Recently, I published an article detailing the 7 reasons why I write and I'm sure several others share similar reasons why they publish on the various blogging platforms.
But the question is; now that you have considered the reasons why you write, do you think it's worth it?
Do the results justify the continued effort being exerted to produce original and high-quality content?
The answer will depend on each individual's circumstances.
But in this post, I am going to attempt to make it easy for you to quickly determine what that answer is for you.
NOTE: I am writing this post with the mindset that you're consistently producing original and high-quality content. If that's not true for you, then you're not my audience in this post. Also, the opinions expressed here are purely my own perspectives and based on what I want. Other people could possibly have different opinions which I am open to hearing in the comments section below.
How blogging platforms are discouraging good content
In my article on why I write I mentioned 7 reasons:
To inform and inspire someone
To learn more about the subject matter
To make money
To promote a project or course I believe in
I am good at and love writing
To document an idea and clarify a thought process
To promote and drive traffic to my blog
And I stated that every content I produce was for at least one or a combination of two or more of the above reasons.
Now, personally, there're two ways to kill my motivation to write on the various blogging platforms very quickly:
My content gets no views
My content gets no rewards
Now, these are the two critical criteria for evaluating whether it is worth it or not.
There's no point putting effort into writing something original, interesting, and valuable and nobody reads it. And worse, you also earn zero $$ or close to nothing for the work.
The cost of good content
Every blogging platform wants you to publish original, quality, and valuable content and that's the right thing to do.
Stealing someone else's and trying to profit off it, is not just a criminal offense, it also shows you lack the minimum amount of integrity any human should have, and therefore you're not worthy of even a negative reward.
Now that's how much I personally hate plagiarism and extremely low-value content.
But does anyone have an idea what it takes to produce the original, high-quality, and valuable content that's being demanded?
Let's take a look at what it takes. Just the basics:
Time
Knowledge and/or experience
Money
The cost of good content:
Time
Sometimes it takes between 5 to 7 hours to finish writing some kind of articles, depending on how much research you need to do.
However, if all the information you want to share in an article is already in your brain it can take between 30 minutes to one hour plus to write a 600 to 1000 words article.
And if you have gotten to this level of knowledge and experience to write valuable content without any form of research, ask yourself what is the value of your time?
Is it $0.50, $1, $2.5, $3, $5, $10, $50, $100...? compare the answer to what you earn from these blogging platforms (combined, if you always republish the same content to multiple platforms) and see if it's worth it.
I am fully aware that we're certainly not writing for the money alone.
If I were, I would have quit after my first 2 to 3 posts on all blogging platforms.
But what makes this really terrible is that sometimes the people you're trying to reach with your "sacrificial" content don't even get to see it.
No views, no readership, no money.
What then is the point of expending (wasting) hours of my life to produce this content?
Knowledge and experience
Knowledge is not cheap to acquire and neither is experience.
No one that I know is writing to recover all the costs associated with the acquisition of the knowledge and experience they are sharing in their articles.
That would be an unreasonable and utterly selfish expectation, but we must acknowledge that some of us spend money to verify facts, acquire the knowledge and experience needed to make our work standard and valuable to the readers.
The best form of compensation for most of us is to see as many people as possible benefiting from these efforts and not get buried in the sea and among low-quality posts.
Money
We, content creators, spend raw, directly out of pocket cash ($$) to produce the content we publish.
I am paying a monthly subscription on Canva so that I can use high quality, beautiful, and relevant thumbnails and graphics for my posts and not have to pay expensive graphics designers.
The average cost per premium images on Canva is $1 and a little less when you subscribe to the monthly or annual package with unlimited access to most premium graphics.
That's not all. I spend money on internet data, servicing, and sometimes changing devices, just to name a few.
These are direct costs only, I'm not talking about the many other indirect costs of producing the content that we publish.
Conclusion
I am of the opinion that the relationship between content creators and blogging platforms is NOT that of a beggar and an alms giver.
But is of some form of unofficial partnership in which both parties should actively strive to make it worth the while of the other.
I know, I know, we need to promote our content on social media to drive traffic to it.
Like seriously? For what benefit are we doing such extra work? For the joy of writing?
Imagine not getting any reasonable views, almost zero rewards and still having to actively do some outreach to drive traffic all with no noticeable returns.
What then is the responsibility of the blogging platforms in this relationship? or is it just profiting off of the content we create or we should just be thankful for the opportunity to publish on their platform?
Please someone should help me understand what I'm missing.
If these platforms don't feel content creators are beggars or should simply be grateful for having a platform to publish, then, some efforts need to be put into recognizing, curating, and promoting quality content and giving them the exposure and reach they deserve.
Whether these contents are published by longtime members with lots of followers or a newbie who just created an account 30 minutes ago with zero followership doesn't matter.
Reach (views) and money is what most content publishers want.
And a good amount of either will easily please us.
If we can get both most times, it will even be more beautiful and encouraging.
I am only speaking for content creators who're actively producing original and quality stuff.
So, back to the question. Is it worth it for you?
I think it's worth publishing quality content for me but I don't expect to make a living out of my writing. And it's great when I get rewarded and it makes me feel like my writing is worth something too, but if I try to maximize my profit from my writing, then I think that's where the quality of my writing will start to deteriorate.