Earning Money Blogging - Google Adsense or Amazon Affiliate Sales

I've been blogging consistently for about 1 1/2 years. During that time my Adsense revenue has accrued to only $78.00. I'm hoping that with a little luck, I will have enough to make payout of $100 this Christmas (2012). I've never had much luck with Google Adsense advertising on my blogs.

I have had luck as an Amazon affiliate though. I signed up as an Amazon Affiliate around 1 year ago. (I'd been blogging for approximately 6 months at that time.) Today, I went back into my Amazon account to get reports of my earnings for the past year. NOTE: This is my blog Amazon affiliate sales only. I also have affiliate sales through Squidoo that aren't reported here:

July - Sept of 2010, or quarter 3, I earned $3.49. I soon learned that Christmas is huge for Amazon affiliates. My earnings rose to $24.31 in the 4th quarter of 2010, or the three months prior to Christmas. I was surprised to see they stayed very high through the first quarter of 2011 at $44.43. Finally, the holiday cash stopped pouring in and I find my average blog affiliate sales at $16.12 for the quarter.

I can't report quarter 3 of 2011 yet, because it is still accruing. However, it is already at $7.78 for the month of July. Some rough estimating tells me that if I also earn $7 in August and September, I'll make $21 this quarter.

That is 6 times what I earned in Q3 last year, my first quarter as an Amazon affiliate. If I also have 6 times the earnings that I did last year in Q4 and Q1, it will renew my faith that blogging can be profitable with a lot of hard work and a little patience.

How Much Money Can You Make Blogging?

Many freelance writers have a blog. A blog is a great way to backlink to your articles. To create a blog focused on your writing in general and include links to every article you write, you will need to create a blog about your writing that keeps your readers interested. Since my writing is on such a variety of topics, I decided to create blogs for each of my niches. I believe this is a better method because search engines prefer it. I started several niche blogs in October, and they are getting first page Google rank for some keywords now.

Although my blogging has helped my article rank, it hasn't helped me make a lot of money. Three months of blogging has accumulated in my adsense account only $1.71. Are you wondering which of my niche blogs makes the most money?
                             Views/Earnings
This Writing Blog 718 / $0.86
Crochet Blog 266 / $0.60
Knitting Blog 135 / $0.15
Gardening Blog 219 / $0.07
Down Syndrome Blog 186 / $0.02
Raw Food Blog 37 / $0.01
Raising Organic Free Range Chicken 72 / $0.00

Article Income

ArticleIncome.com is a website where freelance writers can earn money by publishing articles. As a new writer, you will earn 50% of Google Adsense profits. You must submit your Adsense ID to get started and you will be paid directly by Google. As you gain experience at Article Income your percentage of Adsense profits increases to a maximum amount of 75%. I signed up several months ago. Without ever having written an article, my earnings percentage has increased to 55% from 50%. Your current level of earnings is easily visible on your profile panel.

The Article Income website is well designed. The homepage has a Google pagerank of 4, which should get some traffic to your articles. You can also refer friends to join Article Income.

Publishing at Article Income
The website accepts unique and already published content. You can add links to already published content in the author resource box. Photos are allowed also. Articles must be at least 300 words.

UPDATE
I received the following message on 2/1/2010 from the article income staff. They are not accepting new writers at this time.
"Over the past few weeks, the ArticleIncome Team has spent a lot of
time and energy combating unethical users who open duplicate accounts
to garner points and referral credit, to game the screening system,
and to get back into our system after having been banned.

We have decided that the best way to solve this ornery problem is to
revamp our entire submission and registraton system. Consequently,
ArticleIncome.com will be closing the site for NEW members only."

HowHub

Yet another freelance writing website I visited because it made it to the list of 101 Websites for the Freelance Writer. On a scale of professional looking sites, I would give it an 6. The homepage is well designed.  The current Google pagerank of the site is only a 1.

The published articles are overwhelmed by google ads in the first paragraph. The photos attached to the submitted articles show up so small (a cubic cm) that you can hardly see them unless you click on them. Howhub allows 5 links in the resource section of published articles. These links can be to your own previously published work, but they can not be to affiliates.


Earning at HowHub
To get started writing at HowHub, you register your Google Adsense ID. You earn 50% of adsense earnings until you have invited 10 friends to join also. After you have referred 10 friends, your adsense increases to 100%.

Infobarrel

I put 4 articles on Infobarrel.com on September 8th and 9th. That was 1 1/2 months ago. My views and earnings are as follows:

Views Earnings Topic
106.....39 cents..Writing
185.....66 cents..Writing
30......00 cents..Consumer Credit
108....12 cents...Crafts

Infobarrel is a great place to write whatever you want. You can write in blog or informal style and earn some extra cash. If I have an article deleted from eHow, I put them on Suite101 if they are formal enough. If not, I put them on Infobarrel. The infobarrel website actually has a lot of quality writing. I am impressed with the websites development in a short amount of time. Payments are through Google Adsense, so it might take a while for payout. The minimum payout from Adsense is $100.