Death by blogging?

by: Pam Spaulding

Sun Apr 06, 2008 at 14:00:00 PM EDT

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

...To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.

* pressure for timeliness - need to comment or post on topics that are breaking;
* keep fresh content coming on the Blend - frequency of posts is a key to bring readers back;
* fulfilling requests to write original content and/or guest post at other blogs;
* travel to serve on panels or liveblog (I'm comped for travel arrangements on only a few events, so my ad revenues go to cover the rest);
* travel to conferences to network, do research and have access to interview subjects since I don't live in DC or NY. Again, on my dime -- and time, since I have to find time to take off of the day job.

Of course there is much personal satisfaction gained from the above, as I feel that I'm making a small contribution toward moving discussions about LGBT rights and race relations forward. But that's paired with ongoing large-scale projects at work, managing staff, and keeping up with my day job deadlines, so I can definitely identify with the burnout, reduced resistance to catching colds and persistent insomnia (I had the latter problem long before blogging, it's just worse now). Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with weight gain(!); I've actually lost weight, though that may be due more to the damn late gall bladder than anything else.

One 22-year-old guy mentioned in the article who is paid to blog, sleeps only five hours a night, loves what he does, but pulls all nighters writing, and literally falls asleep at the computer. I have to cop to that last pathetic one. I remember sitting on the bed in a hotel where I was attending a conference and writing after a long day. My laptop was not plugged in, since I was only going to write up a couple of posts. Next thing I know I'm picking up my head -- the computer had shut off from running out of juice, and my hands were still on the keyboard. Maybe 3-4 hours had gone by.

I wonder what the long-term consequence of this burning the candle at both ends is -- I turn 45 this July, I certainly am not some 20-something computer jockey. At this point I have to laugh when people ask me whether I'm going to write a book (as Amanda Panda and other bloggers have. Uhhh...and when would I have time to do that?!

By the way, Kate and I are getting away from it all next weekend, going to the mountains to a B&B. Not exactly long enough to recharge any batteries, but it will be nice not to think about the blog for 48 hours.