Make money with a small blog (2024)

One of my last night's driving home really scared me.

Of course I was tired driving home that night, but I thought I could make it. I remember driving past the car lot that meant I was 20 minutes from home. The road was empty in front of me. Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and a huge dump truck was buzzing past me inches from my pickup truck.

I couldn't have had my eyes closed for very long...after all I was still in my lane, though barely. I pulled off the road and just sat there for a few minutes. All I could think was "I can't keep doing this, I'm gonna die on this road!" I only worked a few more days after that, it just wasn't worth the risk.

Flash forward a few weeks. I had decided that since I loved blogging so much I was going to take advantage of the money I had saved from that job and commit to turning my blog from a hobby into an income. No more hour and a half drive to the city to work. No more 5am drives home. I was so excited to get everything going in the rightdirection! I already had Adsense and Amazon affiliates....I just needed more traffic.

I gave myself 6 months to start making a real income, or it was back to work for me.

So I started writing and promoting and doing everything we think we should. I had been blogging for 6 years at this point and had 2 blogs with lots of content so I was sure the money was going to start rolling in. I was making around $100 - $150 a month between my 2 blogs. I read all the big bloggers how to's and did what 'they' did...but as the time passed, my income barely budged.

I started to become convinced that the only people who were actually making money blogging, were people writing about making money blogging.

No matter how hard I worked at it, my income barely inched up while I read so many income reports from other bloggers who's income was jumping by the thousands every month! Sure they were making lots of money but everyone was writing about blogging and I just ... don't.

I write about chickens and gardens, but they couldn'ttell me how to make money writing about chickens or gardens. They told me to make a course, but chicken people don't buy $400 courses! I was ready to just give up, completely convincedthat the only profitable blogging niche was blogging!

Then at the end of January, Victoria from A Modern Homestead (who I knew from one of my homestead blogging groups) released a book titled "Make money blogging at any level". I was familiar with Victoria's blog and knew that it had been growing and she seemed to be doingwell.

The best part though, is that this was Victoria's first book about blogging. She had turned her blog into a money maker without talking about blogging! This is what I'd been looking for and I couldn't wait to get that book!

The book was only $20, and when I sat down to read it my hopes soared through the roof. I realizedthat I really CAN do this and this was my 'how to'. I was goingabout it all wrong! From my ad network to my social media promotion I needed to make some changes! I followed all the directions in this book. Within 2 months my income had doubled. In June I broke $1000 on one of my blogs!

My page views had gone from 21 thousand to 95 thousand in just 5 months. That's kinda crazy, right?

I was finally getting somewhere! I could finally see how this can be my career. The best part is, the more progress I make the harder I want to work. Now I am writing an ebook (about chickens!) because I've figured out what people like about my niche, what they need more of and I'm planning on giving them that!

Sure my income dips and peaks, that's normal. It's so, so much better then it was before though. I got so much benefit from this $20 book that I just had to become an affiliate, because I believe a lot of small blog bloggers can learn from it. As soon as I put Victoria's advice into practice I started getting more traffic and making more money. This book pays for itself within days and my blogs are so much better because of it.