This last weekend I played under the radar. I casually dropped my Entrecard, commented on blogs I enjoy reading, caught up on feed, and read through forums that I participate in.

And with as much as I did centered around blogs this weekend, I found but just one underlying theme that got me thinking.

What was the theme?

Money!

And now, I’m left wondering one very basic thing about these “make money online” blogs.

Is money driving you into a passion or is passion driving you to make money?

Read the question carefully, it could be thought provoking for you.

Because to me, it seemed like a lot of these blogs were just out to make some money and tell you how they did it. This got me to thinking about my own blog. What are my motives and my monetization strategies? My answer is what I want to share with you.

You’ll notice that I spend a lot of time giving you “how to” tips. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be part of I’m Blogging That’s tagline. What I have never really talked about is how to make money with your blog. If you’re interested in that question, there’s thousands (and I do mean thousands) of blogs out there that are going to give you that answer.

I’m Blogging That won’t provide those answers to you and here’s why:

I have chosen not to make a lot of money with my blog. Do you see ads? Yes! Of course you do. When I have received a good offer privately or from LinkWorth for advertising placement, I have taken it. There have also been offers that I have kindly rejected at my own cost of 100’s of dollars.

To some people, this may sound stupid.

When you come to my blog, I want you to see clearly what my passion is. I love writing; I started writing a book when I was just 12 years old. These days, I update a book about my life at least once monthly adding another chapter in the life and thoughts of Katy Castro.

My passion has always been to write. The famous question asked of kids is “what do you want to be when you grow up?” If I answered that many years ago, I would have told you I wanted to be a writer.

Today, I’ll tell you the same thing.

Blogging became my passion because of the medium it can provide for a variety of different purposes. If you have something to talk about, you can create a blog and have a voice that could potentially reach millions, heard around the world in different countries, cities, and homes.

I’m not looking to get rich and I’m not looking to become famous. I’m looking to share my passion with those who come to read and are interested. And by that, I want to be helpful.

So, in the interest of full disclosure, my income report:

There are 5 banners in my sidebar. LinkWorth is being displayed as my affiliate banner. Now we have 4 banners at the rate of just $5 per month each (I recently increased rates of which could be understood just by continuing to read). Of those 4 banners, two of them have been paid for an entire year. Now we’re down to just $10 monthly income.

With my $10 monthly income, I pay $5 per month for hosting. Profit: $5 per month.

Occasionally, I have sold a couple of permanent text links on really, really, really old posts. Those went for $5 each. Not another dime for those. LinkWorth brought me a couple of advertisers; I’ll be receiving $40.00 for two text links (LinkWorth keeps the other $40.00 for those links for themselves in a 50/50 split with me).

If I receive a private advertising offer, my very first question for myself “is how will this advertisement change the experience of my visitors, my readers?” If I can find something negative about it, forget it, deal is off!

So, what’s my point?

I’m not at all saying that people shouldn’t monetize their blogs. In fact, if you can and want to do that in ways that are ethical, by all means. Get what you deserve.

I’ve chosen not to because for me, I never want to have to say that money is driving my passion.

What’s your strategy?