2004 sucked big time for Jason Kottke. In fact sucked is the only word he uses to describe that particular year and he uses it 21 times.

Part of the reason it sucked was that he simply didn’t have the time to do everything he wanted to. As well as hold down a full-time job as a web designer and doing everything that normal thirtysomethings want to do, he had a pretty successful personal blog to maintain.

Something had to give and that was when Jason hit on the bright idea of blogging full time. He announced his plans on his blog a year ago and instead of going down the obvious route of accepting advertising he asked his readers to become “micropatrons” by contributing money to the site.

And contribute they did. US$39,900 with virtually every cent of that arriving during his initial three week “fund drive”. That’s a lot of dollars and testament not only to Jason’s ability to write and engage with his audience, but also to the power of blogging.

A year on however and Jason has thrown in the towel as far as full time blogging is concerned. And in a post on his blog, Oh, what a year, he says that he won’t be repeating his micropatron experiment.

Reading what obviously proved a difficult post for Jason to write, it is clear that what seemed like a solution a year ago turned out to be yet another millstone around his neck. It may seem like a dream job to many - write about whatever you want whenever you want - but the reality of having to perform and deliver day after day is not quite so idyllic.

He doesn’t say as much, but there is also the problem of having a year’s salary given to you at the start of a year in one lump sum. Knowing that you have to earn money to pay bills is a great motivator to writers. Knowing that you don’t can have the opposite effect. Where’s the hunger if you can fill your face?

Kottke.org lives on, but Jason is going to be devoting more time to other aspects of his life. As we all need to do from time to time.

One thing we can all take from the experiment is that the idea of patronage, donations, call it what you like, can be a viable model for blogging. It won’t work for everyone (neither does advertising come to that), but just might work for you.