You’re right that the community is doing a lot of the work (I’m not sure it’ll be most of it – last time most of the submissions from readers were 3-4 paragraphs (10 minutes work?) and it took me 4-5 hours to pull it all together.

As we’ve said in the post – the money goes three ways. Partly to Skellie, partly to a prize which will be given to one person who submits a helpful piece of advice and partly (if there’s anything left) to me. So in a sense the community gets something back by having the chance to win a prize. I think they also get something back by seeing a blog get consulting in a public way.

Yep we could have done it for free, but in my mind the money helps us in a number of ways:

- to get it done more professionally (to be able to hire someone of
- give incentive for everyone to participate and give great advice (hopefully there will be more submissions and better thought through ones with the prize as incentive)
- help us filter submissions (last time I asked people to submit themselves for something I had hundreds of submissions)
- gives the blog being reviewed a reason to take it seriously (unfortunately the last blog that we did it for for free seems to have made a few tweaks and then let it die – what a waste!)

I also see it as a learning experience. I’ve never seen a blogger attempt this kind of thing before and see this as an experiment and potentially a new way for bloggers to monetize their blogs (which is after all what my blog is all about).

It’s not a perfect model but it’s a learning experience on many fronts and I’m sure in the months ahead it’ll evolve.

Looking at the quality of those who’ve applied (there is around 30 of them now) there’s a lot of people who don’t mind paying for this and I guess next week we’ll see how many readers are interested in participating.

I do appreciate your comments – they go into the mix of everyone else’s as we review what we’re doing and attempt to find something that is helpful for everyone.

As I said earlier, I have absolutely no problem with you being paid to do this difficult job. If it were me, however, I think I would have taken a trusted member of the Pro Blogger community and asked them to run it for free (in exchange they would get exposure, links etc.). That way, there would be no need to charge at all. Of curse, there are some pitfalls in doing it this way, but I’m sure Darren is experienced, and savvy enough to be aware of them and mitigate accordingly. It also would have prevented the (albeit small) doubt some people have regarding this exercise. And I don’t doubt that it will be popular and successful, and those who do have doubts will exercise their ability to chose whether or not to participate or not. On that note, if I feel I can add something to the conversation, I still will. In the same way I hoped Darren wouldn’t show prejudice against those bloggers who don’t have budgets, I wouldn’t want to show prejudice against those that do.

If there is a significant demand to pay for a valuable service, it wouldn’t make sense for Darren (or anyone) to reject it, particularly considering the topic of the blog. He, like everyone, has a family to support. I also don’t think your argument about this practice not benefiting struggling blogs is flawed. Each community consultation contains a lot of tips struggling bloggers can transfer to their own blogs.

Your key issue with the service seems to be that it will be a paid spot where commenters are reviewing the blog (in addition to myself). I want to point out that commenters get some pretty good benefits:

A link in a busy comment threat (via their name)
Profile in design reviews and consulting, if their contribution is good
The chance to win a (not-insignificant) prize
One thing we might consider is also highlighting the comments of specific commenters (with a link) if they encapsulate pro/con of the design really well.

I also want to point out that the choice to comment or not is an individual one. If you don’t want to be part of the service, you don’t have to be. Judging by the reactions of most, though, I think a lot of people will enjoy the chance to take part. Even if you put a few minutes work into something that helps Darren out, is that so objectionable? He writes content every day for free. I can see you implementing many of his tips on this blog right here.

Thanks for pointing out the typo. Just goes to prove proof reading isn’t fool proof (especially when your as big a fool as me!).

I’m a brand new blogger. I would love the chance to get tips from a large, intelligent community of bloggers. The chance to get honest critiques from people who know what works and what doesn’t would be amazing, let alone the potential traffic from the Consultation itself. To be honest, I could even see it being worth the $250 in the end.

However, as I said I’m a new blogger. That $250 fee would have to come straight out of my own pocket, and unfortunately I just don’t have that kind of money to spend on a blog. I need that money for groceries and the like, as I’m sure all new and/or struggling bloggers do. There’s no way on earth I could justify spending that kind of cash unless my blog was already doing well enough to make it back for me.

(also, in your second sentence, it sounds like “but” is supposed to be “put”)