Website Monetization
September 12, 2014 12:27 PM Subscribe
I am looking for four things here: A) Examples of successful one-man-shows or mom-and-pop shops that support the author B) Personal anecdotes if you have firsthand experience with making money online as an individual (or small shop) C) thoughts, analysis and maybe articles regarding which kinds of monetization work for which kinds of sites and why and D) what tools exist beyond AdSense, PayPal donate buttons, Café Press and the Amazon affiliate program for making money online?
Some examples I personally know: Dwarf Fortress is supported by donations. It's a game. Hyperbole and a Half is supported by product sales (or was at one time) and the author is personally uncomfortable with both donations and ads. Questionable Content and several other web comics are supported by some combination of ads, product sales and/or donations. IIRC, Gunnerkrigg Court and The Wotch both give some kind of virtual goods when you make a donation, like a cute picture or something. Maybe Gunnerkrigg Court handles it slightly different from that, but I have some recollection of there being a similar feel to how they try to entice people to donate, on top of just providing good content.
I was really intrigued by the recent FPP about relatively recent developments in monetization for fashion blogs via an affiliate platform called rewardStyle, which is kind of a new thing. There was a lot of criticism of the blogs making money by selling products. I think a lot of those criticisms are valid. But most of those blogs existed before there was a good way to monetize them, so I was really thrilled to see someone offer a means to help them make money doing something they were already doing. Of course, that brings up new problems, like one blogger began making good money, thus began dressing better (in more expensive clothes) and got told "Yeah, you can't do that. You got rich. Your audience did not. They can't afford the more expensive stuff and you aren't making sales on days when you blog about the more upscale things you wear these days." (Or words to that effect.)
So, I am interested in better understanding what does work and, hopefully, a bit more about why it works when it does happen to work.
Thanks!
Some examples I personally know: Dwarf Fortress is supported by donations. It's a game. Hyperbole and a Half is supported by product sales (or was at one time) and the author is personally uncomfortable with both donations and ads. Questionable Content and several other web comics are supported by some combination of ads, product sales and/or donations. IIRC, Gunnerkrigg Court and The Wotch both give some kind of virtual goods when you make a donation, like a cute picture or something. Maybe Gunnerkrigg Court handles it slightly different from that, but I have some recollection of there being a similar feel to how they try to entice people to donate, on top of just providing good content.
I was really intrigued by the recent FPP about relatively recent developments in monetization for fashion blogs via an affiliate platform called rewardStyle, which is kind of a new thing. There was a lot of criticism of the blogs making money by selling products. I think a lot of those criticisms are valid. But most of those blogs existed before there was a good way to monetize them, so I was really thrilled to see someone offer a means to help them make money doing something they were already doing. Of course, that brings up new problems, like one blogger began making good money, thus began dressing better (in more expensive clothes) and got told "Yeah, you can't do that. You got rich. Your audience did not. They can't afford the more expensive stuff and you aren't making sales on days when you blog about the more upscale things you wear these days." (Or words to that effect.)
So, I am interested in better understanding what does work and, hopefully, a bit more about why it works when it does happen to work.
Thanks!
Best answer: A lot of webcomic artists have been promoting Patreon very visibly over the last six months or so - it's a way for them to get more of a steady income directly from fans.
A lot of big webcomics authors (Tom Siddell, Jeph Jacques, John Allison, etc.) and nerd entertainers (Jonathan Coulton, Welcome to Night Vale, etc.) have also outsourced at least some of their merch production and distribution to Topatoco.
posted by topoisomerase at 1:12 PM on September 12, 2014
A lot of big webcomics authors (Tom Siddell, Jeph Jacques, John Allison, etc.) and nerd entertainers (Jonathan Coulton, Welcome to Night Vale, etc.) have also outsourced at least some of their merch production and distribution to Topatoco.
posted by topoisomerase at 1:12 PM on September 12, 2014
Best answer: I think the answer for all of these is the ability to connect with your audience, make them love you and want to support you.
Depending on what you're selling/creating, how to do that will vary. And it's not easy in such a crowded internet, unless you're offering something so amazing that everyone wants a part of it (i.e. Night Vale) and it gets great publicity.
