In the last two years, my blogs and podcasts have generated well over $1,000 in earnings for me. When I received my first $100 paycheck (it took five months to reach the milestone) from Google in 2006, I knew I was on to something with regard to monetizing my content. It proved to me that I had the potential to make money online.

Granted, $1,000 over two years isn’t a lot of money, but it pays for snacks, web hosting (Amazon EC2) and other expenses. My monthly income continues to climb and I expect even greater returns in 2009 as I implement more changes including the addition of higher-yielding ad networks, etc. The challenge is that my readership aren’t the kind of folk to click on ads, hence the low earnings in comparison to the thousands of visitors I receive on a monthly basis.

I’ve been observing the efforts of folks like John Chow and my friend Dave Taylor to learn their techniques on blog monetization over the course of this year. The incremental changes I’ve been making over time have proven helpful, but there’s still much work to be done.

Overall, 96% of my total income (blogs, consulting, etc.) has been generated virtually. In 2009, my goal is 100%.

October blog and podcast income: $170.