At Forbes, Larissa Faw takes a frank look at the business side of the female blogosphere. What she discovers shouldn’t shock anyone familiar with the old “80/20 rule”:
“You can break it down like this,” says BSM Media’s Maria Bailey and author of Power Moms. “There’s the top 10% who make six figures, who write books, and have deals with the Food Network. Then there’s the bottom 20% who are only doing it for the love and not making anything.”
“This leaves 70% of women bloggers — some 13.2 million — who blog for some modicum of profit. While no two bloggers are alike, they all receive money from similar opportunities. And free merchandise in exchange for a blog review is often considered the gateway towards serious monetization.”
Since Faw’s column is primarily focused on business models and profit, she rightly sidesteps the non-monetary hazards women face when they blog: being insulted and threatened, for instance, or losing jobs for writing about stuff that’s either too personal or too political.
Of course, those hazards dog male bloggers, too. But in my experience, women get judged more harshly for stating their opinions.
Come on: Is Ann Coulter really more heartless and obnoxious than P.J. O’Rourke? Yet who gets attacked on campuses?
Does Glenn Reynolds get rape threats, or is that just Dana Loesch (and me)?
Another Forbes columnist, Susannah Breslin, argues that being frank and female doesn’t have to be a career-ender any longer.
Breslin, whose old sex blog was called “Reverse Cowgirl,” is now, well, writing for Forbes.
In the era of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, is Breslin onto something — or does writing about/participating in sex earn women the kind of “hall pass” that delving into politics never will?
Image courtesy shutterstock and Kletr
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