Entrepreneurs are always thinking and scheming about ways to make a buck. That's what they do, isn't it?
Here's my favorite definition of an entrepreneur: he's a guy that has a one-in-a-million idea, a business plan that shows profitability in year 3, and no money!
Now we are seeing the rise of "blogpreneurs," the authors that are attempting to monetize their daily blogs.
Some are succeeding, to at least a certain degree, and others are finding the road a bit bumpy.
I'm guessing (and that's all it is, an educated guess) that the most successful (profitable) of these emerging blogpreneurs are those that include multiple streams of income within their blog.
They are promoting affiliate links, their own product sales, pay per click ads, display ads, etc, all at the same time.
And the profitable blogs will also be engaging lots of viewers and aggregating lots of traffic through the search engines, RSS feeds, press releases, their own affiliates, etc.
One interesting attempt by a freelancer to get direct donations from his blog audience caught my eye.
Michael Totten's Middle East Journal is a blog written by a foreign affairs correspondent that travels the world on his own dime to write articles and stories that he sells to the media.
He is not on particular assignment but rather chooses the places he visits and the stories he writes based on his own judgment of what is interesting (and presumably what he will be able to sell to the media.)
Totten asks his blog readers for donations through PayPal made directly to him so he can finance his travels.
So far, at least, he says the income he is making is covering his travel expenses.
In just the first three days following his post about making donations, I counted 116 comments submitted in response to that one post.
That's a lot of ink about one post!
I don't know either the average size or the number of donations he's getting, but if they are covering his travel, they are not just token tidbits.
It will be interesting to follow this experience and see if the donations continue to fund this freelancer in his dream of traveling the world.
Once again, the idea that people are willing to pay for the information of a blogpreneur verifies the strategy of the solo information business conducted over the Internet from anywhere in the world.
I have no doubt we will be hearing a lot more about this practice (pay-to-read-blogs) in the future.
