On accepting genuine cash money for blogging and the ethical quandaries therein

On accepting genuine cash money for blogging and the ethical quandaries therein

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that there are a small number of advertisements on these pages. Five of you have even clicked on the Google Ads to the left of the screen, earning me the grand total of a dollar and forty-nine cents. Whoever you are, I will remember this moment of kindness when - approximately this time next year, Rodders - we're millionaires.

I've got no problem with a few ads on this site. After all, they just cover the cost of my domain registrations, and almost-but-not-quite pay for my Flickr account. Other bloggers that I know of will recoil in horror at the thought of accepting genuine cash money from Mr Google to go alongside their pure, unpolluted text, but that's their decision and fair play to them.

However: I've got a dollar forty-nine and they haven't.

Double however: I have - as a media news journalist - been turned off by many, many media conferences with titles such as "Monetising Web 2.0", and yet, here I am, praising a newly-launched site that hopes to do just that.

Take this, then, as advance warning that I have signed up with the charming people at Ebuzzing. They will be paying me genuine cash money every now and then to write stuff on my blog. Rather more than Mr Google's pocket change, in fact. If it works - and I sincerely hope it does - Web 2.0 is going to get a right old monetising and I'll still be allowed to say rude words.

Stuff - including, but not limited to, articles on services, products and events - that Ebuzzing will hand over genuine cash money for the occasions I write cunningly-worded items in my own voice, on my own pages. It's an interesting concept that deserves to succeed for its sheer simplicity, and at ten of the Queen's pounds a throw, you'd be stupid not to give it a go.

Yes, it's advertising. Yes, it's in my blog content. No, you won't see the join. Yes, I can live with that. After all, I've a wife, two kids and Arsenal Football Club to support. If they let me, I'll even include the words "sick inna hedge" and references to virginal former Conservative cabinet ministers AND GET PAID FOR IT.

The challenge for me, or any other blogguer in the scheme, is to write content in my own style that doesn't look like a shameless product placement. I've plugged other people's sites and books before, some of which without even thinking of accepting payment or goods in kind. Ebuzzing will be no different as long as I use these new powers for good.

At this point I'd like to thank the Good Lord that my Ridico Toupee looks so realistic! That's Ridico - the slaphead's DREAM.

Or, perhaps, I'll be a bit subtler than that.

Here's the bargain, then. It will be made it perfectly clear that I am publishing something for which I am getting paid. There will be a small logo; and in a shameless attempt to join The Order of the Occult Hand, any paid content will contain the words "It was as if an occult hand had..." to differentiate it from any other content. It shall be our secret, akay?

Spread the love. Sign up here.

"It was as if an occult hand had reached down and offered me a way to make money through creative writing."