MomDot And The Bastardization of The CopyBlogger Model

I set out to muckrake another dust-up in the mommyblogosphere this week as a result of a tweet that made reference to “that freakshow MomDot.” When I see an open condemnation of a mommy blogger on Twitter, it’s impossible for me to resist digging into the story, because we are usually much more passive aggressive in our criticism of one another. I figured I must have missed something big, so I kept reading, and holy wackadoodle!: there’s a whole universe out there about which I knew nothing. This controversy centers around Trisha Haas and her attempts at monetizing her blog, MomDot, but the story is so big, and so convoluted, that it would be impossible to confine it to one linear argument about blogging for money and the success thereof. Therefore, I’ll address the business angle here as an example of The CopyBlogger Model for blog monetization used incorrectly, and refer you to other pages for recaps of tangentially related issues events as noted. Please bear in mind that I am coming to this story third-hand and have no particular affinity with any of the parties involved; as such, my summaries are an attempt at reconstructing a factual timeline of the story insofar as I’ve been able to piece it together after the fact.

A Word On The Class System of The Mommy Blogosphere

I had heard of MomDot before the other night, but only in the context of The Great PR Blackout Nonsense of 2009. I wasn’t overly invested in that whole controversy at the time, except insofar as it seemed to underscore, yet again, the class-system-that-dare-not-speak-its-name that exists in the Mommy Blogosphere. This class system might be unspoken but you can usually figure out when it is at work by noting a disparaging use of the terms “PR,” “product reviews ,” or “paid posts” and the dependence upon platitudes like “integrity ,” “community,” and “transparency .” People, I consider myself to be a member of the Third Tribe of bloggers: I am neither a blogging purist nor a strict monetizer, but I find it troubling when I see anything like paternalism or marginalization along class, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, or even geographical lines in the blogosphere.

That said, I can lament the unfair segregation of bloggers all I want from an ivory tower, but I’m still subject to the same prejudices as everyone else in the real world. Despite my best efforts, my analysis is probably going to be guilty of class bias here. Suffice to say that I don’t read MomDot, and after doing research for this post, I’m frankly not itching to start reading it any time soon. MomDot attracts a different demographic from that of ABDPBT , but the success or failure of a subscription model for blogging is something that could potentially be of interest to bloggers everywhere. This experiment is therefore worth a second look, I think, even if Tricia Haas’ move has angered some people, and caused others to doubt her sincerity. (Read more on why MomDot has gone to a subscription model here.)

The CopyBlogger Model For Making Money From Blogging

At present, there are three generally agreed upon means of successfully making money as a result of blogging:

1. By running direct advertisements;
2. By blogging for somebody else, either as a paid staff writer or on a pay-per-post basis; and
3. The CopyBlogger Model.

The first two methods are dicey for reasons with which you are probably already familiar: it’s tough to get enough traffic to make a good income from display advertisements, and as a result this only works for a fraction of bloggers online. Though many bloggers do make money through this method, only a small number presently make enough money from display advertisements alone to constitute a real income replacement — like, say, enough income to replace a job. It is slightly easier to make money using the second method, but it’s still difficult to find a single writing gig that pays enough to serve as one’s primary job, so in order to have this be your only source of income, you have to piece together a bunch of freelance writing gigs. Usually, these kinds of jobs are easier to get if you already have a considerable blog following of your own, so bloggers who write for other people are often being paid (at least in part) for the fanbase that is likely to follow them wherever they post.

The third, and by far the most successful model for making money as a result of blogging is also probably the least used, because it is hard and it requires a lot of dedication, perseverance, and patience. (If you are already familiar with The Copyblogger Model, then please skip my summary, because it’s probably going to over-simplify what is really a rather elegant business model devised by Brian Clark et al, of CopyBlogger. For expediency’s sake, though, I’ll just say that The CopyBlogger Model is a means of making money from blogging that involves (roughly) four main steps:

1. Create lots of free, high-quality online content and build a considerable following (this part takes a long time);
2. Create more free high-quality online content and continue to grow your following, upping the ante by giving away extraordinary things for which you could rightfully charge money, e.g. ebooks or online courses, but which you choose to give away for free;
3. After some time has passed and you have built up lots and lots of goodwill in your audience, make your audience an offer;
4. Repeat indefinitely.

