Three Years Selling Words
Nina opens a package that arrives on her bed one afternoon and can’t believe what she’s looking at: a new black handbag, worth maybe seventy euros. She didn’t order it. A handwritten card explains: A small thank you for having such a great blog.
She’s thrilled, takes photos of herself with the bag in her bright bedroom, posts them with a link to the company. Everyone wins, right? Not really.
Within a couple hours she’s being added to an Excel spreadsheet somewhere in an agency office—another line item for the publicity person to track. One blog post traded for seventy euros of merchandise. The math is not subtle. Looking at it, Nina has already decided what she’s worth, and she’s not going to bump that number up for a while.
I’ve been making my living from this for three years now. Rent, food, books, records, the things that cost money in Berlin—it all comes from writing about whatever I find worth writing about. It’s not hard, really. You just have to remember a few things, which is what I’m laying out here. Or at least, things I try to remember. Most of the time.
Start by not being a blogger. There are blogs everywhere—fashion blogs, tech blogs, music blogs, blogs about food, about travel, about cities. The thing is, if you want money from this, you can’t just have a blog. You need to become something people actually want. Nerdcore, Stil in Berlin, Journelles—these places exist everywhere in different forms, different audiences, different degrees of success. They stand out because they have a recognizable voice, they work hard, and they own their niche so completely that when someone wants to know about that thing, they come to you. And when they come to you, the agencies come too.
Figuring out who you are in this space is the first move. What do you actually have that’s worth reading? Are you unusual? Write about yourself and what happens to you. Are you beautiful? Flood people with photos. Do you care obsessively about one thing? Make that your whole thing. The pattern holds. You become an institution by being so completely yourself that you become the place people have to go for that particular flavor of mind.
The worst thing that can happen is being ignored. Mix boring writing with no personality and nobody’s going to show up. The agencies—they book the superstars or the people who are convincing enough to pass for superstars. So the thing you’re actually building is not a blog. It’s a version of yourself that people want to know.
When you’re talking to agencies and clients, you need to sound like you belong in that conversation. Learn the vocabulary—TKP, Expandable Super Banner, Unique Visitors. If you don’t know these things, you’re giving them permission to lowball you. Put together a media kit in a professional design. One page, maybe two. Who you are, what your blog’s about, who reads it, your numbers, your social reach, some past work. Make it look like you take yourself seriously, because if you don’t, they won’t.
But don’t disappear into the professional part entirely. Nobody’s a robot all day. Be charming when you need to be, but keep some space between the people at agencies and actual friendship. When it’s business, you’re charming but firm. They want you to write about their thing. You want money. That’s the whole conversation.
The mistake I see all the time is bloggers trading their work for nothing. A gift, a coupon, a vague promise of collaboration
later. And they’re grateful just to be noticed. They don’t realize they’re one line in a spreadsheet created by an overworked intern at some agency. The rule is simple: if someone’s using you to make money, they pay you. The agencies turn every article and every link into dollars. So you do the same.
How much? If you’re small, maybe three hundred euros an article. If you’re medium-sized, maybe five hundred. If you’re big, maybe nine hundred or more. Links on your social accounts cost extra. Products that don’t fit your audience, you turn down, even if the money’s good. When you feel like they got a deal because of who you are, you can charge more. Give discounts to people who book multiple posts at once, or agencies that come back month after month. But don’t let yourself become their permanent sale item. Every so often it’s fine to write about something for free if you actually want to—just don’t pretend you want to when you don’t.
The deeper thing is that the more time you put in, the bigger it gets, but only if it’s something people could actually care about. If your angle is too weird or you’re just kind of boring, you can work until your eyes fall out and nothing happens. Some people should probably just grow vegetables instead. But early on, before the money comes, you have to invest your own. A real domain, real hosting, good software, a decent camera. The tools matter. Not because they’re magic, but because trying to build something serious with garbage tools is like trying to make a good painting with a cheap brush—you’re fighting the material before you even start.
Social media is where the traffic multiplies and where you talk to people. Post on Facebook, engage on Twitter, show your life on Instagram, archive interesting things on Pinterest. The numbers matter to agencies, maybe more than they should. The higher your count, the more you can ask for. So you grow your audience by being engaged, being weird sometimes, being honest. But also build relationships with the people who work at agencies. Meet them for lunch, go to events, become a familiar face. Unknown bloggers with great work sit in a pile. Known bloggers with decent work get booked.
I don’t always follow my own advice. Sometimes I don’t answer emails because I’d rather drink wine and play Civilization. Sometimes I undercharge because I know the person asking or I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes I disappear from social media because I’m having a crisis and wondering why any of this matters. That’s fine, probably necessary even. What matters is not losing sight of the goal when you get back, and figuring out what actually works for you and what doesn’t. What your real niche is. How you actually like to write. Whether you want to do this alone or with other people. Whether you’re hunting for cool things to link to or making your own stuff.
Nina learned something from that handbag. Yes, it felt nice to be noticed. But what actually happened was someone calculated that they could get a blog post and SEO links cheaper by sending a gift than by negotiating a rate. The internet is a market like any other. You’re the one who gets to decide what role you play in it.