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Earning a Six Figure Income from Blogging?

Posted By Darren Rowse 25th of February 2005 Pro Blogging News 0 Comments

There has been quite a bit of flow on interest from the Interview that I did a few days back with Susannah Gardner. Interestingly, despite the fact that I wrote thousands of words of wisdom (I like to think so) it was a line buried way down at the bottom of the first part of the interview that seems to have gotten everyone talking and emailing me. In response to the question of ‘how much do you earn’ I wrote:

‘This is the big question, isn’t it? Some of the systems I use don’t allow disclosure of actual figures so I won’t break it down or give specifics. It is actually difficult to put a figure on it because each month is different and overall my earnings are still on the rise from month to month. However based on how things are currently going I expect that this year my blogging (across all blogs and income streams) will generate a six figure income ($US).

To be honest I grappled with whether to include that detail in this interview. As I’ve said here before, I was brought up not to discuss money and to do so to me feels a little awkward – but i did it for a couple of reasons:

1. It is the question i get asked more than any other question. People are fascinated with a blogger earning money from their blogging. I thought I’d answer it once and for all so we could get past it and start talking about more important things.

2. I partly did it because people constantly write off the idea of Pro Blogging to me.They see what I and a growing list of other Pro Bloggers as a hobby and write it off as just a stage we’re going through. I want to legitimate what we do and show it is a significant earner and something worth putting some serious time into. Pro Blogging is here to stay.

3. I wanted to encourage my fellow Professional Bloggers(and those aspiring to be them) with a figure that would give them a bit of hope. If I can earn that kind of money then I know others can (and already are). Yes I’m working very hard on this (and have done so for a couple of years) but I’m just an ordinary guy following some hunches and dreams.

A couple of people have told me I shouldn’t have revealed how much I earn because it breaks confidentiality clauses with the ad programs that I use. Thanks for your concern but please don’t worry. In saying I earn a six figure income (in excess of $100,000 $US) I have not said how much over and I have made it clear that the figure is calculated on a number of income sources including private advertising deals, affiliate programs, impression based ad programs, Adsense, BlogAds, text ads and blog consulting revenues etc.

Lastly I’ve had a number of people write to me in the last 24 hours via email and I’m quite amazed by the diversity of responses that I’ve had. They range from utter rage and anger that I earn money from blogging through to people asking for lessons and consulting.

To those that are angry – I am sorry that you are offended by me earning money from blogging. A guy has to support his family somehow and I figure it might as well be by helping people on the net by providing them with the information that they are searching for.

To those that want help to do what I do– sure thing – I’d love to help. I’d suggest the first port of call is to take a few hours to wander through the archives of this site. Virtually everything I’ve learnt is here for free. Yes I am open to doing some consulting work to help people but I’d recommend you start with the free stuff that I offer here on this blog. If after you’ve had a read you would still like to engage me for some coaching or consultation I’d be more than happy to do that. I do charge for this service.

update: Since writing this post I’ve had many requests for help from people wanting to know more about how to blog for money. The requests are so many that I’m unable to respond to all individually or to give everyone the attention that they want. As a result I suggest two things for those wanting to know how to make money blogging.

Firstly I encourage you to read the archives of this blog. Everything I know about blogging professionally is on this blog. There are thousands of posts on the topic and I encourage you to put some time aside one day to have a read.

Secondly if you don’t have the time or patience to wade through my archives (there are a lot) I’ve developed a course in conjunction with Andy Wibbels to introduce people to the ways to make money from blogging. The course was inspired by this post and is called Six Figure Blogging. The course is made up of six one hour recordings of Andy and myself looking at different aspects of making money from blogs and includes over 200 pages of transcripts from the recordings. The course is not free but we believe it contains information that has the potential to earn bloggers money from blogging through hard work, putting in time and following some of the ideas we include in the course.

I hope that between the course and my archives you find the information you’re looking for on making money from blogging.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. […] Everyone wants a six figure income, but you may think it’s difficult as hell to get a brandable domain name, and then sell it somewhere else. Well, you just need to be creative, expect to spend an initial budget of a couple of bucks and have patience. You’re pretty much done. Just a couple of bucks? Nowadays, you can register a domain name for really low prices, for example at GoDaddy.com with offers of US $1 for each domain name, and discounts for bulk registering which is the most used facility by the domain name business guys. […]

  2. Hello Sir,

    I want to know how to earn from blogging. I appriciate your article.

