Channeling Jerry Maguire

As great a compliment as it is to have people tell me they like my work and would love for me to write for their site, I gotta break out the Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire here and deliver an emphatic, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

I'm not even talking about enough money to pay the rent or even my alarmingly high cellphone bill, just a little somethin' somethin' to help buy the Starbucks every once in a while would do. But that ain't ever the case in the blogging business.


Everyone loves your work.

Everyone thinks you could be doing so much more than just writing your own blog on a homemade Blogger site.

The sales pitch always follows. "We'd love to have you write for us," or something along those lines, citing the size of their site and stronger following as selling points. Most utilize the "a bunch of people writing together in one place is better than being scattered everywhere" angle too.

But when you get down to brass tax, nobody's got a dime with your name on it. And if they do, it ain't for long.

I have to give serious love and respect to my man Jesse from Bugs & Cranks here, because from Day One, homeboy made sure his writers were getting paid. While it was never anything mind-blowing for me, people were making okay cash month-to-month from the very beginning and that is a beautiful thing. Epic Carnival offered some cash too. Why did I leave these places?

While increased exposure is certainly a strong selling point, increased exposure with five bucks for my pocket is an even better one, but no one is making those kind of offers, leaving me to think about what to do.

Roll the dice and see what kind of exposure adding another site to my writing resume does for the career or keep rocking as a solo artist and driving the bus on The Shameless Self-Promotion Tour and see if I can't make something happen by myself?

What do you think?