A little while ago my friend, Reina, asked about my thoughts concerning the recent change in the FTC advertising guidelines. I have a strong opinion on why I feel the FTC is meddling with bloggers (and other web entities). Below is my answer to her question. It may come across a bit as conspiracy theory, but I don’t believe I am wrong (I guess conspiracy theorists usually believe they are right).

For the last several years I have been working on a wordpress MU project that seems to be the bane of my existence. I will work on it non-stop for several days, and then leave it alone for a few months and then go back and find errors that I hadn’t noticed before. It is really frustrating but some day I will actually finish and launch this project.

One of my biggest issues though, is my desire to have the theme editor active while I am in the development phase. Obviously, it is not wise to have the theme editor available when you launch a community. Having your theme editor global allows any user the ability to change the theme for your whole community. Yet, I spend a lot of my time in the wordpress admin area and having to jump from admin to ftp is annoying (yes, I admit I am lazy, efficient, but lazy).

Anyway, WordPress MU deactivates the theme editor by default. Since I go periods of time without touching MU when I come back I have to update my wordpress instance. Every time I lose my precious theme editor, and every time I have to dig through Google to find the solution to bring it back.

Having a license plate with BLOGGER on it I get stopped a lot and asked questions about blogging. The number one question I get is, “Can someone really make money off of blogging?” This question is always followed up with, “How can I make money off blogging?”

Often people do not like my response. Mainly because I dispel any belief of someone starting right away making thousands of dollars a month. The blogosphere is full of stories of well known bloggers who took years to make the money they are currently making. It is a rare, rare example of a blogger who in month one made several thousands of dollars (regardless of what some hyped-up ebooks may tell you).

If my tales of blogging hardship hasn’t discouraged my listener than I proceed to share what I have learned.

Advertising Works…Sometimes
First, advertising can make you money. Darren over at Problogger and Jeremy at Shoemoney are proof of this. However, the likelihood of becoming an A++ blogger is rather unlikely. I’ve experimented with advertising but haven’t really taken to it. Not to say one shouldn’t, and maybe someday I will go down that path. For now, though, I prefer the clean, concise look of a non-ad-littered website

The Community Is Key
The number one resource in bringing me consistent revenue has been the community around my blog. My readers have introduced me to more opportunities and consulting jobs than anything else. In fact, it was due to a reader that made it possible for me to leave my corporate job.

Community Building Is Not Easy
Which conveniently takes me to my next point–you don’t build a community overnight. When I first started blogging I had no readers what-so-ever. This being the case, I had to work at Oracle during the day and blogged at night for almost a year. A community is a fickle thing. If you don’t continually work it won’t grow, and if you stop building it will die. I am reminded of a millionaire I once spoke to. He told me, “If a business isn’t growing it’s dying.” Your blog is no different. Many web snakes will tell you that you can put a blog on automatic and you will make lots of money. I am here to tell you this is rarely true, particularly since I have tried to do just that with another blog. Both my business partner and I have learned the hard way that blogs take nurturing and time.