Blogging for Bucks

I should charge you to read this blog. That was the premise of Content Expo 2024, a two-day conference I attended in Cleveland this past Monday and Tuesday.

Blogger or content entrepreneur?

I learned that I am not a mere blogger but a content entrepreneur. Vertes’Verities needs to be run like a business.

After attending sessions with titles like “Quitting A $200k Corporate Job to Become a Solo Content Entrepreneur,” “How I Built a Six-Figure Income from My Podcast Working 3 Days a Week,” and “Blogging in 2024: Everything You Need to Find Success (and Generate Income),” I felt like a chump.

The big players in content creation encouraged me to sell memberships, seek sponsorships, and diversify my content into online classes, newsletters, podcasts, self-published books, and YouTube videos. I should start thinking of Vertes’Verities as a full-fledged media company.

Before you say, “You’re not getting one red cent out of me, Vertes,” let me continue.

One vendor asked me if I had considered offering courses or coaching. Why yes—maybe he could help me educate people on coping with a prying podiatrist or turning the tables on a Jehovah’s Witness.

I did break bread with some interesting fellow content creators.

I ate an egg sandwich with a podcaster who interviews ‘60s and ‘70s TV stars, from Robin on the old Batman show to Ed Asner (Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) to Isaac from The Love Boat.

I had a turkey wrap with the guy who wrote Pickleball for Dummies.

I even consumed potato chips while chatting with an investment banker who offered me a line of private equity to finance Vertes’Verities, sight unseen. I have his card in my wallet.

I zoned in and out of the sessions as my little hobby started to feel like work—not a dilettante’s undertaking. I was asked to do a SWOT analysis, make a marketing plan, identify my competition, and think of my content as a product. 

B.J. Novak (right)

The keynote speaker was actor and writer BJ Novak, who played the hapless temp on the TV show The Office. He seemed nice and smart enough, but I had no idea what he was doing there. I'll have more on him next week. Alas, he did not give any advice on how I could monetize my own passion project.

I went to Content Expo 2024 hoping to learn how to grow my readership. I emerged with a few tips and tricks, but nothing concrete. Instead, I am appealing to you, dear follower, to send a reader or two my way if you ever feel so inclined. 

Meanwhile, I'm not sold on the idea of making money from this blog. I’m not looking to unretire. If that makes me a chump, at least the price is right.