Via Carolyn Elefant, who didn’t appear ready to jump, the subtly-named Shit Law Jobs posted an interesting offer:

Law Firm with multiple websites needs an articulate person with strong writing skills to help with high volume blog entries for each of the Firm’s websites. Goal is to reach 700 – 1000 blog entries by the end of December working part time Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am – 5pm. If this goal is reached or exceeded work hours will be increased based on accomplishment. Pay scale is $8.50 per hour. Writing samples will be necessary to interview for this job. If you do not have your own writing samples, please be prapared to bring sample blog entry to interview for one of the following topics: (1) Help With Warrants in Dallas (2) How Can a Traffic Ticket Attorney Help You (3) Caught Speeding in Dallas? Know Your Rights.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/wri/2729285263.html

Carolyn thought this advertisement reflected a  lack of appreciation of the value of blogging.  She can be so negative at times.  Not only does this Dallas law firm put its money where its SEO is, but it’s contributing to the economic well-being of both the nation and unemployed lawyers, who can now earn more than minimum wage without ever getting off the couch in the basement. How cool is that?

Of course, the firm seems to have some concrete notions of the type of fodder it wants.

(1) Help With Warrants in Dallas
(2) How Can a Traffic Ticket Attorney Help You
(3) Caught Speeding in Dallas? Know Your Rights.

I get the sense this might be a firm working the criminal defense side of the street.  Could it be possible that they really are trying to gain a cynical advantage over others by paying bottom-dollar for minimally acceptable content that would give it some SEO advantage on Google, create the appearance of being “caring yet aggressive” and hop on the technology train rather than die?

Rather than show that this firm doesn’t sufficiently value blogging, it’s just the opposite: They fully appreciate that creating a blog, as the social media gurus constantly remind us, can be a great way of manufacturing the appearance of competence on the interwebz.  They just lack the time or interest to actually gain competence, or create the content to fake it.  And so, in their public-spirited fashion, they’ve thrown open the doors sufficiently to fund a full case of Cheetos.

What’s the problem?  There could be a few, ranging from publishing crap that appears to come from lawyers in the blawgosphere that will make readers stupider for having stopped by.  They could get business because they’ve successfully deceived people into thinking that these posts reflect the thoughtfulness and caring of someone at this law firm. They could further sully the already remarkably overburdened yet unappealing blawgosphere with garbage content that drives away people who seek information and knowledge, and instead find only self-promotional nonsense and crap.

But this isn’t blogging. It’s no more blogging that the self-aggrandizing pap Horace Hunter spread, while trying to share an umbrella with real blawgers.  And look where  that got him (and us).

This reflects the dilemma, what with so many voices screaming that you can manufacture yourself into an overnight expert on the internet if only you have no shame, the stink of desperation and can afford $8.50 an hour.  Not too expensive to become a “thought leader,” right?  Certainly a whole lot easier than actually knowing what you’re doing, honing your skills and writing something thoughtful on occasion.  That can take work, and whose got the time for such frivolities when there’s money to be made?

Rather than dwell on the negative, it seems to me that it would be much more profitable to appreciate the positive of this Dallas criminal defense firm’s gracious offer: If you get the gig, there’s nothing to stop you from writing deep, interesting and thoughtful posts, provided you can crank out a thousand in a part-time month.

More importantly, as someone who has written a few posts myself, the return on investment for blogging isn’t exactly quantifiable for those of us who try to write something worth a few minutes of your time.  Having a few thousand, plus, under my belt, I can say with absolute certainty that Max Kennerly is right :

Blogging is a pie eating contest in which the prize is: more pie.

If you’re looking for that hard marginal return, this isn’t the place to find it.  Sure, you may get that warm, fuzzy feeling of a job well done, or the intangible reward of being asked by reporters to opine on matter they’re getting paid to write about, or the chance to speak for free to people who are forced to take CLEs even though they know more about the subject than you do, but the dirty little secret is that none of this necessarily translates into dollars.  If it does, it’s maybe one in a thousand that will be worthwhile, and the net is a huge sink hole filled with pie.

I like pie, so it doesn’t bother me.  But then, I’m not inclined to live in a make-believe world that if I keep plugging away, scribbling night and day in the hope that someone offers me the chance to buy my own plane ticket and show a cute powerpoint to sleeping lawyers, I’m gonna get rich, rich, rich!!!

As a public service, I’ve crunched the numbers. I’ve done the math. I’ve given deep thought to every benefit, every email, every voicemail, every twit.  And I’ve determined that at $8.50 an hour for a thousand blog posts, this Dallas law firm is getting the raw end of the deal. 

So if you’re sitting on the couch in your parents’ basement, praying that mom got more Cheetos when she went to the market and enjoying Zelda’s Skyward Sword, grab this great deal before someone else does. This is about as much money as anyone is going to make off the blawgosphere.  Certainly more than I get.

But I got pie coming out the wazoo.