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Ask HN: Can we help each other?

12 pointsLavaBrain6 comments

I just found this topic - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1171520 - and it got me to thinking:

I have an audience and a fan base. I am a public figure who is well-known in my city. I have an online presence: twitter, Facebook, blog. I know I don't get the traffic I should, but can on that.

How can I monetize me? How can I generate revenue without appearing to 'sell out.' Currently, I make zero, so even a few hundred a month is more than I make now.

But here's the big picture: If I can make just $1000 a month being me, and I can find 9 others like me who can make the same amount ... that is $120K per year. What if I can find 50 others?

I don't have the time to do the work to make it happen. Maybe some of you have ideas / suggestions / proposals? Maye we can work together and everyone makes money?

Just thinking out loud ... would love to hear thoughts!

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I'm not sure anyone should get money just for being themselves. "Selling out," a.k.a. having a job, is kinda how it's done.

Speaking from experience - if you are indeed a news personality at a TV station, you're going to have a tough time monetizing yourself without running into a conflict with your own stations web goals, etc.

If you think that you have the right to monetize yourself while using the station as a promotional platform (even to put yourself in the public eye) and that your employer is not going to want a cut of the revenue you generate based on the "TV version" of you, you're fooling yourself.

I think it helps to have a platform or idea that you stand for, because marketing yourself generically probably won't generate too much interest. For example, a local news personality where I live is well known in the gay community, and his name pops up on its own in that context. What are you into? Food, "financial responsibility," horses, etc.

Or maybe you can start a phony rivalry with the weather guy and post catty things about each other. That might get some attention!

Clarification: My full-time, paying job is being said public figure. Just for fun, lets say I'm one of the top-rated personalities at one of the news stations in town.

You don't get paid for being you, you get paid to perform a function.

That your public profile rises because of that is a side effect. Anybody in that role would see their public profile rise.

How - and if - you monetize that is up to you, some people feel that monetizing their public image is not in their long term interest, others have no qualms about it and allow their image to be used for product endorsements and so on.

The final decision on how and when you 'mint' your public persona is really up to you but whatever you do don't become the 'face' of anything that you do not 100% believe in. Otherwise you might find that you can lose respect and standing as quickly as you can gain it, and possibly even faster.

Would be more than happy to shoot the shit: j@jasonlbaptiste.com

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