No money down

Jeremy Lott, in response to a question I asked him, explains that weblogging can be helpful to a blogging journalist:

Well, I'm not going to throw out figures, but my blogging has conferred some modest financial benefits, in addition to "fun." A few entries have been picked up, pretty much as-is, by other outlets. About half a dozen short posts have been developed into articles, usually at an editor's request. The nuking Mecca flap, for instance, started out as a blog entry. Also, opportunities to write for Comment and the National Post have resulted directly from someone reading my blog.

For any working writer, there are a lot of other long-term benefits to running a blog: You can build an identity quite apart from any publication. Interested readers can be alerted when new articles are published. Potential employers--both freelance and long term--can get a much fuller sense of who they're dealing with. You can say what you want, when you want.

OK. I'm glad that weblogging is proving somewhat helpful to him. I think, though, that working the fax, e-mail and phone is probably more helpful to Jeremy. I sort of doubt that lots of people would want to buy a steer from farmer Jeremy (article for pay), when he has a "Free Meat!" stand (weblog). But then again, I am an old dog who needs to learn some new tricks that come as second nature to bright young pup (in a nice sense) Jeremy.

For calls out of the blue, I can imagine that a weblog can be a big help in introducing yourself. "Never heard of me before? Here's my weblog, here are some online stories of mine...."

It's worth thinking about.