth. Like so many things about this discussion, there are complications and a million different viewpoints.
I appreciate you sharing your experiences, Lauren – and your active community support! You know, according to Chris Anderson’s excellent book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, that single-digit participation level plays out in groups all over the place. I’d like to believe that in another decade or so, enough of the population will have dabbled in producing with various internet tools that supporting other producers will become more habitual. Maybe not universal, of course, but “more habitual” would be a great step forward! :-)
Lupin, thank you so much for sharing your experiences here. Your work is stunning, and it’s wonderful to see how your business has grown. It’s also really inspiring to hear that this has led you to re-evaluate your approach to Free on your blog. When I started this post series, I was still holding out hope that I could find a way to keep up the amount of Free I’ve been doing here while still making it more viable. After hearing from you and several others in the same boat, I’m feeling a lot better about the idea of scaling back and, as you wisely put it, “making Free work for me.” Thank you again!
It’s a great post, Jen – I hope folks reading in here will link over and read your take!
I wrestle with free – I struggling with with trying to find a balance, or rather my own line of not crossing into giving away too much territory. Thank you for this great discussion!
“it just wasn’t worth the time it took to maintain”
This is such a hugely important point and one that many people don’t consider nearly enough. If a money-earner takes a lot of admin, it might not be the best use of your time.
Dear Diane,
thank you so very much for this discussion. I have started reading your posts and the many comments about four days ago and wished I would have found your blog earlier because I can see so many aspects of this issue more clearly.
I quit blogging at the beginning of this year because I was really exhausted. Since I only can produce a few items per month, my shop is always sold out, my classes used to be booked-up within a few hours and I should feel privileged that I can make a living with what I create.
But what is success in craft business? The more blog posts I wrote, the more I felt under pressure because I didn´t manage to answer all the emails and requests I got, I felt that the blog had taken over, gaining momentum, something that I no longer could control.
I have shared a lot of free and inspiring content, but I couldn´t take more orders than I already did, so more traffic didn´t increase the earnings of my business. I have decided to not have any adverts on my blog (apart from a link list to other websites or etsy shops that I like) and I am right now trying to find a good solution to keep everything more in balance.
A lot of people take for granted that someone who can make a living from selling handmade items or teaching, shares a lot of free and inspiring content without earning money. I used to spend a lot of nightshifts to answer emails or to write tutorials. That of course is nice for my readers, but I had very little time for myself and for my family.
Blogging is not my hobby, but part of my business. And why should a small group of customers subsidise free content for a big readership? Of course I appreciate if people click the Facebook like! button. I appreciate comments. I appreciate packages with chocolate, handcream, tea and thank you notes. But even though I would say that I earn enough with my products and classes to pay the gas bill or the supplies or my insurances, I would be glad if I also be grateful to earn at least some money with what I share for free on my blog.
I find this discussion very helpful and hope to soon come up with a better solution for my business.
Thank you so much!
A grateful reader
P.S. Since your blog has given me more answers so far than all the smart books I have read about blogs and marketing, I will for sure click the donate button
Wow, thank you so much for this comment! It’s so interesting to see that you have the kinds of reader response many bloggers dream of, and even in this situation, Free can be unsustainable.
I’m beginning to come to a similar conclusion that you are – a large readership does not necessarily a sustainable living make. I would love to hear where you come out in your solutions to the “Free problem.” And I’m so glad you shared your experiences here. We’re all articulating this moment in blog/business growth together, and the more visible we’re willing to make our struggles and successes, the more it helps us all. Please keep me posted?
I’ve been reading with interest this series. I have two perspectives – as a provider and a consumer of ‘free’.
I have two blogs and sometimes it feels like no-one is reading (despite stats saying the opposite) as I get very few comments. It makes me wonder if I’m boring or if no-one cares. However yesterday I got a lovely comment that literally made my day. The commenter said she’d been inspired by me (little old me) to try crochet for the first time. I’m so appreciative that she took the time to write such a lovely comment.
Now I am a huge consumer of free – I used to have 100s of blogs in my Google reader. I would flick through them randomly, sometimes barely reading them and hardly ever clicking through to comment on them. But after a huge cull (okay, I deleted them all accidentally!) I now have just a few blogs that I read and I make the effort to click though and comment a lot more often now. Instead of being greedy for ‘free’ – I’m appreciating the efforts of the writers whose blogs I read and hopefully paying them back for it by saying thank you via my comments.
This is an interesting point, Christine! I used to read hundreds of blogs, too- trying to “keep up” on all the great content. But I found the same thing you described – that I was scanning as fast as I could and not really reading or responding. None of us will ever be able to keep up with all the Free – there’s just too much. But I think that, scaling back and consuming fewer feeds more deeply, as you said, we learn to value Free more. And that definitely helps the cause of sustainability! Thanks for your comment!
Christine, I read once that only one in ten readers comment – so it’s not that unusual to not get tons of comments.
I’ve been silently reading along for the most part because I haven’t been sure what I might have to add to this discussion so far. I had participated in the teleconference discussion about free that you hosted way back Diane and as I was reading this post something struck me.
Because you wrote about this from the perspective of Producer and Consumer I started to think about those divergent perspectives in and of themselves. I’ve been bothered by the fact that the US culture (not to say this isn’t happening with other cultures also but I live in the US and pretty much always have) is becoming primarily one of CONSUMERS. This bothers me because I am someone who has been taught to be a PRODUCER, both in my upbringing and my formal education. So, it’s ingrained in me (as with many of you, my peers in this creative community) to be both a producer and a consumer.
