The Best Blog Monetization Strategy? Don't.
Four ways to monetize your blog — and why the best strategy might be not monetizing at all. True freedom comes from writing without constraints or audience demands.
Blogging Outside Format. A manifesto, post #14/14
How do you monetize a blog? Four options. And my favorite — the fifth.
Option 1: Sell services
Show you're invested, trustworthy, pleasant to work with. But then you can't publicly complain about clients anymore. Can't post about how you got wasted last night. The blog becomes a storefront. Reliable, professional, dependable — that's the image you have to maintain.
Option 2: Sell courses
You need infrastructure: a platform, payment processing, support. People learn from people, not from course materials. The more interesting you are as a human being — the more you'll sell. Not the smartest, not the most qualified. Just the most interesting.
Managing all that sales admin? Royal pain in the ass. A regular job starts to look like a spa.
Option 3: Sell ads
Depending on your audience, it's either a nice bonus or a real income stream. In a professional blog? Coffee money, not a paycheck.
The creator economy runs on power law. On Patreon, the top 0.86% of creators take 37% of all the money. On Substack, the top 10 authors earn over $40M a year — the average author makes $9K. On Medium, only 8% earn more than $100 a month. 57% of full-time creators earn below minimum wage.
The creator middle class is a myth.
Option 4: Ghost instead of Substack
If you're going the subscription route anyway — Ghost takes 0% commission. Just Stripe's 2.9%. Substack takes 10%. At scale, that gap is real. One author switched from Substack to Ghost and saw revenue jump 10% just from the savings.
My option: nothing
If you're not desperate for cash — don't monetize. That's where the real freedom is. No storefront to maintain. Nothing to admin. No being a slave to your audience.
I have zero paying subscribers. And why should I care? What's there to be bitter about? Right now I'm having the time of my life. Maybe subscriptions bring money later. Maybe they don't. But the blog isn't about money. Money is freedom. And freedom means writing what I want, when I want, without looking over my shoulder.
The best monetization for a personal blog? Nothing. Just enjoy the hell out of it.
