Here’s my advice though. Think hard about what is fun for you…what you have passion for? Is it writing tips and tricks? Is it being the hero and helping someone else learn how to earn more? Is it…whatever.

What’s makes you excited and you find enjoyable to do?

Once you know what that is, you’ll know what to do. Trying to build a business model off of an idea you have no passion for is pointless.

The hard part is if the thing you find to be the most passionate about is simply just nothing that is worth anything, then you have to start compromising.

You could offer up a private members forum where people can discuss things amongst themselves, a private members blog updated once a week – kind of like writing a newsletter but post on the blog, etc. There are lots of people out there who would sign up for $10 a month. 100 people and your mortgage is paid, you haven’t sold-out and everyone gets what they want.

Another idea: You mentioned people having to sift through your archives to find the info they need. How about publishing your archives every 3 – 6 months in the form of an ebook? No extra writing involved, your info and links are all live in the book… heck, lemme know if you decide to do that and you’ve already got a customer.

Your reputation sparkles enough right now that word would get out fast. You’d be swamped with sales in no time.

The key is residual income – a product that regularly renews itself – and is easy to produce.

Hope I gave you a few ideas.

Well, I think long term you want to enable as many people as you can. If you do that, you’ll be able to leverage your status (rightfully so) as an expert for continued work. As you said, if one is just starting out, sifting through the archives might be too big a hurdle – that sounds like a need looking for a fix.

The benefit of a course would be that it provides structure and a formula people can follow as they start out. Same goes for an ebook. Heck, you could even offer a paper copy through lulu.com for those that want a desk reference.

So, my advice? Offer a book (e or print) and discount on the course which compliments it. If they take the course, they get the book for free. Now your customer can benefit either way and they both sell each other.

If people want individual consulting after (or before if they’re eager beavers), they can either
a) pay you a decent rate for your time or
b) agree to give you a percentage of their increase in ad revenue for a specific time after
In return you give them a case study, which you share with your readers (more with the selling your expertise) which also of course is a post about them and hopefully lots of discussion around their blog.

Just my two pennies. Hope it works out for you man, you should be earning more for the great work you do here.

I also like the idea of bartering blog posts for simpler consulting situations.

Rob.

Thanks for sharing with us what you´re going thru. I tried to place myself in your shoes (it´s never easy to do) and came up with the following:
- Answer free questions when you have time (when??) and post it as a column in your blog
- Bloggers needing personalized advice (or in a hurry), just have to pay for it. I´ll break it into 15 minutes or 30 minutes minimum.
- Ebook. Absolutely! You´ve got tons of info (good stuff!) that you can package and sell it for $49.95 (I personally would prefer to do consultancy instead of an ebook, but mayb that´s just me, assuming more or less same cost)

I hope it helps. Thanks,

P.S. I´d also consider into your consultancy service some PR.

That said, I think anybody with a visible blog is fair game for advice queries and that if anybody feels overwhelmed by incoming “Hey, how about some free advice?” messages, the answer should be simple and quite honest: “Sorry, but I’m really overwhelmed right now”, and then pick from the more interesting queries to use as topics for your own future posts.

Anybody want to start a “Blogs That Suck” blog where people can email in their “creation” and the blogmaster(s) (or blogmistress(es)) will then hold up your blog as an example and detail how sucky your blog really is? People will learn real fast that way. The other upside is that “No PR is bad PR”, meaning that if your blog has ANY redeeming value, people will take note of it regardless of how much advice you need from “the experts”.

Maybe that should be another one of the rules for successful blogging: There are no rules.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my own sucky blogs. The key advantage of writing a sucky blog is that few people bother you asking for advice.

– Jack Krupansky

As you know, there are pros and cons to any venture. Pick (forums) the one you are most comfortable with and work it.

But in the long run, for you personally, you are going to benefit more from your blogs and the eBook. The time you invest in those will continue to benefit you while with consulting, you only earn once.

There is a reason you have seen this type of solution before. It’s simple and works.

1. I agree totally with Duncan.

2. Ignore the greedy comment. Has this person never heard of free enterprise?

3. I think there will be more businesses looking to develop blogs in the future. Businesses have money to spend (in order to make money) and the people best positioned as blog “experts” at that time will do well financially.

4. Keep up the good work. We all appreciate you.

TC

I thought so… :)