But, I’m not sure we represent a large enough cross section of society for us to be able to sustain one another. We need to somehow help others who are not producers VALUE THE GOODS PRODUCED and not just be consumers of them. This problem is exacerbated when you bring in the discussion of free but I don’t think this problem is isolated. America over the last generation has become a place where goods are consumed but not made. Our factories are disappearing all over the place and our country and it’s citizens have lost touch with the process of making things. I think what’s been happening over the last couple decades though is that younger generations are seeing the downfall of this and trying to do their part to get back in touch with making things, starting business that make things and opening companies that produce goods.
So, I’m not sure if anyone agrees that this issue of Free is one embedded within a large problem of Consumerism but it seems to me that’s it’s big part of this problem.
Well, said, Heather. I think you’re right. And thank you for adding this idea to the discussion!
As a blogger myself (posting 3-5 time per day M-F worth of free content including craft tutorials, business advice, handmade shop promotion, etc), I can say that I am pretty much at my tipping point as well for the Free content that takes me a substantial amount of time to create. I don’t mind doing it, most of the time, but I also tend to feel that if I don’t continue to create it (mainly the tutorials and business advice), my readers will become unhappy or unsatisfied and simply stop visiting. That is probably a whole other topic that I shouldn’t get in to. But back to free…readers on blogs come to expect free content. Paid content and products are not really the norm (especially in the crafting and handmade niche) and if we want to change that, we all need to stand up and say something. Much like you are doing right now Diane. I’ll be experimenting with this in 2011, and I hope many other bloggers will be doing the same.
I hope so, too, Brittni – and I know I’ll be experimenting with some new models. I don’t think any of us would realistically be able to (or necessarily want to) be all-paid content, but we definitely deserve better compensation for our time. (Or if that’s not possible to achieve, we at least deserve to take that time back.) Thank you so much for adding your perspectives here!
I hope so, too, Brittni – and I know I’ll be experimenting with some new models. I don’t think any of us would realistically be able to (or necessarily want to) be all-paid content, but we definitely deserve better compensation for our time. (Or if that’s not possible to achieve, we at least deserve to take that time back.) Thank you so much for adding your perspectives here!
As a blogger myself (posting 3-5 time per day M-F worth of free content including craft tutorials, business advice, handmade shop promotion, etc), I can say that I am pretty much at my tipping point as well for the Free content that takes me a substantial amount of time to create. I don’t mind doing it, most of the time, but I also tend to feel that if I don’t continue to create it (mainly the tutorials and business advice), my readers will become unhappy or unsatisfied and simply stop visiting. That is probably a whole other topic that I shouldn’t get in to. But back to free…readers on blogs come to expect free content. Paid content and products are not really the norm (especially in the crafting and handmade niche) and if we want to change that, we all need to stand up and say something. Much like you are doing right now Diane. I’ll be experimenting with this in 2011, and I hope many other bloggers will be doing the same.
Very interesting point regarding the perception by non-bloggers that only those who blog “count” because they can link back. I so appreciate both comments and links back, as they both assure me that someone is gaining some value from my writings.
Thank you for adding your voice to the discussion, Melanie!
Hello.
I’ve just come across this series and it really means a lot to me. Personally, I’ve started blogging less than a year ago and feel more comments would keep me more motivated. Originally I created the blog just so I could follow other blogs on crafting since I was taking my first steps, but now I need more. For example, I’ve been meaning to do a Giveaway but always back out because my worst fear is that nobody would join, since I only have like 10 followers and most posts go uncommented.
Sandy, most of us feel this way early on in our blogging – is there anybody out there listening? Since you’re less than a year in, don’t worry – it really does take time to build your audience. Also, how much are you commenting on other people’s blogs? Do you comment just on a few friends’ blogs, or reach out to new people with similar interests?
The more outreach you can do, the more people will come back to participate in your blog. I’ve seen this work over and over again.
hi.
Thanks for that, it really helps to get a more experienced perspective. Yes, I usually comment, I try to stay active in other blogs as well. I guess I just have to keep at it! :)
I just thought I’d add in my two-penneth worth. There is a lot of free out there, you can find a pattern for most things that you want to make. But that’s not what makes me read a blog. A lot of the blogs (the majority in fact) in my reader don’t give out free patterns. I read their blogs as I like to see what they’ve made, what they think about it etc, I’m not just looking for freebies. I wouldn’t have time to make all the free patterns out there, and I am all for a bit of free (I’m struggling financially with the economic crisis/VAT rise etc), but I have bought patterns from Etsy and blogs in the past – from individual designers because I like their work. I think it very much depends on what the pattern is. If you want to sell a pattern for a zippered pouch, you might struggle as there are so many free ones on the web. Got an embroidery pattern that’s from your original artwork? Well the only way to get that design is to pay…
I think what I’m trying to say is that I dont have the answers (clearly!) but I would like to tell bloggers who feel they constantly have to give us free that they DON’T! I read in a reader so don’t necessarily notice if you don’t blog for a week, and if at the end of the week you show me a little doo dad you’ve made, no pattern, brilliant, that’s fine by me. I’ll also probably comment. And I ALWAYS comment on free projects if I bookmark them, even if I’ll never make them.
What a great comment, Amy – thank you so much for sharing it! We are indeed at an interesting evolutionary moment in this community. I agree that the question of compensation and sustainability absolutely has to enter the picture now – or, much of the Free has to go away. I hope our community will keep talking and trying new options, because I think we’ll only find concrete solutions together.
It’s true that there’s still a fairly large percentage of readers out there who’d prefer to get stuff Free and move on, but I agree with you – each blog has the potential for a smaller band of supporting fans.