Blogging: You Can’t Really Monetize it, but it’ll still help you make $

A few days ago I met up with another Toastmaster and we were discussing  blogging and whether blogs can be monetized. The view I’ve long held  is that unless you’re Heather Armstrong, you’re never going to make more money in ad revenue on your blog than you could find under your sofa cushions. The notion that you can live off blog revenue happens in such few cases that those exceptions prove the rule: you can’t live off blog ad revenue. That said,  I do believe a blog can be extremely professionally useful:

1. Your blog posts are like dozens and dozens of columns on different topics: therefore, they can serve as writing samples.

2. It’s a great way to make professional connections/ make friends: this is especially true if your blog has a topic focus. Those connections could lead to more writing/ job opportunities.

3. If your blog writing is good enough, you could be a professional blogger for a firm or publication: this is a longish shot, but not as long a shot as living off blog revenue.

And finally and MOST importantly: it’s an outlet for creativity. You write about what you like. There are no real restrictions, except for what you set for yourself. So use it as an outlet for writing practice, write about obscure, oddball things that no magazine would care to publish, but that you find crazy interesting. Who knows– maybe someone will stumble on it, and then #2 or #3 could happen.