Earning money by blogging.

[bhoult]

I have been blogging for the past year.  Recently a few members of this forum expressed interest in starting a blog themselves and asked how much money I made off it.  Since it was not exactly a secret, I decided to post an article about what I had learned over the past year.  Since you guys are a now a majority of my readers I thought I would give credit where it is due so I included references back here in the article.

I am not a very successful blogger... the short version is that in the past year I have made $17 total, but I learned a few things that have improved that situation.

Anyway... the full article is here: http://www.minimalintentions.com/2011/10/making-money-with-blog-year-one.html

Internet based businesses are one of the best ways to make a small income without being tied to an urban area... you can do it from a cave in the middle of nowhere (or a dome) so long as you have a cell phone.

Comments and suggestions from other bloggers are especially appreciated.  Thank you.

[fritz_monroe]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  I'll read the full article, probably Monday.  No time over the weekend.

[Amator]

You may also want to check into blogging on established sites as you build your own blog/brand. You can help earn a few bucks to help defray your own costs as well as get in the habit of filing taxes as a small business.

I currently am paid to write on three blogs. The main one is a very popular (4 million plus views per month) tech blog and I do eight posts on Saturday and seven on Sunday every weekend. For this I am paid $110 per day and my writing is read by thousands of people, many of which connect to me on Google+ or Facebook. The others are one-offs I do a few 1-2 page posts per month: one pays $30/post and I can post up to 1/day and the other pays $100/post but I have to wait for them to contact me.

This work has also allowed me to personally connect with some of my favorite bloggers (Paul Wheaton, Bryan at ITS Tactical, Trent at The Simple Dollar, Pete at Mr. Money Mustache) and I've received invitations to guest blog at a few of these blogs.

I'm hoping to get my own blog off the ground next year, but in addition to my full-time office job, my paid blogging work above, and spending time with my wife and 1.9 kids (2nd kid due in 4 weeks) I have no time. We should be pretty much debt free (not  by summer, and then I will slow down a little and start to build my own blog.

At this point I'm not blogging for a full-time income, but I'm making a decent part time income (around $1300 a month) and honing my skills. Find your niche and start to interact with well known bloggers who write on similar topics. Good luck!