Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs Inc., firmly believes a committed blogger can make serious money out of a blog. I agree, and I will add that personal finance bloggers are the favored group since it is so easy to monetize personal finance content. I probably cannot retire on my blogging income, but I have to admit I am not trying hard lately.

Jason Calacanis writes:

Today you can start a blog, build an audience, and give the advertising slots to AdBrite or Google AdSense. With three or four ad slots you're gonna do a $3 to $10 RPM (revenue per 1,000 pages viewed) with these automated tools on average. So, if you can do 500,000 pages a month -- which isn't easy -- you can make $1,500 to $5,000 a month. That's today and without a sales person. That number will go up over time and some folks might even be able to hire a dedicated sales person at some point. Solo blogging is starting to pay rates similar to the smaller media outlets (think local newspaper or a small magazine).

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However, you are correct that the majority of folks are not going to make a living from blogs, but that's because they choose not to try, not because they couldn't. If folks focus in on a niche and own it there is a good chance they could make half a living from blogging.