Dislosure: My blog will be profitable at the end of 2010

It's been a year (or close enough) since I published this website, and it's had its share of false starts. One of my New Year's resolutions is to finally buckle down and start using the Internet the way I've always meant to.

That means creating content. I've gotten pretty good at sharing things, but I've failed to get in the habit of creating original content regularly. That's all about to change. Right? Right!

Truth be told, I have aspirations for this blog. Besides from just being useful, I want it to be my biggest single source of income by the end of the year, and that means it's got to be bringing in about $1500 in revenue each month by January 1, 2011.

Hooray for measurable New Year's resolutions!

Here's how I'll do it:

• Almost no direct revenue: I won't be soliciting advertisers, but I probably will join several ad networks related to the content I'm producing. This means you could start seeing ads, but I promise they will never be in your face. Going with ad networks and not direct ads also means I won't have a direct relationship with advertisers (and if I did, I'd tell you). That's important because I'm an elected official. Soliciting advertisements would raise a lot of red flags on the ethics front.
• Affiliate programs: I'm going to be recommending products, like books and software. I promise I will always be honest in my reviews of these products, and I won't try to get you to buy anything without giving you an opinion about it. Links on my website or social media profiles may contain advertisements or opportunities to purchase things. In any case, it will always be obvious when I could be paid from something I've recommended.
• Ebooks: I'm already working on the first. Some of my ebooks will be for free, but others will be for sale. I'm going to experiment with promotion and launch strategies, and I'll build an affiliate network so you can earn a commission if you like the eBooks so much that you want to recommend them to your own friends and followers. I'm planning to launch at least two this year, maybe more depending on when the information in them needs updating.
• Building community won't produce direct revenue for me either, but my hope is that authentic communication with others will build the community that makes the above revenue opportunities successful. I'll be making a renewed effort to wax poetic on other topics of passion to me, including social media, local politics, climate change, and domestic poverty. I'm going to use my own life as an example as much as possible, showing you how I use the Internet, what's going on in Fayetteville politics, and how I'm building an urban homestead (2010 garden season is going to be rad).

That's my plan. I'll update this disclosure policy as necessary, and do let me know if you think I've left anything out. Last updated Feb 26, 2010.