Why I Decided to Redirect My Blog Readers: A Trial Run with Clarity.fm

For the past two years, my contact page has said this:

My Contact page used to encourage readers to email for any reason. I love hearing from you all and would always respond, but as this site and my business grow, I’m realizing a girl needs her sanity. So due to unforseen Inbox Terrorism, I am now unable to respond to every email I receive. This doesn’t mean I won’t read it! Or appreciate your feedback, comments, questions and praises of my beauty, but there aren’t enough hours in the day and I have a full time job, various writing gigs, blog on a regular basis and attempt to have some form of a social life off my computer.

Friendly, but not encouraging.

Since people actually started reading my blog with some regularity, I started bitching about the amount of email I would get. Like this blog post on Brazen Careerist. Or this one.

But it’s not like anyone actually listened to me. Just the other day I got a TWENTY-SEVEN PARAGRAPH EMAIL from a reader telling me his entire life story followed by a general request to provide thoughts on his career. I don’t mean to sound harsh (okay, I do), but that is just too damn much. I would love to be able to help every single person who actually thinks I have the answers, but I just don’t. So I actively discouraged people from getting in touch.

Fast-forward a few years. And enter Clarity.

My latest discovery is a site called Clarity and it’s so wonderful it deserves a shout-out. Simply put, Clarity is a simple platform that allows you to call anyone and ask them a question. So let’s say I just quit my job and decided to be a freelance writer. It would be great to talk to a successful freelance writer for 10 minutes and get their feedback on my latest query letter. Or let’s say I was traveling to Japan next week and wanted to talk to a restaurant reviewer who’s been to Japan and get the name of their favorite restaurant.

Some people offer their advice for free, others charge a small fee. You pay by the minute (no, not like that, pervert), and it’s usually around $1-3. Clarity let’s you schedule based on time zone, sends you reminders beforehand, and gives you a number to call. They pay you via PayPal after 14 days. So far I’ve made about $50 and both calls have been lots of fun.

To get the most out of the service, it’s best to have a list of questions beforehand. And it definitely helps if you’re in front of a computer just in case.

I haven’t had a ton of people look at my profile, and there are definitely a plethora or people listing their skills as “social media” or “blogging”. Which of course makes perfect sense given the medium.

So I’ve decided to revamp my contact page. Because of these emails I keep complaining about, instead of taking an hour to review someone’s resume/explain for the billionth time how I used Facebook ads/do a Twitter view, I can instead encourage readers to visit my Clarity profile for quicky advice. This way, readers get the tips they want and I get compensated for said time. Makes sense, right?

My only concern is this: Is it fair for a blogger to direct readers to a paid service or should I count my flooding inbox as a “first world problem”, be nicer and answer everyone? What do you think? Would you pay a blogger for 15 minutes of their time?

