For reasons that are rather uninteresting I found myself in Tesco Westwood. At the checkout I got chatting to a young man who was feeling a little disenfranchised with working for a fixed wage and wondering if there was a better line of work.

I suggested to him that if his people skills and ability to talk about stuff were up to the challenge then blogging might be a hobby that could bloom into a way of earning a living. I also gave him a postcard and suggested he visit the website for more information (here's a link to the contact form if you missed it).

So I'm going to briefly look at the topic of earning your bread through the art of blogging. The fellow in the picture is Jeremy Schoemaker and yes that's him holding a cheque for US$132,994.97 (roughly UK£77,679) earned from Google ads. Google pays out monthly.

So Jeremy Schoemaker, or ShoeMoney as he is known, has shown it is possible but I don't want to get you too excited just yet. To do what he did is going to take a lot of effort. You will want to spend some time building up a following. ShoeMoney is a business man and is behind a number of online start ups so he has a lot more leverage than the average guy.

So how can you or I do likewise?

In short this is a numbers game. If you can start a blog and write enthusiastically three or more times a week (a lot more to start with) on a topic that is likely to draw a lot of attention or in a way that gets that attention then you will obtain a slice of the action.

The question of how to make money and particularly how to do so online has had a lot of things written about it. A lot of what is written is a lot of garbled rubbish so watch out.

There are no quick and easy short cuts but if you are willing to invest the time and perhaps a little money in a fun hobby (which is what blogging is for most of us in Thanet) then little by little you could find you self thinking about quitting the day job one day. You will need to do a lot of work and a ton of reading but it can be done and it can be fun.

Blogging is the art of knowing Make Money By Getting and Keeping Attention. What you are doing is not so different in principle from the basic art of dating. If you can be a people magnet (in text or video form at any rate) then this might be the hobby for you.

Over the next few weeks (from time to time) I'm going to look at the basics of doing this and examine how we in Thanet might best want to plan our money making. Sure there are plenty of mistakes to learn from (especially if we look at certain parts of Thanet (naming no names)) but there are success to be found too.

I will be showing you where you can get free and nearly free hosting, free software and free designs for your site.

I will introduce you to a way of managing your ads like a pro but with the all important price of free.

I will also be introducing you to a new venture that will mutually help each of us be more successful in a thing that starts as a hobby but could become a job.

Until then you might want to look at some specialist search results on the subject:

thanet blogging

how to make money on the internet

How to blog

jobs from home

how to get started blogging

work at home

Do you make any money online (I do obviously) is it very much, would you like it to be more (duh) and do you think this is possible or likely?