Many people when I tell them about Performancing.com are interested in making an income from blogging. The idea of sitting in your underpants writing about something you enjoy and making money at it certainly is an attractive one. Inevitably though people ask me if anyone can do it. My answer is a qualified ‘yes’ …

Such a strange thing to say from someone who spends their days promoting the idea of Professional Blogging right? Why not “absolutely yes”, why the caveats?

While anyone has the potential to make money out of blogging a great many people never will. Just like any business, most bloggers don’t last out their first year. There are many reasons for this, primary factors being

* It’s hard work – Most people are ready to put the hard work in at the start, give it a couple of months, especially now the sun is starting to make an appearance and the lure of spending time doing anything but blogging can defeat them. You have to put the hours in. Yes, *hours*. This can be particularly difficult if you have to hold down a job and family life at the same time.

* You don’t get instant rewards – I hope we have never given the impression blogging is a way to instant riches, it isn’t. The rewards come months down the line after building traffic, reputation and reader involvement steadily day by day. When the rewards do start coming they appear as a trickle not a torrent. You need to keep your eye on the goal.

* There is more to it than just writing – but blogging is all about writing, right? Blogging is indeed about writing but a professional blogger, or any blogger who wants readers, has to do more than just write. You have to put your blog and yourself out there, communicate with people where they are and not expect them to magically know about you. You need to get links. There is also a large aspect of the salesman in a pro blogger. If you do just want to write, consider joining a blog network where they do all the sales and promotion stuff for you.

* Sometimes you have to act out of character – many of you will have read that “sales” word and shuddered. I feel the same way, while some people like Nick have a personality or motivation where they can do sales, many of us struggle with it. If you are going to have access to money streams other than the passive Adsense et al you will need to brace yourself and get selling. That means sponsorships, advertiser relationships, affiliate schemes and your own products. Selling and self promotion is not something every writer is comfortable with but you have to do it or you are limiting your income potential.

* Money doesn’t come easily – yes many people make a good deal of money out of adsense, and good luck to you if your adsense income is enough. A lot of bloggers get disheartened when they don’t see big amounts coming from adsense so give up. After optimising your adsense you need to start going out and getting the cash in yourself. You need something on offer over and above your blog posts. The most natural progression from content to product for many bloggers is to package up your content and sell ebooks, courses and audio. Then there are things like merchandise through companies like cafepress. Think of what your readers might be interested in buying and find a way to provide it.

Anyone could make money from blogging but only a percentage of people actually go all the way and succeed. Critical to success is having staying power, not being defeated by minor setbacks, being willing to put yourself out there and put in the hard work. If you stick to it and can do all those things then yes, I am sure anyone can do it.