Time to hang up the pajamas– Daniel Lyons

567px-daniellyonsDaniel Lyons of Fake Steve Jobs-fame showed exhaustion from blogging after failing in his attempt to turn his blog into a business that could bring in the earnings that would satisfy him.

As experience taught him, even a monthly traffic of 1.5 million and 10 to 20 posts per day is not enough to turn in a living for him, earning only $1,039.81. Despite additional ads coming in, his blog apparently failed to push him into quitting his day job.

“While blogs can do many wonderful things, generating huge amounts of money isn’t one of them,” Lyons said.

His obsession failed to bring in the ‘pot of gold’ from his venture. For this, he concludes that it’s time to hang up the pajamas.

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How about you, when is it time to hang up your pajamas?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

View Comments (11)
  • Let me get this straight…

    Writing 10-20 articles *per day*
    1.5 million visits in a single month
    and he only made $1,039.81???

    This is the typical example of people doing what they’re good at (for him it was writing 10-20 posts per day) and neglecting other areas (in this case it was the business model/revenue stream). Imagine if he had started building a list by giving something away or even sold an ebook. There are tons of ways to monetize traffic…he just seems like he was more concerned about content and looked too hard at the “bottom line”, which for him was money. 1.5 million visitors in a month is the exact opposite of a reason to “hang up the pajamas”.

    I personally think there is more too it than what’s on the surface. Legal action? Strong-armed by an employer or client? Could be a number of things.

    Here’s the bottom line…do what you’re good at, but enlist the help of others to pick up the areas you’re lacking in. Look at the big picture, step WAY back, and figure out how you can not only get to your desired goal, but also take advantage of every single step along the way.

  • actually I’m doing it very well, for me its no today, no tomorrow… I’ll keep my pajamas for a while.

  • If the source of revenue is to be from advertising, then the author is right–it is very hard to make money from that source alone, on a consistent basis. Blogging professionally means much more than that if one really wishes to join the uber-bloggers making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  • Yep, there’s definitely something lacking from the monetisation strategy (if indeed there was a strategy) if that many visitors couldn’t translate into more cash.

    Even running Google AdSense alone could generate more than that on such traffic if it was well implemented. Diversifying direct and indirect income would’ve created even more.

  • Heck at $1039.81 for 1.5 visitors, I’m only 30ooo% away from retiring. Google ads bring in about $3 a month for me. My goal is to eventually land some good sponsors and generate some consulting gigs.

  • It’s important to set realistic targets when starting blogging. Not only the returns you expect to see but also how much time and money you’re going to invest.

    It seems that Daniel Lyons started out with some fairly unrealistic targets.

    Having said that, if I was in it for the money and only got $100 from 500,000 visits I’d probably think “blogging for a living” was a bit of a sham

  • A hearty AMEN to Shane’s comment. When you’ve got 1.5 MILLION eyeballs – there are LOTS of ways to monetize a blog. The problem is – that opportunity is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

    Adsense is HORRIBLE on sites that: a) talk about technology or b) talk about a wide variety of topics.

    Got a blog with an OCD obessession about photography? That’s a great candidate for Adsense. Got a blog that talks about 15 random subjects – forget Adsense and turn to other ways to make money.

    There’s more to making money blogging than throwing Adsense on your blog and expecting the dollars to roll in. Obviously Daniel Lyons had a lot to say but nothing to sell.

  • I don’t know if I really agree with pretending to be somebody famous online… Just because they are a celebrity of sorts doesn’t exactly call for their life to be exposed in a fake manner. The way Steve was depicted on this site is probably grounds for a slander suit.

  • Maybe people got tired of his posing and his writings did not have any value. Faking someone is always a bad idea. Wonder that Steve Jobs did not prosecute him.

    Daniel’s geographic knowledge also was crap, for example showing a picture of Ottawa for Toronto, confusing Lebanon with the city of Lisbon and Austria with Australia (from Wikipedia)

  • Other than the novelty and humor of the idea, the blog had no real “value”. It was a gimmick at best and a poorly monetized one at that.

    “Do what you love and the money will follow” may work (or may not) in the real world but it certainly doesn’t work online. 1.5 million in traffic per month and no real monetization plan? It’s enough to make the baby Jesus cry.

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