Six Profitable Blogs

• Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit earns $8,000 to $10,000 a month in ad revenue, with a readership of 220,000.
• AndrewSullivan.com raised $80,000 in one week when he was speaking out in favor of the war in Iraq. When he attacked the administration's handling of Iraq, his fundraising dropped to $20,000. And the following year, when he slammed the administration for "fiscal insanity and its betrayal of any fundamental conservatives principles for its own power," his contributions dropped to $12,000. "It shows you that there is a price to be paid," he told a Brookings Institution audience. "Readers want to read what they want to read. They like to have their own prejudices or feelings confirmed." But overall, "thanks to blog ads, primarily, it is beginning to pay for itself modestly." Sullivan charges $2000 a month to advertise on his site ($250 a week), and appears to have at least two ad slots constantly filled, which means he's making $4,000 a month or $48,000 a year in ad revenue alone, not to mention donations. 
• Chris Allbritton raised $15,000 for his blog Back-to-Iraq 3.0, which garnered 25,000 readers, and won a plum assignment from Time to cover the war.
• Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Berkeley blogger, political activist and creator of the blog, www.dailykos.com, was hired by the Howard Dean presidential campaign to spread enthusiasm for Dean online. Zuniga disclosed the arrangement himself, and never claimed to be a journalist.  In 2004, DailyKos raised more than $574,000 for candidates. His site made more than $100,000 in revenue in 2004. Zuniga also runs an Internet consulting firm, ArmstrongZuniga.com. Though ad sales have dropped by half since the presidential election, he's cashing in on his reputation and completing plans for a non-political venture, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
• In November, 2004, Jeremy Wright, a Canadian blogger and technology writer, put himself up for auction on eBay as a blogger to rent. He auctioned himself for $3,350. Darren Barefoot, a technologist and Head Geek at Capulet Communcations, a PR and marketing company that specializes in high-tech organizations, followed suit a few days later. Darren's weblog has about 75,000 readers per month. They offered consulting and three months of blogging services to the highest bidder. They created a virtual firm, Inside Blogging, and now have a number of corporate clients who hired them to blog.
• BoingBoing.net amuses more than 240,000 weekday visitors, won blog of the year and best group blog from (2005.bloggies.com). It includes lots of advertising and a store of t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, and totebags promoting itself through cafepress.com. It has four co-editors, and a manager, and makes an undisclosed amount of money. One of the writer-editors, Xeni Jardin, was profiled in the Los Angeles Times.