This is an interesting question that was posed over at Chris Garrett on New Media. He provides a quote from a previous article that I think really sums up his thoughts on this:

Anyone could make money from blogging but only a percentage of people actually go all the way and succeed. Critical to success is having staying power, not being defeated by minor setbacks, being willing to put yourself out there and put in the hard work. If you stick to it and can do all those things then yes, I am sure anyone can do it.

In essence, there are those people who make some extra income online and then there are those that make real lifestyle sustaining internet cash flow that pays the mortgage and the food bills. I think what the article does not point out is that there are many bloggers who are quite content to supplement their career income with the extra cash flow that an online business creates. I would say that describes my approach.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to retire and live off my earnings from this site and other ones in my network. However, I am not prepared to put in the time at the expense of my family life and my career, which provides me with a great income, to do this. I enjoy blogging as a hobby and am quite happy to see how high I can get the supplemental income my internet businesses provide. I do take it very seriously and am constantly looking for ways to increase my income but there is a determined limit to what I will sacrifice. We all make those choices and need to be comfortable when one month after starting a blogging career we are not taking in over $20,000 per month. As Yaro talks about in his video post, there is a great deal of work and planning that goes in to his earnings.