Two Limericks About the Cash Value of Blogging

Frankly CuriousI was thinking of writing limericks for all my family rather than presents that I’m definitely not giving out because I have no money. By the way: see that Amazon banner there at the top of the screen? If you are going to buy junk (or great works of literature, music, and cinema) from Amazon, use that link or any other on the site to buy it and 4% that would normally just go to Amazon goes to us. In case there is any doubt: it doesn’t change your cost at all! Now, if you would rather do this for some other (less) worthy cause, I understand. But if you just go to Amazon directly, stop! At least make Amazon pay for all the advertising it is getting by going through a worthy cause or the most worthy cause.

I am very pleased with how Frankly Curious has grown over time. It is an amazing process starting a blog from nothing. If you work it long enough, people do start to notice. I think there must be a limit. But we have not apparently reached it. Every week we seem to get more traffic. And more people link to us. And most of all, the quality of the writing improves. These are all things that make me very happy.

But financial gain is not one of the benefits of running a blog. Don’t get me wrong: I never thought that blogging would be profitable. I thought it would be an adjunct to my other work. The problem is that blogging takes on a life of its own. I need to branch out, and I am trying. It requires setting aside time for other projects and I am working on a book about mysticism and paradox and community. We’ll see if anyone is interested in reading that! But a blog itself offers damn little it terms of paying the bills. So I wrote a couple of limericks to sum up the situation. The first one is the better one. The second is kind of a parody of the most famous limerick of all time.

There once was a writer named Rogg
Who founded a popular blog
With all of his cash
He threw a big bash
Consisting of just one hot dog.

This second one has a naughty word in it. But as it is used, it would still be allowed in a PG-13 film. And I’ve put in asterisks, although I don’t really know what the point is. It still means the same thing!

A blogger there was from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
When it was all gone
His laptop was pawned
To blogging he said, “Oh just f**k it!”

So in case I wasn’t clear enough: If you are going to buy junk (or great works of literature, music, and cinema) from Amazon, buy it through Frankly Curious. Or at least someone like The Majority Report or The Young Turks. But you know who is most worthy. I mean, Sam Seder has those Bob’s Burgers residuals coming in!

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