Just over four years ago Jon Gruber registered the domain name "Daring Fireball". He didn't start writing his blog for another five months. Just a few months later, Gruber got lots of people's attention when he covered a story about a bogus testimonial that Microsoft had made up about a woman switching from a MAC to a PC.
That story Microsoft Make-Up got Gruber lots of attention. He has not disappointed.
According to the Blog Herald ,Gruber has decided to leave his day job and try to make a go of it as a full-time blogger
"As an avowed Mac geek, Gruber’s blog is one of the key blogs to read for all things related to Apple, their computers, their software, and just about any related topics. Daring Fireball also reaches out into many other topics, all of which Gruber handles with class and a great writing style that I only wish I could emulate.
If you’re like to support John’s work at Daring Fireball, visit his memberships page."
Gruber, circa 1977
In announcing his decision last week, Gruber talks about the business of blogging . The decision to go full time has been two years in the making. His business model-- membership based. $19 a year, Free when you purchase a T-shirt. And, you can purchase as many T shirts as you want.
"When I launched the membership program two years ago, I wasn’t sure whether it would be a failure, a bonanza, or something in-between. Ends up it was something in-between. I mean that in a good way, because it was way more successful than I honestly expected. But it was also less than I had sort of secretly hoped.
What I wanted was for this to be easy — for the revenue from the memberships and t-shirts sales to amount to something that, when combined with the money from a modest dose of advertising, would clearly constitute a reasonable full-time salary.
But there’s a reason why you can’t say, “Wow, look at all those people supporting their families with their weblogs devoted to deeply intricate Mac and web nerdery,” or, really, why there aren’t that many people supporting themselves full-time from their weblogs, period. That reason is because it isn’t easy."
In the end, Gruber said he decided to take the jump because "Daring Fireball is what I love to do."
In his post Gruber says,
One point I want to impress upon you is that the proper response to this announcement isn’t so much “Congratulations” as it is “Good luck, I hope it works”. Success is far from assured, and I’m feeling more than a little gut-wrenching uncertainty.
It’s difficult for me to write this sort of thing, to step out from behind the curtain and address you, the reader, directly — as I wrote two years ago, “Just me, your humble author, hat in hand, heart in throat, asking for your support”.
For those of you who think this is worthwhile, however, that’s what I’m doing: asking for your support. And I don’t know how to do so otherwise."
There are more than a few bloggers who will be watching and hoping that Gruber is very successful at this venture.
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