I think the work it takes to make a real living from a blog mostly goes unseen, but it's not hard to make a little money.
The key to making it really profitable is to look at more ways to benefit from the audience a blog can give you. Steve gets speaking engagements as a result of people who reads his blog. I saw a post recently on building stores into blogs (I think it was on Typepad Hacks) so you can make money in another way, but the author of that blog sells artwork so it might not apply to everyone. Ads are what most people start with but if you really get creative you can gain from your blog in other ways.
I'm personally starting a site now that I hope will make me some money, but the main reason I'm doing it is that I couldn't find enough information on the subject. I hope that by compiling useful information and building a community with forums I might get a little ad revenue, but I probably wouldn't put as much work into it if it was just for the money.
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