Q&A Friday #12: Going Full-Time On RWN

Question: “Have you had any job offers from the written media? And would you ever consider becoming a journalist / columnist if someone like national review, or the weekly standard made you a pitch?” — Chairman_Mao

“Lastly, what methods are you currently considering for making RWN self-supporting? As I said in the blogad poll, I depend largely on RWN’s right-hand column for news, and I find the comments sections both entertaining and informative, so I would prefer that you keep the site itself free. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind paying a fee to register (and thus to make comments) or perhaps paying a fee per comment. (Side benefit: That would certainly keep trolling down.)

And I wouldn’t mind, of course, if you sometimes chose to waive those fees for constructive participants like CavX, C_T, Friedman, Liberty, or even HuckUpChuck (during his lucid periods…) so we don’t become an echo chamber, like Kos et al. — Grognard

“Do you have any plans for opening up a political forum here on the site, and if so, when?” — brian1969

Answer: Here’s what I’ve got on tap for the page.

T-shirts: I have a graphics guy who is going to help me punch up designs and I’m looking for the right place to distribute them. My goal is to have them on sale in the next couple of weeks.

Blogads: They’re the primary revenue source on the page. I have a couple of things in mind to help me maximize revenue from them, which you should see over the next few days.

Text ads: I’m toying with the idea of selling text ads in the support section at $20 a pop. I used to have them over there before, but I stopped selling them when I went to Blogads. That may change.

Fund Raiser: In retrospect, I probably should have done a fund raiser when I announced that I was going full-time on the page. Even without requesting any donations, I still raked in $500 which was surprising given that I bet you I’ve pulled in less than $250 in the entire history of the page. I still may do a fund raiser at some point, but I haven’t set a time.

Book: I’ve got a book on tap that’s going to be a combination of material I’ve already written and new material. How much money I can make off of that is anyone’s guess, but from what I’ve seen, I can’t count on making a lot of money off it.

Columns for a magazine: I would be delighted to write for National Review or The Weekly Standard, but no, there has been no interest from them so far. I’m going to be making a real effort to get published in some of the “A-List” conservative mags over the next few months, so hopefully that will change.

Forums: If I could figure out a way to make money with forums, I’d consider it, but right now, I’m not planning on doing forums.

Project X: I have a “secret” project coming up. I don’t want to talk about it until it’s ready to go, but I’m hoping it’s going to make a big splash.

Growth: Last but not least, success always depends on growth. If you have enough eyeballs looking at what you write, everything else will fall into place. That’s what it’s all about.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!