Pinoy Problogger: Jayvee Fernandez

Most of you may already know or read about Jayvee from the popular mobile gadget magazine, m|PH (among others).

You can also read another write-up of him here.

The rest, we can just read from his personal blog. Now, we’ll learn how this prolific writer/editor got into problogging.

• How would you define problogging?

  Problogging is the term used to describe online publishing as a legitimate source of income.

  As a corollary, problogging also means using your blog as an online reference for certain topics of interest. It is your own “personal wiki” if you may call it that.

  In sum, problogging may be the combination of two things – it is making money directly from your blog through different revenue sources, or making money indirectly using your blog as a self-promotion tool.

• When did you start blogging? When did you get into problogging and how did you realize that there’s some money to be had from it?

  I have been blogging casually since the 3rd quarter of 2003.

  I got into problogging in August of 2005 – and as most bloggers will tell you, by accident.

  I wanted to utilize my writing skills to make money online so I surfed for possible writing gigs. Turns out I was at the right website at the right time – I discovered The Blog Herald, owned by Duncan Riley, who is now one of the directors of b5media. At that time, he was looking for writers for an existing technology blog and I immediately expressed my interest.

  A few weeks later, I found out that the position was filled but Duncan told me that he found something “more suitable and more exciting for my style of writing” so I kept my fingers crossed and next thing you know, Cellphone9 was served to me on a silver platter.

• Which blogs are you writing for and which blog networks are you affiliated with?

  My main blog where I concentrate most of my efforts is Cellphone9, the b5media blog on mobile technology. I also write for The AfterMac, a lifestyle blog on Apple products. I co-blog with Dickoy Magdaraog of Fight Pompe and Adel Gabot, the current EIC of m|PH magazine.
  
  A Bugged Life is my personal blog.

• Are you problogging part time or full time? Do you see this career as a part time gig or you are looking into going fulltime problogging?

  I see problogging as a part time gig. This is because I cannot guarantee that problogging will yield a consistent stream of income to pay for everything – at least not yet.

  Darren Rowse of Problogger.net once wrote about how “going pro” should and will NEVER happen overnight. You can’t just decide to make blogging your life, quit your job tomorrow, blog like crazy, and then earn a few hundred dollars from Google the next week. It doesn’t happen that way, unfortunately.

  Ask me again a year from now and I might give you a different answer. There are many variables in the blogging world that may affect how income streams are generated or cut off.

• How do you monetize your blog? Which ones bring in the most revenues?

  It should be known that the ads are carefully chosen by the b5 network and not me. Right now there’s Google AdSense of course. But other than that there’s BlogAds, TextLinkAds, TextLinkBrokers, Kontera, AdBrite and BizRate. We used to subscribe to Chitika but not anymore. Feedback was that it wasn’t that great.

• What are the requirements to go into problogging for a network? Flat fee or profit sharing? How much is the salary range?

  We follow the “you make your blog work for you” system. Although we don’t have a “fixed salary” I can sort of predict how much my sites make just by looking at the PageRank-based ads that pay a fixed rate. Getting your site’s PR up a few notches increases the value of your blog to advertisers.

  Increasing your PR means blogging like crazy, linking to people and getting links from relevant sites.

• How much time do you spend on problogging?

  On the average I give around 30 minutes to an hour a day. Sometimes two hours, when I get all giddy on the keyboard. I go really slow on weekends because I believe that bloggers need some “fresh space” every now and then to recharge on ideas.

  One of the pitfalls of problogging is when you turn it into a boring routine. You’ll start to notice that your post quality goes down and your level of enthusiasm depreciates. And that’s a big no-no.

• What other benefits do you get from problogging?

  People start to recognize you from your blog. Your blog becomes a legitimate source of reference for future jobs as fellow b5’er Aaron writes in Technosailor.com.

  I also get insider knowledge about the blogging industry and get to interact with the b5 family from around the world. It keeps lonely nights happy.

  As a “company benefit”, b5 hosts our personal blogs for free.

• What’s the most significant event/moment you had in your entire problogging career?

  Too early to tell as of this moment. But so far, it would be when my site got mentioned in Gizmodo, giving me over 2,000 unique hits on that one post – in one day. In the long run, my site stats doubled in one month just because of that.

  Money-wise, the most significant moment was when I went over the $100.00PHP 5,869INR 8,475EUR 95CNY 728 mark in income, which happened over two months ago. If you put that in perspective, people from the Philippines won’t even believe me if I tell them that I make money out of blogging. The ‘blogging industry’ here is unheard of.

• What personal tips can you share with bloggers who want to try out problogging?

  Blogging, just like journalism, the publishing industry, and the arts is a passion-based type of job. You gotta love what you’re doing – and be knowledgeable with your field of interest. It can be as niched as knitting, flying an airplane, gaming, or following the latest celebrity gossip.

  Without the passion for something, no one will read you. Passion markets itself, and that’s where you should begin. Find your niche, blog about it and really “own” it.