{"id":4452,"date":"2026-07-11T10:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/?post_type=wcb_session&#038;p=4452"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:24:45","slug":"make-a-living-giving-it-away","status":"publish","type":"wcb_session","link":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/session\/make-a-living-giving-it-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Make a Living Giving It Away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve published 19 plugins on WordPress.org. I&#8217;ve given away more hours of help than I could count. And I&#8217;ve made a living on the web since 1996, not in spite of giving my work away but because of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I first gave this talk in 2011, and the question it answers has only gotten louder. In a year of monetization fights and open-source funding debates, can you still give your work away and pay your mortgage? I think you can, and I&#8217;ve spent fifteen years proving it to myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the honest version: what giving away actually returns, and on what timeline; where generosity pays, and where it just costs you; how to tell the difference before you burn out. You&#8217;ll leave with a clear-eyed way to be generous in this community without going broke doing it, and good reasons to do it anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve published 19 plugins on WordPress.org. I&#8217;ve given away more hours of help than I could count. And I&#8217;ve made a living on the web since 1996, not in spite of giving my work away but because of it. I first gave this talk in 2011, and the question it answers has only gotten louder. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303575,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_wcpt_session_time":1787097600,"_wcpt_session_duration":2700,"_wcpt_session_type":"session","_wcpt_session_slides":"","_wcpt_session_video":"","_wcpt_speaker_id":[4447],"footnotes":""},"session_track":[43],"session_category":[],"class_list":["post-4452","wcb_session","type-wcb_session","status-publish","hentry","wcb_track-honing-your-skills"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgSBpQ-19O","session_date_time":{"date":"August 18, 2026","time":"5:00 pm"},"session_speakers":[{"id":"4447","slug":"christopher-ross","name":"Christopher Ross","link":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/speaker\/christopher-ross\/"}],"session_cats_rendered":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/wcb_session"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4454,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4452\/revisions\/4454"}],"speakers":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speakers\/4447"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wporg\/v1\/users\/thisismyurl"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wcb_track","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/session_track?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"wcb_session_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/session_category?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}