Blogger Dollars: What do you pay the writers on your Blog Network?
You’ve heard of b5media, WeblogsInc, 9 rules, Gawker, and Web Log Empire, all of which pay different rates, have intensely differing numbers of employees, and different popularities. People want to get in on the whole “blog network” thing expecting big payouts, sometimes with great disappointment, so I’d like to talk about what’s fair in terms of blog network writer compensation, and what I pay my two underlings right now.
The deal I have with them is they take 90% of the raw profit minus pro-rated wordcount of whatever I write on those blogs. That means if they write 100% of their articles, they get 90% of the profit, the other 10% going to development costs and my own pocket. However, I chime in with maybe 5% of their posts, I’ll be taking 15% of their profit instead. This is fair, because it rewards us equally out of the remaining share, and gives me a 10% incentive to actively promote and work on their blogs.
One issue I have to sort out is tax liability. Currently my “employees” are family members (authorized to work in this country) who probably have never paid taxes before. Next month they’ll get their first payout, and I’m not exactly sure what to do with them. Options include withholding taxes in a seperate account or paying them everything and letting them sort it out. I’m not sure yet how I will have to file this on my tax forms, or if I’ll need to incorporate myself or not. This could definitely be a learning experience.
The last thing on my mind is a question–if you run a blog network, or a profitable set of blogs or websites with multiple authors, how do you cut up earnings?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 8:41 am and is tagged with great disappointment, last thing on my mind, wordcount, withholding taxes, underlings, gawker, tax liability, learning experience, tax forms, web log, family members, earnings, empire, blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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