    Thank you.

  3. That’s an impressive amount of money you are making! People who are mad at you because of this are just jealous… I think its cool that you share everything you learned about bloging for money, for free.
    I’m trying to make some money thru AdSense myself and although I’m not trying to do this thru bloging, I did find some very good pointers in your posts that apply to other websites as well.

    Thanks and keep on bloging!

  4. Hi Darren,

    You seem like an amazing person! You have impressive information on this site. Kudos to you! I have a lot to learn from you. Would surely appreciate valid tips from you on blogging and generating a 6 figure income from google. I created a site on blogger.com recently (given the URL above) but it hasnt even earned me a dollar yet. What can I do? I tried putting up adsense referrals, ads and everything but it just doesnt seem to be working for me. Any valid tips?

    Cheers!
    Pallavi

  5. I just found this site through a video series about product creation, and I am glad I did. I am just amazed by the fact the people have actually e-mailed you – angry – that your are making money blogging.

    That to me is amazing. I mean, does anyone really think that blogging, or any Internet activity for that matter, is resigned to some specific function or purpose where profit cannot be considered?

    Just wanted to say thanks for sharing your thoughts and advice here, and I hope that someday, your six figures, moves up to seven, and beyond!

    Robert C.

  6. Yep…great job. I will be starting one for our company http://www.carmagnetbusiness.com . Great to see an Aussie going for it!

  7. Ethan Rosenberg says: 01/22/2007 at 4:05 pm

    Hey,

    Congratulations on your level of success… keep it up. Like many people here, you have inspired me to start another money making blog.

    thanks,

    Ethan

  8. […] I don’t know if I want to go so far as to dream of earning a six figure income with blogging. It’s not that I don’t want that kind of money but I also don’t want to be so busy my home life suffers.  I am sure the Darren at Pro Blogger would say that pro blogging does take a good amount of time. […]

  9. […] Whilst the agreement you sign with Google stresses that you are not allowed to give specific information about your earnings from the program I can say that I’m glad I’ve signed up because its well and truly covered my costs – and then some. In fact I think its quite feasible to expect that Adsense coupled with other strategies for making money from Blogging could quite easily generate a decent living. It takes time and hard work, but I think its very doable. (Update: Since writing this series I’ve revealed that I am now looking at making over a six figure income this year in 2005 from blogging). […]

  10. […] information about your earnings from the program I can say that I’m glad I’ve signed up because its well and truly covered my costs – and then some. In fact I think its quite feasible to expect that Adsense coupled with other strategies for making money from Blogging could quite easily generate a decent living. It takes time and hard work, but I think its very doable. (Update: Since writing this series I’ve revealed that I am now looking at making over a six figure income this year in 2005 from blogging). […]

  11. $100,000 makes for good headlines. Way to go. I am adding you to my blogroll.

  12. […] By the way my inspiration for this blog came from problogger.net. You should definitely check out Darren’s blog if you are at all interested in blogging for profits. Problogger is a huge blog with massive amounts of traffic and will definitely make you reconsider blogging if you ever had any doubts. You will find some very nice articles including “Earning a Six Figure Income From Blogging“. He also tells you what sponsors he uses and gives you some numbers which is a wake up call for any sane person. […]

  13. Hey dude. I admire you and you have inspired me to do the same things. Thanks.

  14. Kirstin says: 03/14/2007 at 11:18 pm

    I’m surprised that some people attack you for making money from blogging. Do they think you should work your butt off for their benefit and not be remunerated? Unless they’re offering to pay your bills and a nice lifestyle too they should keep their ridiculous comments to themselves.

  15. […] Blogs stehen (noch) auf der Seite der Guten. Die meisten Blogger sagen, was sie denken und wieviel sie verdienen (meistens nicht viel). Blogs sind die Eddy Merckxe der Suchmaschinen – via Pingbacks und Trackbacks bestens verlinkt, ziehen sie sich gegenseitig auf den Gipfel der Pageranks hoch. Auch hier gibt es Wasserträger, Sprinter, Tour-Gewinner, aber weil Blogger mehr für als gegen Kooperation sind, gibt es hier selten Massenkarambolagen. Doping gibt es zwar manchmal auch, aber von der Schnelligkeit wie PR-Blogging und Artikelhuren entdeckt werden, könnten sich die Tour-de-France-Kontrolleure ne Scheibe abschneiden. […]