“Making an offer” consists of selling something to your audience, but the key to this model is that you are selling your audience something — a tangible product, an information product, whatever — in which you believe. It is something that you use yourself or would use yourself, and you offer it to them at a price point and under terms such that it is clear to them that the benefits they are getting from it far outweigh how much money they pay. It is essential that you do it this way because you are not just looking for one sale: you are hoping to build a community of lifetime customers, who will get as much or more than they give to your community. You want them to be your friends, essentially, but friends who will also sometimes consider buying things from you. The key is goodwill — the audience is never required to do anything, and can continue to take advantage of free content as long as they want. That’s why nobody gets resentful.

For people who have used it, The CopyBlogger model works. The best example of this is Brian Clark, the founder of CopyBlogger and the co-founder of DIY Themes, the people who brought you the Thesis Theme for WordPress (on which all of the ABDPBT blogs run, by the way). He has made a ton of money (some say in the seven figures now) from selling the Thesis Theme, and most people who have used Thesis are happy with the money they spent on it (I am). Other examples of people who have used the CopyBlogger Model successfully, viz. by making an offer that is of a greater intrinsic value than its monetary cost include: Chris Guillebeau (travel guides), Naomi Dunford (small business guides); Sonia Simone (marketing guides and courses); Darren Rowse (ebook: 30 Days To a Better Blog); and Johnny B. Truant (web design, consultation). All of these people view the quality of their blogs as being essential to building the right to sell things to an audience, and this is why they are successful.

Why MomDot’s Use Of The CopyBlogger Model Must Fail

There is nothing wrong, in theory, with providing some content that requires paying a subscription fee. It has not been used by many bloggers yet, but there is no reason why it could not be successful in the future. The thing is, the value must be clear to the subscribing party — there has to be a clear benefit to payinig $5.99 per month to see blog posts. I have tried to figure out where this value might be and have failed, and I’m not even sure that MomDot’s audience is big enough to support a subscription-based site (Read more about my skepticism about the accuracy of MomDot’s traffic statistics here (NOW UPDATED).) While itt is clear that MomDot has made quite an impression on certain parts the Mommy Blogosphere, it’s not clear that a large amount of goodwill has been built up: there is no shortage of posts complaining about MomDot, whether it is about a recent post that some of her readers found objectionable or about her behavior to other bloggers. There is even a twitter account devoted to the topic of how much people hate MomDot (the strangeness of which is doubled by the fact that this account has been posting links to Macbook giveaways for most of the past two days, interspersed with pleas for people to realize that MomDot is evil). I will admit that the credibility of these comments is undermined by the fact that many of them appear in all caps (e.g. “DON”T SUPPORT MOM DOT!!! SHE MADE CRUEL REMARKS ABOUT CHILDREN!!! BOYCOTT HER AND HER FOLLOWERS!”) and make dubious, nearly incomprehensible claims that are littered with misspellings (e.g. “I think I will goggle [sic.] to find forums for children who are getting bullied and post the petition on all the sites!”). However, this much is clear: there is not a whole helluva lot of goodwill out there for MomDot.

At the very least, it seems like it’s a fair bet that is not enough goodwill built up in this readership to support a subscription site.

But the fundamental problem with this stab at using the CopyBlogger Model is that there is no value being offered for the price of admission. Why would I want to pay to get blog posts that I’m used to getting for free? What makes these posts so good that I’ll offer up the money? And more importantly, where am I going to get a taste of how good they are, which will keep me coming back for more? I’ll be the first to admit that making enemies online is not a tough thing to accomplish, particularly as your site gains traction. But there should be plenty of goodwill to outweigh the bad if you’re doing things right. So, in my mind, there is no way that this effort to create a subscription site can do anything but fail.

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