One of my students in my Writing for the World Wide Web page tipped me off to this the other day:
The U.S. Department of Labor puts out what I believe is an annual report called the Occupational Outlook Handbook. I recall this being the sort of thing you looked at when you went to the high school guidance counselor’s office to get ideas about what you wanted to do when you grew up; it was on paper in those days, of course.
Anyway, if you look under the entry for “writers and editors,” you will eventually come to this passage:
Bloggers write for the Internet. Most bloggers write personal reflections on a subject of close personal or professional interest. Some blogs take the form of a personal diary; others read like reports from the field—first-hand, subjective accounts of an event or an activity. Most blogs are written for recreational reasons with little expectation of earning a fee; however, some blogs promote a business or support a cause and may generate interest or income through other activities.
Well, sort of. There usually isn’t money in blogging, but I’m not sure it’s recreational exactly.
Actually, a search on monster.com with the key-term “blog” does turn up a surprising number of jobs. The problem is that most of them are on the computer-geek side of things– design an interface, be the software engineer for, etc. No ads that say something like “Seeking the random thoughts– sometimes useful, often times not– of a middle-aged academic blogger. Low six figures. Pseudoanonymous identity bloggers will be considered.” And so forth.
I guess I’ll keep looking….