No sooner do I get back from Australia than I’m off to Palau. Perhaps I should start paying guest bloggers to write for Travelhappy for when I’m away?
This is getting a bit silly. I’ve only been back from Australia for a week but I’m travelling again from Friday as I head to Palau on a trip for Scuba Diver Australasia magazine. This year has been one of non-stop travel for me so far but while my hatred level for airports continues to rise, I’m definitely not fed up with getting to see Burma, the Philippines and now Palau for the first time.
Unfortunately all this travelling is playing havoc with keeping Travelhappy updated on a daily basis, not helped by the fact that my home internet connection got mysteriously disconnected while I was away in Australia. Deep joy. This post is brought to you courtesy of the free wifi in Gloria Jean’s Coffee on Soi Asoke in Bangkok.
I’ve got some interesting posts lined up for while I’m away again, but getting back to the daily routine is going to take a while. On the other hand, I still have a stack of stuff from my travels earlier this year that I want to write about, and no doubt Palau will add to that pile.
I’d like to thank Chris Osborne from Absorbing The World for his guest post here on Travelhappy 5 Differences Between Thai and Issarn Culture. If there are any other travel bloggers out there who’d like to do a guest post on Travelhappy, please leave a comment below. It only needs to be around 250 words and themed around Asia.
I have been pondering about the idea of paying other bloggers to write for Travelhappy to help me cover situations like this – or indeed, paying any traveller who can write up a pithy few hundred words about a useful tip or experience they had in Asia. I was thinking of paying $10 US per blog post. $10 per post seems to be the going rate for many of the Weblogs Inc blogs that were set up by Jason Calacanis and co, although I imagine they are probably paying a fair bit more. My thinking is that there must be loads of travellers out there who can write well that simply can’t be bothered to set up their own blog – so this could be a way of them sharing their info and earning some beer money as well. I like the idea of growing Travelhappy so it’s not just me writing it.
The problem is, of course, as soon as you involve money it changes the whole dynamic of what a blog post is worth and the time and effort involved to write it. So I’d like to ask Travelhappy readers, many of whom are travel bloggers, what do you think? Is it a good or bad idea? I’d love to know your thoughts as I may try to set this up when I get back from the next round of travelling. Please leave a comment below as I’d love to know your opinion. Thanks!
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Only pay for what you post, this way writters will understand the content needs to be good inorder for them to get paid.
Good point Chris. I would definitely run it on a very selective basis, only publishing posts I thought were good quality – and I’m fairly picky. I guess it would also have to be exclusive – there’s not much point paying for posts if they turn up on the writer’s own blog the next day.
I think the biggest problem this idea faces is simply getting enough people to find out about it and submit quality stuff. Travelhappy is still pretty small at the moment – 500 to 700 visitors a day – so I can’t see that many people showing an interest at the moment.
I am an 18 year old Student from Adelaide, Australia and although I am not travelling too often at the moment, I plan to kick my solo (eg. no parents) at the end of this year with a trip to – Thailand! I think its a great idea, but as Chris Osborne said, only pay for the blogs that are good enough. I know I will definitely be writing blogs everywhere I go for my own personal satisfaction, at least this way I may have somewhere to actually share my experiences!
Safe and happy travelling Chris!
Thanks Ash! Happy travels and do let me know your blog address when you get it started. Be interested to know what you make of Thailand. I am actually passing through Adelaide in July on my way to Port Lincoln and diving with the great white sharks with Rodney Fox…
Sorry about the delayed reply. I was in Darwin for 5 days with no internet access.
I’m going to set up my blog address in the next few days, I’ll send you the address once it’s set up. Swimming with Great Whites with Rodney Fox, that sounds amazing!! Please write a detailed blog regarding your experiences in Port Lincoln, something I’ll definitely be doing in the future, swimming with sharks =]