You don't stock a fashion shop with things you love to wear, but you may enjoy buying and selling what people want to buy. That's where the pleasure and profit comes in... In honesty, I really do enjoy writing and if I can work out these techy things (thanks to Jdubhub and Uncle Mythman) then I will be ok. All the content offerings in the world will be only be successful if they know their audience and supply consistent and quality content which will deliver results for their advertisers, (in our case adsense or ads from merchants) we're just mini-publishers I guess! I expect the current buzz on making money from writing will be short lived in the sense that over a period of time, (Ie 5 years)some will become bored and only those who love it and are realtively good at it will continue and prosper..

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"My writing is about the journey of my life and I should be allowed to evolve both as a person and as a writer." Well spoken! I think the evolving is what makes writing, life, and everything else interesting and worth living! Keep the great articles coming. For great information on the writer's life, check out my freelance writing blog for beginners.

That's cool, as long as you’re not suggesting (perish the thought!) that writing should just be commercial. It may be my socialist soul peeking out, but it seems to me that if all you do is write (i.e., stock) what you think people want to hear (i.e., buy) so that you end up making a few bucks, then you’re selling your soul, you’re looking at writing as purely a commodity on the open market, and who actually learns anything through that mercenary process, in the end? Don’t you think good writing should teach readers new things and challenge their core beliefs, not just validate the comforting truisms that they already know? In other words, if your articles merely confirm that blue is blue and hey, don’t worry, the world will take care of itself, in order to make readers feel warm and fuzzy, where’s the moral progress there? Maybe it’s my age and the fact that I feel my mortality more than others here, but I want to impart whatever wisdom I’ve picked up to others, even if they don’t agree with what I have to say and they resist, before my time on earth is over. And who cares whether people like me or not? Don’t take this wrong, but frankly I preferred your writing when you were less of a softie. You had an edge coupled with smarts and a fairly open mind that made you stand out. Shutting out controversy and surrounding yourself by a big bubble may be comfortable (and even profitable), but it’s not intellectually or spiritually challenging to you or anyone else. I’m not saying that every article has to be a blazing opinion piece that ignites major wars (I’ve been known to write purely factual, non-controversial information pieces for the money myself), but perpetual wimphood with the goal of everybody getting along is not the answer either. Recently I sparred with one of the “noisy and recalcitrant” ones—someone I had often ignored in the past—and I eventually got to the end of what I wanted to say (we actually found some common ground along the way) and graciously offered him the final word after he had spent the majority of his time preening about his supposed credentials and calling me and others idiots, which is his standard MO. But, contrarian that he is, he didn’t take me up on it! The lesson is that it’s quite possible to silence these noisome folks without resorting to sticking your ideological nose in the air and refusing to sniff at them, and to maybe even teach them a thing or two or three, even if they never admit it. And don't forget the all-important lurkers, the quiet, well-behaved masses who don’t comment but are reading along, and who learn something too. I have spoke! But hey, far be it from me to tell you what to do! ;) Aum . . .

And if I make some money at it, fine, if not, that's life. I have to be interested in the topic first and foremost or else I can't write an article with any kind of enthusiasm. And, since I often tend to pick topics that are not exactly wildly popular, are downright edgy and make people feel uncomfortable and defensive (e.g., animal rights, veganism), I generally don't score the number of hits and certainly not the bucks that others get. Geez, I'm still working on getting my first hundred dollars after a year and a half writing, off and on, at Xomba! I'm just not the type to cater to my readers, but that doesn't mean that people like me should give up writing. There's a need in the world for my kind of writing. So I guess I will have to respectfully disagree with you, jdub.