Blogging for Pay is BS

I know, I know--I'm a hypocrite: I wrote that blogging for money is like making your husband pay you for sex then next thing you know, my other blog, Mizz Information, is sporting shiny new Blogher ads. I know you won't believe me but I was curious to see how much money people actually make running ads so I caved and signed up for Blogher ads because I respect Blogher. I have to say, though, that almost 5 months in I am not impressed with the blogging-for-profit model as it relates to ads.

Here's my problem with it. I know money is changing hands in the whole equation because big brands run Blogher ads: Volvo, Sprint, Sony, Smuckers, Samsung, Phillips, Febreze, Cheer, Nickelodean, Pepperidge Farms, Loreal, Lego, Kraft, Estee Lauder, Ford...these are all actual brands whose ads have been featured on my blog over the past 5 months. I may know little to nothing about advertising but I know this: brands pay big money for it. In magazines, on TV, in newspapers and now, on blogs. I don't know how much they pay but I know this much: it's something.

This is what I do know: the total I've earned for running these big-brand ads on my blog over an almost 5-month period is $18. Actually, I can't really count it as earnings because they don't cut you a check until you reach $25.

I'm torn; on one hand, I don't like that Blogher is presumably making thousands off each of those brands--for all I know, tens of thousands, yet I, the content creator and publisher, am making pennies. At the same time, Blogher does frequently feature my posts at the bottom of the ads, therefore driving traffic to my site, which I do value. But I'm talking single-digit traffic, here; in other words, peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

I guess I need to figure out how important it is to me to have my blog be either ad-free or generating some kind of measurable income; because it's going to have to be one or the other, not both. I'm not in the business of giving huge brands free advertising on my blog--they don't need handouts from me and I don't need to look like a sellout yet having nothing to show for it.