Portrait of the blogger as a young man
So I am now officially unemployed.
Well, I am officially blogging full time actually – so not quite unemployed so much as not traditionally employed. I am a contributor at Forbes so that makes me basically a contractor. I left my job of the past few years today and will focus entirely on my writing going forward. Oh, and on grad school probably unless I manage to land an actual salaried position with health benefits at some savvy publication.
Anyways, hopefully this means I’ll have more time to spend around here, though I will be spending a great deal of time writing at my other blog as well since it is now my primary source of income.
Wish me luck. And stop by occasionally at Forbes and comment won’t you?
Congrats Erik!Report
Wait. You weren’t a professional blogger before?Report
Only part time.Report
What was the other part?Report
Good luck and godspeed!Report
Oooh, good luck! (I’m sure it’s terrifying and freeing at the same time!)Report
Ditto all three of these.Report
Yep, I’m very excited and totally freaked out all once. Which is why I’m playing video games right now.Report
What are you into at the moment?Report
I’d comment @ Forbes if Forbes made signing on and commenting, you know, actually work.Report
Congrats and good luck, Erik!
Any progress on a more user-friendly comment system at Forbes? I suppose I should just suck it up and register, I do enjoy your Forbes blog.Report
I’ve been trying to comment there for quite a long time to no avail. It really is a very un-user-friendly system. (I’m beginning to wonder if that’s by design…)Report
This is in the works. From what I can tell it will be changing to a much more user-friendly system. Soon, I hope.Report
Rest assured, it is very, very, very, very high on our list of things to do.Report
Bon chance, mon ami! Also, get Forbes to fix its commenting system!Report
If you could do something about the display fonts that would be great as well. Having all the main text be in boldface makes it something of an eyesore. Good luck!Report
Good luck and God’s speed!
But out of curiosity, what type of work did you do up until today?Report
It’s a secret!Report
I’m waffling between the guesses “male escort,” “rodeo clown,” or “Suns backup small forward.”Report
I can see a way to make all those three work simultaneously.Report
Erik, I’m disappointed that you would give up a life of vigilante crime-fighting to become a full-time blogger.Report
Owner of a house-cleaning service that sends undocumented workers to clean Sheriff Joe’s bathrooms?Report
I guess that Forbes gig is panning out better than the toe-dipping over at Cole’s place?
Who’da guessed it?!? 🙂Report
Good luck Erik.Report
you will be missed – but inquiring minds want to know if this puts you above the poverty line?Report
Posted on another thread but bloggers can make money.
Online Infopreneurs: Bloggers making over $380,000 a year are a dime a dozen. Here are some that make the list: Heather Armstrong (Dooce), Darren Rowe (Pro Blogger), Michael Arrington (Tech Crunch), Pete Cashmore (Mashable), John Chow (John Chow), J. Shoemoney (Shoemoney), Perez Hilton (Perez Hilton), Ben Huh (Cheezeburger Network), Peter Rojas (Gizmodo), Leo Babauta (Zen Habits), and many top personal finance bloggers. There are hundreds more that we’ve never heard of.
Here’s hoping that you manage to parlay your blogging into membership in the 1% club and then continually face cognitive dissonance as your liberal side argues with your libertarian one. 😉Report
I got my first W-2 in 1985, for the nine weeks I spent washing dishes and bussing table at a deli in Ashland OR.
I didn’t get another one until 2003 when we re-organized as a an S-corp (for favorable treatment of employee benefits, not income tax, ward is a dickhead blowhard incompetent fool, blah blah blah) and I became an employee of the corporation.
Full-time employment for someone else is vastly overrate. In fact, it’s a racket designed to separate you from the one thing you truly own: the number of times you’re going to go around the flaming ball of hydrogen we call “the sun”.
Congrats!Report
LOL, you try so hard Ryan and still come up so short. You’re welcome to dissemble at any length desired on how my correction of your quote below was wrong, unfair, dickheaded, incompetent and so on blah blah blah to you too Mr. Dickfor.
(for favorable [TAX] treatment of employee benefits, not income tax, ward is a dickhead blowhard incompetent fool, blah blah blah)Report
This is good news. I’m looking forward to your increased output. And congratulations on being able to play videogames again.Report
I second all the congratulatory sentiments. Also, I’m curiouis, what kind of graduate work are you possibly looking into (or was that sarcastic? my irony filters are horribly deficient).Report
Parents, let this be a warning: once your children put on that damned bowler hat, strutting around Dublin with an eyepatch and ashplant can only be, at most, a few years away. Pretty soon they’ll be shacking up in castles with pompous medical students and Englishmen who hunt tigers while sleepwalking. Act now — once it gets that far, it’s too late to help.Report
Also, I feel like Rufus and I can stand as warnings about grad school and profuse blogging. (Though others seem to pull it off quite well.)Report