Practicality Of Living Off Blogging
 

I am a twenty year old student who is about to graduate from college with a degree in Creative Writing. A worthless degree you say? Probably. It's what I enjoy, and what I want to do with my life. At any rate, as artists have to work in order to exist, I would prefer to work for myself and have my income work for me. I intend on starting small with everything: my costs/lifestyle/income. What I mean by this is initially I'd like to work part-time in retail. During this time I'd work part-time on my blog. Then within a year I would like to be making enough money to support my lifestyle where I am free to create my art (and work around 4-6 hours a day on my blog). In other words I would like to be making at least $1000 a month off my blog in a year. Then, hopefully in the next couple years after that I'd like to increase my profits in order to quickly pay off my student loans, and safe up for getting more education as I would like to get into the Psychology field later in life.

When Steve started blogging, the chances of making money seemed a lot greater. What I've heard is that the blog market is quite saturated right now. I hope Steve or another knowledgeable person could answer this, but what is the likelihood of this plan succeeding, given that I would spend 4-6 intensely concentrated hours on blogging (as well as other online revenue generating) pursuits a day?

What are the odds of becoming a black belt? ;)

It's important to learn from your mistakes, but this is a mistake you don't need to make.

Blogging for dollars is a fool's game. You will earn less than the minimum wage.
Get an honest job, get your psychology qualifications and have a professional career.

I don't agree with this. Getting into blogging with a sole purpose to make money is a mistake, meanwhile a decision to become a problogger isn't. There are plenty of bloggers out there who make way more than minimum wages. It's not easy to get the ball rolling, though.

Don't let the naysayers spoil your dream! That being said, be smart. Don't try to reinvent the wheel; find bloggers and webmasters that are successful and mimic what they do. The web is just like any other business; 99% of people who try, fail. But if it's really your dream, be part of the 1%. I can tell you; there's nothing more satisfying than having a website based on your passion.

The trick to making money is to find out what people want and go get it for them. Don't think that any idea is so cool that of course everyone would want it.

If you actually enjoy writing and can motivate yourself to write at least 1 page of text/article/blog post per day, you could be very successful after a year of blogging. Yes, that does mean $1000+ monthly income is a strong but realistic goal.

If you want to build an online business that profits off of free search engine traffic, then having lots of written text content about useful and engaging subjects is one of the single most important aspects of it. Outsourcing the writing of articles has probably been my largest or at least 2nd largest expense in making my websites, because I often lack the motivation to make the content myself.

Of course, you need a lot more than just the ability to write something. You also need education about online business, for which I would suggest SBI as your learning vehicle.

Also, as the poster above me mentioned, your blog should be focused on giving people information or entertainment that they already want and are already searching for, instead of just blogging "today my cat got sick so I took him to the vet" boring and worthless content.

Very true blogging about things people already want and search for is very nice money.
I have made my blogs and sites grow a lot this past year.
I am now making the money I love and want all from my comfy chair.

It is a realistic goal, but you have to want it bad enough to get it.