On a small scale, the musician I'm married to hangs out on Second Life. He performs in virtual "cafes" by hooking up a mic to run into some kind of audio program setup, so the music is actually live though the other attendees see only his avatar running through its guitar-strum program. And they comment, call out requests, invite others, tip, or go to his site (linked in his profile) and buy stuff. It's a small but surprisingly steady income stream, which we think is partially due to SL audiences including a lot of folks with disabilities or who are isolated, so they are loyal to "their" folks. It helps if you are also home at all hours so you can play for people in distant time zones.
posted by emjaybee at 1:54 PM on September 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Depending on what you're selling/creating, how to do that will vary. And it's not easy in such a crowded internet, unless you're offering something so amazing that everyone wants a part of it (i.e. Night Vale) and it gets great publicity.
On a small scale, the musician I'm married to hangs out on Second Life. He performs in virtual "cafes" by hooking up a mic to run into some kind of audio program setup, so the music is actually live though the other attendees see only his avatar running through its guitar-strum program. And they comment, call out requests, invite others, tip, or go to his site (linked in his profile) and buy stuff. It's a small but surprisingly steady income stream, which we think is partially due to SL audiences including a lot of folks with disabilities or who are isolated, so they are loyal to "their" folks. It helps if you are also home at all hours so you can play for people in distant time zones.
posted by emjaybee at 1:54 PM on September 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: My husband works for a YouTube video guy. YouTube itself doesn't make any money to speak of but he gets paying work making videos, commercials, etc for other people based on the strength of his popularity.
My husband has several fairly long-running video properties himself and is on Patreon. His income is in the dozens of dollars, before hosting fees in the twenties of dollars. (But, again, they get him work and serve as a resume.) There's a lot of factors in between the doing and the monetizing.
I've never seen an affiliate program that wasn't fabulous! during the rollout and with saturation becomes a few-dollars-per-month situation. Much like ads, you can't count on it for recurring revenue.
I know some popular podcasters who can make part of their living off ads, donations, writing jobs associated with their subject matter, and sometimes appearance fees. There's a good-sized audience there though, and that took time.
The number one way to make money is make something people really love, and do it at significantly less than cost or at extraordinary volume.
The number two way to make money is sell shit to stupid people. Life coaches seem to do appallingly well, and I kind of suspect most of them are hot messes.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:27 PM on September 12, 2014
My husband has several fairly long-running video properties himself and is on Patreon. His income is in the dozens of dollars, before hosting fees in the twenties of dollars. (But, again, they get him work and serve as a resume.) There's a lot of factors in between the doing and the monetizing.
I've never seen an affiliate program that wasn't fabulous! during the rollout and with saturation becomes a few-dollars-per-month situation. Much like ads, you can't count on it for recurring revenue.
I know some popular podcasters who can make part of their living off ads, donations, writing jobs associated with their subject matter, and sometimes appearance fees. There's a good-sized audience there though, and that took time.
The number one way to make money is make something people really love, and do it at significantly less than cost or at extraordinary volume.
The number two way to make money is sell shit to stupid people. Life coaches seem to do appallingly well, and I kind of suspect most of them are hot messes.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:27 PM on September 12, 2014
Patrick McKenzie made Bingo Card Creator, and seems to be doing well. He has a newsletter and a blog where he writes a lot about these kinds of things (making money on the internet as a one-man business), although geared towards making & selling software. He also goes by patio11 on twitter, etc.
posted by bjrn at 2:39 PM on September 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by bjrn at 2:39 PM on September 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
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Big Cartel lets you run a small web store for free (or relatively cheap compared to actually getting eCommerce infrastructure going) but inventory and everything else is on you.
Commission-based ("commission" as in a the commission of a drawing for money) fundraising drives are done either with or exclusively via Twitter and Tumblr now, just because it's ridiculously simple to set up a PayPal make a post that says "little drawing $5, big drawing $20" and send it out to the general Tumblr/Twitter community than it is to get people to go to your site/forum (or, way back in the day, LJ community) and click "store."
posted by griphus at 12:45 PM on September 12, 2014