  16. about 2 weeks ago I started a new blog (that makes 9 now), and for the first time in my blogging “career” I decided to actualy see if I could make money from my blog…

    I figure I’ve been blogging for a few years now, I should try to use it to earn an income right? well, I have got it up and running, and in the 2 weeks since I started I have gotten 2 checks: one for $23.78 and one for $22.14. I know that’s not much, but I’m jumping for joy over it, cause I didn’t really believe that you could actually get any money at all from a blog…

    well with that small start I set out to find out how to really make money, and a Google search lead me here to your blog…

    I must say, after reading this post, I am inspred to try even harder now… a 6 figure income! wow! it may not happen over night, but I plan to work at it and aim for making blogging work for me and my family.

    do not worry about folks that get angry cause you are earning money through your blogs, they are just jealous that they didn’t think of it first so they could get the credit… your blog has inspired me, and I hope it has inspired others as well, just ignore the nay-sayers and keep on inspireing

    ~~EK

  17. I’m blogging as a way to keep myself motivated to invest for the long-term. While the site may not itself make any money directly, the motivation to invest that it supports will help make me financially independent someday.

  18. […] “Earning a Six Figure Income From Blogging” […]

  19. […] Earning a Six Figure Income from Blogging? […]

  20. Six figures, wow!
    I still making three figures.
    How can you do that? How many blogs do you have?

  21. Congratulations on your success!

    This year I intend to break even, all I have to do is make just $9 to pay off the http://www.greenermachine.com start-up costs and after that everything else is pure profit….

    I think I’ve a long way to go to match your income though!

    For me the idea of owning a blog was to keep me sane and converse on a subject i was interested in. A longer term possible income stream is a wonderful dream – I hope my site is liked and and I make it!

  22. Work hard, earn well, that seems fair to me. I am taking your advice to scour the archives to heart.

  23. Dean Chan says: 08/31/2007 at 5:13 pm

    Good day, i would like to know how to earn money aswell as to learn how to blog, so please help me be a part of a challenging team..
    thanks

  24. pls.. tell me how to be a blogger… for me to learn more things, ad especially to earn money for my wife for her transplantation of kidney.

    thanks……

    Norman

  25. I’m curious how much money you have made just with these “how I make money blogging articles.”

  26. So, it’s been a couple years since you posted this. Are you making seven figures yet? haha

  27. Well, I’m Frederick, a Liberian schooling in Ogun State, Nigeria and I will like to begin blogging by posting my articles and probably make cool cash like you, how can you help me?
    I fell excited for your high earning, it only say that there are higher grounds to conquer.

    Frederick

  28. catlyn says: 03/18/2008 at 8:49 am

    I’ve never read a comments/blog in my life where there wasn’t a negative word – makes it hard to believe.

  29. 6 figure income from blogging is really an achievement. As with all monetary rewards, come the hard work to get it started well. Thanks for sharing.

  30. The article was written in year 2005. Is it still possible to earn the figure in the next years?

  31. Hi Rahul is male escort for girls, female and woman.

  32. My clients are earning $xxxxx per month through content provided by us.
    Content is the most important factor while keeping adsense in mind. Say you spend $30- $50 per article and properly optimize the blog you are confirmed to receive hundreds of dollars per article.
    We have provided 100’s of articles to our clients who are now earning thousands through those articles. Again what is needed is to keep your blog / Site active by investing in articles again.

  33. Christina says: 07/12/2008 at 12:28 am

    I love that there is potential money making in blogging. I actually ordered the book from amazon today. I am so curious and hopeful. I don’t understand why people would get angry over you making money over blogging. That’s like being mad that the grass is green….simply pointless. I feel inspired, motivated and ready to see how I can possibly get some money into my hands!!!

  34. arjay says: 07/18/2008 at 1:38 pm

    im really enthusiast about money making in blogging. Its the only thing to financial freedom enjoying life to work only to help people and having fun for money. Im just starting to learn more about blogging. I hope this kind of business will be appreciated, accepted and they will realized it’s potential in helping people overcome poverty. Especially in my country, the Philippines, which a lot of people is struggling in their lives working to help their family. blogg on!!!!!(and no porn!

  35. This is way too much of information to perceive. I would definitely think of enrolling myself.

  36. More power to you if you can earn six figures from blogging!

  37. I bet you are making well over 6 figures now since this post was 05/06 range. I think B5 media has a few blogs that could be close to doing 6 figures by themselves.

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