How To Make Money From Your Blog Offline
I was at the Golden Spiders last night which is an awards ceremony for the Irish Internet industry which is run by Business and Finance magazine. A quick scan of the table plan showed me that there were 650 people attending most of whom had bought tickets at 300 Euros a pop. Throw in a bit of sponsorship, some shocking food and the usual razzle dazzle and you are looking at revenues of well over a quarter of a million Euros for one night. I wanted to use this as an example of the huge money making potential events have. It is a well known fact that the biggest earner for Techcrunch (one of the world’s biggest blogs) is their TC50 event. Sure they have 4 million RSS subscribers but that is not generating much cold hard cash like organizing an event can and although these are both examples at the top end of the scale there is no reason why you can’t do the same no matter how small your blog is.
Not everybody wants to make money from their blog but some do. For some it is the main reason for trying it. Most think the answer is online but I think it is far more important to build your reputation online and establish a following before trying to turn your passion in to a nice little earner and events have to be one of the easiest ways of doing that. You are probably thinking that your blog is far too small but I firmly believe anybody can do this if they are motivated enough and here are some examples of how I would do it in different niches…
The Photography Blog
Lots of great photography blogs out there at the moment and most are people who just have full time jobs or are students. If I was somebody like Phil who was in college I’d be offering a 50 Euro photo walk in the center of Belfast or Dublin on a Saturday morning. It would be targeted at people with an interest in learning about photography and after the photo walk I’d hire a room for a couple of hours and talk to people about photography giving them some little tips. I’d promote it through my own blog and maybe lean on a few friends who had blogs and used twitter to get the world out. I’d limit it to about 10 people and aim to pay 100 for the room hire thus clearing a nice 400 Euros for doing something that I loved anyway.
The Cooking Blog
Very much the same model as above but I would be targeting young professionals who wanted to learn in a very relaxed manner and didn’t have the money to be going off somewhere like Ballymaloe Cookery school and paying top dollar. The only tricky part would be finding a premises but I would focus my attention on a small deli or restaurant in a business area that only opened Monday to Friday leaving it free on the weekends. I’d rent it for a couple of hundred Euros from the more than happy landlord and start teaching 6 to 8 people at 100 Euros a day. The blogger doing the course may not be a professional chef but they would be passionate and the chances are they would have 4 nice diches to share with the newbies. Again a nice profit of about 500 Euros for a day of doing what the blogger loves best.
The Technology Blog
Most people don’t know much about computers and simple things like setting up a blog or installing new browsers and learning shortcuts are alien to most people. I recently left my computer in to get updates and a simple enough job was 120 Euros. There are plenty of smart people out there blogging about technology who could be running a “Internet for beginners” course. Again this would involve sourcing a lecture room or classroom at the weekend and charging people 50 Euros for a half day course. Getting 10 people to the course would make it a nice little earner that could supplement your income or pay a few extra bills.
Of course if your blog is even bigger you may want to start thinking about organizing conferences or doing this in a more professional manner like the 2 examples at the start but I think the really big opportunity is there for the smaller guys who blog as a passion and are trying different ways to make a living out of it and supplement their incomes. I really think it would be worth giving a go because nothing beats making money out of your passion 
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