“What does a Blog Income Life look like?”

This is a question I often get asked.

The real answer is that it differs blogger to blogger.  But that’s not what the question is about.  The question is about my blog income life.  It’s not stated that way but I know.  So I answer accordingly.

I think that there is some disappointment when my answer fails the litmus test.  People have read and heard that there are bloggers out there who are living the life of Riley, drinking fine wines, dining on epicurean delights, travelling to exotic destinations and living in the house of their dreams.

The answer is that yes, there are bloggers who do pull in the big bucks and enjoy a lifestyle to which many aspire – bloggers or otherwise.  The disappointment is in my answer.

Amongst my friends I am living the life of Riley – now wasn’t he the real life spy after whom Fleming supposedly modeled James Bond? – after all I ditched the 9 to 5 a long time ago, have the luxury of doing what I please during the week as opposed to leaving things like mountain hikes and day fun trips to places like Whistler for the weekends.

Actually I probably put in longer hours than my 9 to 5 friends.  Not all my time is devoted to blogging.  I have several businesses and each needs my time.  Internet marketing is a new venture for me and so far the ROI, both in terms of money and time invested is miniscule.  So if I do drink a fine wine even if only now and then it is not because of my blog income – not yet.

The question that goes begging then is why do I persist with blogging if my other sources of income are sufficient to buy me that fine wine – even if only now and then?

The answer is passive income and living the life of Riley – eventually.  Fine wine any time I want it!

Most of my business activities are linear – that is, produce the results and make the money.  There is no recurring income for having done something one time and having a  check arrive in the mail on a regular basis.  No, actually I do have one such business in network marketing and it is the reason I looked at internet marketing in the first place – to market it online.

I got hooked.

Internet marketing had a lot of intuitive appeal to me.  I dove in head first.

After taking several courses the penny dropped – the best place to cut your teeth on internet marketing is in blogging.  Hard costs are minimal.  Expertise is gained on the job and progress is largely dependent on time available and general comfort level with the internet.

So perhaps the proper question at this point of my blog income life is

“What does the time you spend on blogging look like?”

On average I put in four hours a day.  Not all those hours are devoted to Blog Income Life as I have other blogs which I market online.  Ironically it is these others that make bank for me.   Here are the activities that make up the four hours a day on blogging:

  1. Writing content.  I write fresh, original content for all my online marketing – that goes for blog posts, article marketing, long sales letters, squeeze pages  and feeder pages.
  2. Publishing to appropriate venues.
  3. Visiting similar content blogs
  4. Commenting on blogs
  5. Visiting forums
  6. Social media marketing

These activities are what I would term as high gain, their function is to ultimately make me money.

In addition to high gain activities I also schedule at least an hour a day to continue my internet marketing studies.  I still buy courses that I think will help broaden my knowledge and more importantly online experience – it`s what I call muscle building.  Confession:  sometimes this part of the day does not get done.

Sorry … the blogging money truck may have left but it has not arrived at my doorstep yet.  The little guy, the tonka truck makes frequent stops though.

What do you think is at the core of the question of “What does your blog income life look like?“

Curiosity for one.

But I think the question is deeper than that.  I think that the real question is `

“Is it true about what they say about blogging – that you can make a lot of money in no time flat and with little effort?”

They have seen the ads, read the long sales letters, watched the videos.  What they take away is that this is a piece of cake and anyone can have the cake and eat it too.  Overnight success is shouted from one guru to another.  The questioner wants me to validate this with an affirmative, that yes, I make gobs of money blogging.

The truth is that overnight success can and does happen – most often after months and months, even years of continuous effort.  Ask any guru – most have put in the time in some way or another on the internet.  Even John Chow who started to make $40K per month in less than two years on his blog already had another online business.  To hear him tell it, his John Chow blog kind of just happened.  It appears that way, but John has smarts and had already built up his internet muscles and when you already have muscles, the heavy lifting isn`t so heavy.

What I find enormously rewarding with my internet marketing in that for the first time in many years there is a learning curve to scale.   Too often we  get into a groove that has become comfortable and that groove provides us with what we need.  We don`t need to learn new things to perform well.  For me internet marketing was completely new.  I had to engage my brain and apply.

On this blog I write about things I have learned and experienced in my blogging career.   I hope that the content is of value to you, my visitor; that you can take a nugget or two away with you and that it will help you in your own journey to a profitable blog income life.

An unexpected bonus.  Well you could have knocked me over with a feather as I never would have thought that I would enjoy studying but I find  the challenge of learning invigorating, it’s like feeding your brain that has been starving all this time.  Feels good.

So for now my blog income life is mostly about learning, applying and measuring … and a whole lot of satisfaction with the progress I am making.  Financial success?  Promise, I’ll let you know.  If there is one piece of advice I can give it is simply this:  stay the course,  correct, continue.

Here’s to your blog income!

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , ,