“How much can bloggers earn?” This is one of the most common questions I hear, and it’s also one of the toughest to answer. Bloggers – like any other artists and/or entrepreneurs – aren’t subject to a predetermined pay scale. But that’s not a solid enough answer. So let’s take a step back and look at two realistic examples of how much a “mid-sized blogger” might be able to earn. How “1,000 Fans” Can Bring You $100,000 Per Year Are you familiar with the notion of a “true fan?” A casual reader of your blog might skim through your posts occasionally. But your most dedicated fans are the people who wait with anticipation for the next blog post that you publish. They read every book or e-book that you write. They talk about your blog to all of their friends. They e-mail you to ask for advice. Let’s imagine that you build an audience of 10,000 e-mail subscribers — blog readers who love your content so much that they’re willing to get it delivered to their crowded inbox. Among those 10,000 subscribers, 9 out of 10 are casual readers. The other 1 out of 10 are your most devoted fans, the ones who read every blog post, share your content on Facebook, forward it to their friends. Congratulations, you have 1,000 devoted, true fans. Let’s say that each of those fans purchases $100-worth of goods and services from you in a given year. What could that be? Maybe you’re selling 1-on-1 phone consultations for $100 per hour. Maybe you’ve self-published three books, selling at $39 per book or $100 for the whole bundle. Maybe you’re selling “virtual tickets” to a Webinar or Google Hangout. Maybe you’re using your blog as a platform to sell a physical product, like suitcases or protein supplements or handmade crafts. Maybe you’re linking to another company’s product or service and collecting a $100 commission on each sale. However you choose to make money is up to you. The bottom line is that you’ve found 1,000 fans that will each pay $100 per year for your goods or services. That means you’re pulling in gross revenue of $100,000 per year. Not bad, huh? Fortunately, your overhead as a blogger is minimal. Even at the scale of 10,000 e-mail subscribers and heavy blog traffic – when you need to pay for robust web hosting and other technical help — your overhead could easily cost around 20 percent or less of your total gross revenues, leaving you with a net profit of $80,000 to $90,000 annually. By the way, let’s take a moment to give credit to Kevin Kelly, the blogger who coined this “1,000 True Fans” concept. In 2008, Kelly published a blog post suggesting that any artist – including bloggers, musicians, painters, writers and other creators – could collect six-figures by having 1,000 devoted fans who pay $100 per year each. His blog post instantly went viral and continues to be a much-talked-about idea in blogging circles today. And the great thing is, you can earn this money from anywhere on the planet: Aruba, Italy, Japan, New Zealand. You can cover your international travel costs and still have plenty left over to rent a condo in Miami, spend a month island-hopping in Indonesia, or buy a cute convertible to cruise down California’s Highway One. You can blog about your adventures, which leads to more income, which allows you to enjoy even more adventures. Share on Facebook [Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up today here and we’ll send you a report, Get Paid to Travel as a Travel Writer, completely FREE.]