I’ll report back on how it went…

Tagged as: Clarity

http://twitter.com/KimberlyKinrade Kimberly Kinrade
I feel your pain and see this kind of consulting as something that should be paid for. When responding to emails takes hours of your time, that’s work. Real work. There’s nothing wrong with being paid for the work you do, and you rock at it. I think it’s entirely fair to direct them to a paid service. It’s no different than if you were offering freelance consulting services. You’re just using a different set up for it. I say go for it! :)
- http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari
  Thanks for the great comment Kimberly! Especially since you agree with me ;-)
  It’s less about the money for me and more about the act of providing value. It could literally be a dollar but I think it’s important to set boundaries. Every May I get this influx of recent grads emailing me asking for career advice. I put SO MUCH TIME into those emails only to never hear anything back, not even a thank you. And it fucks me off. If I put a monetary value on my time/expertise, I think it makes people more appreciative and respectful.
http://www.dettie.com/ Dettie Ad Life
“Is it fair for a blogger to direct readers to a paid service”
In your case, I don’t think so. If responding to email is taking up a very large chunk of your time (and your time is valuable), then yes, it is fair. If there is something you feel bad about, perhaps a FAQ in addition to the clarify.fm account.
Now, if other bloggers just set up clarify.fm as a business for the sake of making money, then we get into some iffy areas.
- http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari
  Hmmm…. So you DON’T think I should do it? I’m not sure I understand your comment. Though I do think an FAQ for the most basic questions is a great idea. Again, I don’t think this is going to clear out my inbox entirely (everyone thinks their situation is special/unique), but I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first :)
  - http://www.dettie.com/ Dettie Ad Life
    Yikes. I meant to type in your case, I DO think so. Editing now :)
    But yes, I think it’s more than fair for a blogger like yourself to do something like Clarify. After a certain point, the time you spend answering and helping becomes valuable due to the fact that it’s taking up so much of your time and you’re providing a service that you honestly care about.
    I’m looking forward to see how this pans out for you.
http://twitter.com/parisianfeline T.S. Christian
I think this is a really nifty service because you’re giving your services when people ask specific questions pertaining to your expertise and experience. Additionally, this may help deter people who don’t know what to ask but hope you can infer their intentions through e-mail (like the guy who wrote you an essay. I don’t think I can even write an e-mail with 27 paragraphs). Additionally, it can help you save time re: checking and answering e-mails.
I’m not sure if it would clear out your inbox indefinitely. People may still e-mail you if the Clarity is presented as “optional” versus a mandatory stance on e-mail check and response. Some people refuse to check their e-mail at all. I certainly don’t get nearly enough e-mail to avoid my gmail so I don’t mind checking it so frequently.
I think if/once you make the switch to “I won’t check e-mails anymore” then it would be more of an issue. But if the pay for service option is optional, then it’s not a huge thing.
- http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari
  These are all awesome points, thank you! I have no expectations that it will clear out my inbox entirely and I wouldn’t want it to! I get enough awesome stuff to warrant always wanting to get email from readers. I guess I just want to set up the expectation that my time (and every blogger’s time!) is valuable and should be treated as such.
http://www.facebook.com/jnockels Jason Nockels
You’re a genius.
- http://marianlibrarian.com Marian Schembari
  Your mom’s a genius.
Stephen W
I think you are spot on doing this.
There are times when it is convenient to answer an email and times when it’s not. You have a life beyond this and shoudl be bale to happily combine the two.
Peoples expectations can sometimes be a little high and what some forget is that the two minutes you spend with them is actually a much bigger problem as you have 50 people all wanting two minutes.
So keep it up is my view!
http://twitter.com/familyspice Laura | Family Spice
You are charging people for your professional advice, your personal experience and knowledge base that you have accrued over the years. I see nothing wrong with that. That is what a consultant is. Just cheaper as you charge by the minute. When I started blogging years ago, I googled my answers and spent countless nights figuring things out. I took classes and practiced, practiced, practiced. Today, new bloggers want everything handed to them, even when there’s oodles of more information out there for them to search on their own. Go for it. And I maybe calling you myself for advice!
http://twitter.com/alexisgrant Alexis Grant
Hell yeah it’s fair! But, I understand what you’re saying about feeling bad about charging when people just want to get your advice. Here’s how I deal with that — I use clarity, too, and send people there to book calls with me. But I donate my time to charity:water, so I never see any of the money from the calls. This works for me because it’s not a loss of a ton of money, since I usually only do about one call/month, and it saves ME time because the person on the other end is much more conscious of how long we’re talking when they’re paying even a little for the call. Plus I get to donate to my favorite charity!
Dee
I think it’s fair. You are providing professional advice. These is no harm using a paid source for it.
Yamkantravel.blogspot.com
tom_m
Absolutely charge for your time. You’re consulting. It also forces people to come prepared with a good list of questions and talking points. I think you’ll be able to help people faster. E-mails are very easy to go back and forth a bunch of times and even stray off topic.
Pingback: An Update on my Clarity Experiment — Marian Schembari

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