I don't see a moral impediment to helping people directly for a fee. If you've posted something that's generally helpful, but some folks don't get it and/or want more specific assistance with it, why not charge them a nominal fee for the time and attention? Maybe I'm too Capitalist for my own good, but that seems like consulting to me.

I have yet to seriously start blogging because I have such an eclectic array of interests, any of which might be immediately important enough to me to write about, and everything I read tells me to focus on one thing. (There are other reasons, but that's definitely one of them.) The reality is that while I could focus on one thing for a while, there is no telling when that one thing will become mundane to me, and writing about it would become a chore. I admire your bravery in not following the "rules" of blogging; I love that I only know that the quality of your posts will be good when I see you've made a new post, but the content could be something that I had no idea even existed. Your writing quality makes the content interesting when the subject matter is not something I would normally seek out.

All of that being said, one of the things I've thought about is maintaining multiple blogs: one that's centralized and for everything I output regardless of its category (much like this one is for you), and then one for each type of content. I haven't seen any solutions for that problem (aside from the hack of having an RSS feed for each category), and while it would be an interesting problem to solve, I'm not currently writing (much less attempting to monetize said writing), so it's not something that's at the top of my fix-it list. I think it would be a fun problem to solve, though, and having just articulated it, a few solutions have leaped to mind, so I might start something up to deal with the issue. =)

Sacha ... I was so moved by this post I felt I had to comment - this is my first time commenting on your blog.

I completely empathize with your struggle and desire to remain authentic, so hopefully some of my comments will be helpful to you. I am just beginning to get serious about my blog and yours is one of the blogs I often come back to for 'models' on how to do things (even a simple as a sign-up box).

I have only been following your blog for a couple of months but I am blown away by the richness of your posts. I am not in one bit bothered by the variety of things you post about because I think its not as scattered as you may think it is. You actually have a very strong 'brand' and part of that brand is your 'renaissance woman' approach to life. That's what I think is so awesome about your life.

Trying to box yourself in to monetize the blog would be a tragedy as I think this would stifle your creativity and make blogging a 'chore' rather than a love - and this would start showing through in your writing.

The reason I think your blog is not as scattered as you think is that you have recurring themes that repeat themselves regardless of what you are writing about. I would list some of them as:

> Un-apologetic geekery
> The joy of discovery and continuous learning
> Looking at the world as a lab (quantified self)
> Organizing complex thoughts and ideas for others to consume (sketchnotes , how-to posts)

I don't think you need to do things like adding advertising or strong marketing pitches to your blog - you just have to continue being generous - and the path will become clearer.

The things I would suggest for you that will be revenue generating but still remain authentic is to start thinking about creating products about:
a) areas that you have deep knowledge (e.g. Emacs) ... could be an ebook based on posts you have written in the past
b) a collection of your sketchnotes from a theme (e.g. book reviews on 10 life-changing books you have read) ... would be great as an actual book but would also work as an e-book
c) what you have learned about the quantified self - you could make this very visual using some of the data visualization techniques you use like the recent one you posted about you blogging frequency

You are so generous with what you know already that I don't think your readers would have any problem buying some of your items that you have taken time to 'package' more. Going through the process of packaging and launching these 'products' will actually increase the earning potential of your offline activities in consulting and public speaking because people who are not 'blog readers' would still be able to experience your awesomeness and become part of your tribe.

I would be happy to brainstorm through this process with you - no hidden agenda, nothing to sell - just want to see a dreamer like myself connect with their tribe.

I'm at @komasworld

I personally avoid bringing money into the equation unless it's going to be a significant contributor to my income. Money changes how people interact with you.

For a blog, it could change the perception of authenticity of your articles or discourage people from connecting with you. Read The Psychological Consequences of Money, a research paper about studies related to how even the mention of money affects how we interact (you need to register to read the paper, but it's free).

For me, at some point I may monetize Lean Decisions. But that's a focused blog around a specific topic that I'm already treating as being part of my next business. Fast Fedora I don't expect ever to monetize. That's my expression of who I am, with a scattershot of articles. It's so much more valuable to me to give myself freely to the world.

Your blog is refreshingly free of advertisements. So I receive it as a pure form of self-expression and an altruistic willingness to help others -- like a flower in a harsh land. And I agree with Trevor's comment, "Money changes how people interact with you."

But I also think you're entitled to monetary reward. Hmmm, not sure how to reconcile the two. Perhaps by allowing for donations on a totally separate site, such as philanthropy.org* with a subtle link to your membership page, on which you might present yourself as both a benefactor (which you most certainly are) and a recipient.

You could add a "store" tab to your site. Your product list could include your e-book(s), poster-size hardcopies of sketchnotes, plus consulting services.

Thank you for including me in your list of amazing conversations! It has been amazing!

* This is not an endorsement of the site. I'm not really familiar with it.

Actually the left side of the things in the What I don't want group will just happen naturally and it's fine. Though I am using it for experimentation purposes as well to see people's behaviours for fun.

I think it's better to say "what I am not focusing on" rather than "what I don't want". As far as monetization goes, I don't think of it as a bad thing, I actually think of it as another way of seeing behavior patterns, I think I'd get maybe $1 per year on my blog which means the blog needs 100 years of operation before I'd get a paycheck from it. :D

I like that you're expanding on your media choices, I still limited myself to text for now because that is the one I am most comfortable with. Though drawings may come next albeit more mechanical like SVG and UML just because that's my personality.

Also as a habit of mine, I like linking my posts together a lot. I like seeing relationships between my ideas of the day. Eventually I will find a plug-in that shows (posts that link here). So my blog would end up more like a wiki in that there'd be a rich amount of links and probably find a way of visualizing it into a graph because I'm such a nerd when it comes to those things :D