If a good high rate of ad-clicking is around 1% of readers, then obviously it depends on size of readership!  If only hundreds of people are reading your postings, don’t expect to see ad traffic. To attract just ten ad-clicks you need over 1000 blog views.

Then for Google Adsense ads, it greatly depends on the topic of your entry.  Worst example: if you’re writing about microwave physics demonstrations, the ads will all be for microwave ovens, so nobody ever clicks on them (where ‘nobody’ means with well over 30,000 readers, you still get zero ad clicks.)

For the opposite spectrum end, I’ve heard that “product review” websites do best.  In that case you’re posting about a certain product, therefore Google will target the ads for that product.  Your readers will actually start clicking ads to get more info and current prices.  Then you might expect one reader in twenty will click an ad.  Don’t forget, one click in 100 views is a respectably high rate.

And finally, different ads of course give vastly different payouts.   Each ad-click for, say, high-end camera accessories might pay a significant fraction of a dollar.  Ads for school science supplies, way below twenty cents.

Other hints: the vast majority of my own income comes from Google searches and Stumbleupon.  To attract that continuing traffic, each posting needs to stand alone as a single-page illustrated article with URLs which make sense to a human.  If it’s just buried in some archive with many entries per URL, it won’t appear in anyone’s google search.

Is there something in your book about respecting the reader’s schedule and not burdening him with vast flocks of words when, say, 250 would do? :-)

And then sometime I even take out typos.

Not me. I tihnk the tyops jsut add to the cahrm!

http://abagond.wordpress.com/

“500 words a day on whatever I want”

Boiling things down that way makes his posts lean and informative, but quick.

Looks like you’ve got to push out another 2.3 nuggets to hit your daily goal, John.

First thing that came to mind was the Alec Baldwin speech in Glengarry Glen Ross:  ”ABC.  A-Always B-Be C-Closing.  Always Be Closing.  Allllwaays Be Closing.”

I can see how that would give you a heart attack after a while.

It IS valid, though, that blogging takes time, and time takes money. I know great writers who’d be great bloggers if not for their dayjobs, family obligations, etc. Those things can be obstacles, but they’re not barriers. 

I’ve parlayed a passion for writing about toys and design into a way to pay my rent for a few years straight. It’s not from the quantity of blog traffic, but the quality of the visitors. What I mean is, blogging has lead to other (sometimes even paid!) writing opportunities. I’m definitely still further to the left side of the “zero to BoingBoing” spectrum, but I’m keeping at it, and I consider myself lucky every single day!

(Same reason the whole FB “friends” game strikes me as an exercise in stupidity.  I have friends. Some of them are also on FB.)

Om’s heart attack was brought on by the blogging lifestyle

Wait…. what lifestyle? You guys have your own special lifestyle? And it’s dangerous? I thought that was only bloggers who critiqued Etsy.

For me:

a) many people write a lot of “fluff” pieces (or
paragraphs) in their blogs that completely turn me off, since their sole
purpose is the expand the word count,b) some types of blogs simply
don’t require as many written words as others (and on the flip side,
some blog types need a lot of short articles that could easily
surpass a 1,000 words),c) I understand that this is supposed to be a
“bootcamp”, but I would recommend to people just starting out to begin
with an easier goal, lest they get discouraged quickly.  After they do that for a few months, then perhaps move the marker to a higher point.I write a blog as well (http://www.adadpress.com/) about books and book publishing.   I could get to 1,000 words a day, but then I’d have no time for writing/editing my own novel… I think posting two good posts a day rather than worrying about a word limit is a nicer goal, since it gives me time to do a bit of writing (and, more importantly, be with my family!).