Les Jones

Blogging > Michael Totten's Blogging Experiment

When Jason Kottke ended his blog sponsorship experiment recently, I wrote:

I think giving money to bloggers you like is a good thing. I think it's probably a bad thing for the blogger to ask for a carte blanche sponsorship. A better idea might be to ask for sponsorships for specific goals, like covering the travel costs for a specific trip. That makes it easier for the blogger and his readers to know exactly what's being promised and what's going to be delivered.

Michael Totten followed that second model for his trips to the Middle East and says it was a success:

I decided to try a little experiment. Instead of lining up an assignment from an editor to cover Northern Iraqi Kurdistan, I struck out on my own without asking permission from anyone. Almost all my material was posted directly to this Web site. I wanted to see if the amount of money I can raise from readers competes with the industry’s going rate.

It does.

I raised more money from you to cover Iraqi Kurdistan than I’ve made covering any other country on paid assignments. I also had a lot more fun publishing my own material here instead of somewhere else. It is so much nicer to have the freedom to write whatever I want without any oversight, without any rules or restrictions, without any word limits, and without any delays.

Congratulations to Totten, who showed courage on a number of levels.