More power to your site!

Let me explain a few things though. It takes time, months and even years for a blog or website to bring in traffic and enough revenue that you can quit your day job. Blogs rarely ever happen over night. Plus there are so many different types of revenue streams to play around with. You have to know your readers well, and take it from there.

I think a nichey blog does a lot better than a blog with no direction. People are less confused when they know what you’re blogging about. Not choosing an over saturated niche is important though. Right now everyone and his brother are writing about working at home, freelancing, freelance writing, blogging, green living, mommy stuff so if you’re writing about one of these, figure out a good angle that will set you apart from the rest, but will bring in interest.

You gave me some ideas for future blog posts here and at the Blog World Expo blog. Thanks for the inspiration.

It’s a project I want to get done, just need to make the time for it.

On the topic of promo, so you promote your ebook via PPC? If so, how did you learn PPC.

Great tips!

@Kaarina – I’ll plan the post. It’s really not an exciting story. I think the right idea at the right time? I often wonder if I started this blog now, with so many others doing the same exact thing, if I’d have the same success?

@Janet – As I said above, I think traffic and revenue will go down if we stop blogging here, but I believe this blog will continue to earn. We get huge search traffic on some very old blog posts. Consider certain information websites that also get huge traffic even if new articles aren’t added each day. Sure, this blog will earn more money with daily updates, but it won’t roll over and die if I take a vacation or even a couple of months off.

@Danielle, there is an affiliate program for my ebook and I also do a lot of self promotion. I like e-junkie.

Cindy, Janet, Ann – while I haven’t gotten to this point myself I do know webmasters who build blogs, fill them full of content, get good traffic, and then leave them as is and still make decent money off of them. Blogs can be set up so that they are more like websites if you want. And with the right SEO, a nice amount of link exchanges, and good content they can stay in top rank of the search engines for a long time. Like I said, I haven’t tried it yet but I know several people who have and it works for them. Their earnings are lower per blog but they keep building and move on. Just my two cents.

This is great advice for those looking to work smarter. I was wondering if you have written about how you started FWJ? That might help some who don’t know where to start learning the business.

KS

OTOH, when an ebook sale comes in, and like you they sell slowly but they sell, or my google adwords shows up it feels almost like found money… not like the royalties I get from long ago projects, but close.

I don’t know how much the income from my writing blog would drop if I quit… not willing to try it yet.

Classes are my next step… not always passive either.

A

As far as other ways writers can earn passive income, I would include affiliate marketing. It’s not *all* writing, but I think it’s close enough to count.