Reality Check - Making Money Blogging

Ya know...I have been blogging for several years now, almost since blogging started, certainly before it became a well known thing outside of web people. I remember folks asking me, "A blog, what's that?" Even though I had one I wasn't really able to tell them what it was......

When I started, making money wasn't really my plan. Well, it was indirectly. I was trying to fuel the fire inside me that wanted me to write, and that was my motivation. For a long time I didn't even have an ad on my blog. I was completely absorbed with the writing and growing my readership.

Over time I discovered Adsense, and other ad providers as well as Amazon, and I was off to the races, trying to get paid to be a writer. So I had to become a writer and a business person at the same time, which I suppose is true of most freelance writers.

At first I had one blog, then I got an idea for another, and added it. Somewhere along the way I discovered the idea that if you have one blog making a little money, imagine what 50 would make, or 100 or 300....a person would be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Easy money, work at home. All I had to do was write....about 300 articles a day.....because if you don't, you quickly lose what few readers you have. Of course you also have to write stuff that will attract advertisements that people will be interested in, because ultimately in the pay per click world, that is where your living comes from.

Well I gotta tell ya....I never made it to 300 blogs, or even 100, I did go over 50, and it was no small chore. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I work at it, I cannot update 50 blogs a week, I suppose if I didn't have a day job maybe, but even then. Coming up with fresh ideas for fifty blogs? What wuz I thinking?

I started to make a little money for my efforts, not get rich money, but money, and that has driven me to continue. Always hoping for the big score I guess. The reality is, most of my income from blogging comes from about 5 blogs. Now...before I mislead you, when I say 'income' I mean the money I make from blogging, not my actual living day to day income, that comes from working a day job.

But, my income from blogging is coming from 5 out of 50 some blogs. So...it is possible to make about a dollar a day from a blog, and that is where the idea about having 300 blogs each making a dollar a day comes from. Yup, that would be a nice cheque every month. Except....most of my 50 blogs don't make a dollar a day. Some are just duds, and although some of the others might have potential, it takes way to much time to try and keep them updated and current, way to much time.

The blogs that do make a little income each day are very much niche blogs, supporting the theory that niche blogging is the way to go, but it is so difficult to find a niche that works, and then 299 more of them, all with enough depth to give you something to write about on a regular basis.

I'm not saying you cannot make a good living blogging. I am saying it is not easy, and it takes a ton of work. Sure, you might hit it big with one blog, there are several who have, but for the most part, they are a small select group with a huge readership and several endeavors on the go at the same time. I'm also not saying that the '300 blogs' idea won't work, I am saying it takes a lot of effort, and I wonder how sustainable that really is. I love to write, but I am not sure I love it that much. I love sex more, but I don't want to do that 300 times a day either....ok maybe 300 times a week.....