5 Types of Probloggers

Before I start my series of Filipino problogger interviews, I’d like to share the various paths to a problogging career:

The Traditional Problogger. This type of blogger directly pulls a majority of their revenue from their own blogs, from creating them, blogging and monetizing. Although this kind of problogging is the most common, it is also one of the most difficult. This requires that the blogger manages every aspect of his blog/s much like a start-up entrepreneur. Potential for growth is great but actual success rate is very low. They may earn from a couple of hundred dollars a month to about $15,000 like Darren Rowse.

The Corporate Problogger. This type of problogger basically works for a company with the specific job description that heavily involves blogging. This type of blogger may come from the sales, marketing or the PR department and is tasked to communicate with the companies clients and the rest of the industry thru blogging. It is also possible the a whole department is assigned to do the blogging along with a single point person. Standard salaries apply. (Read more on Corporate Blogging in the Philippines.)

The Celebrity Problogger. (I would have used the term “A-List Problogger” but it could be too vague.) This kind of blogger has followers and loyal readers in the thousands. The celebrity problogger has made a name for himself thru blogging and not because this blogger is already known in traditional media. Product endorsements take a huge chunk of this probloggers revenue. He may even get away with asking for donations from his readers like Jason Kottke who got $39,900 last year. They sometimes end up writing a book as well like PostSecret.

The Career Problogger. The career problogger seems to be the one taking the center stage lately as their numbers grow in the dozens every month because of the mushrooming “blog network” all over the world. Career bloggers work for a blog network or a number of networks, either part-time or full time, with either fixed salary, pay-per-post, profit-sharing or a combination of the previous schemes. The career problogger’s only concern is to blog while the network provides all technical, marketing and sales efforts.

And lastly, we have the Blog Overlord. This type of a problogger is the most entrepreneurial of the whole lot as he owns a vast number of blogs with dozens of bloggers under his wing. You can basically say that the blog overlord is the boss of the career problogger. The likes of Jason Calacanis‘ of WeblogsInc, Nick Denton of Gawker Media and John Battelle of Federated Media are under this category.

These classifications are the more general ones but you might see some hybrids around. In the problogging world, the traditional ones may take up 90% of the population followed by career probloggers at 7%, corporate bloggers at 3%, while the celebrity probloggers and blog overlords are less than 0.01%. But that’s just my rough estimate from a quick survey.