Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about using my website as a source of income. The following influenced me:

• The huge incomes that can be made with Google AdSense advertising. (I’m using it already, but not making much. I would need to have an extremely high-traffic site to really make a lot of money from advertising, and I’d also need to whore out my site to advertising, which is not something I really want to do…)

• The idea of doing one’s website as a job. (Would anyone contribute if I asked for donations to do regularly updated features on learning Chinese?)

• The possibility of supporting oneself entirely through a website with addictive content and well-designed merchandise. (I actually contacted the artist and asked him if, since quitting his regular job, he’s making enough to live on. Understandably, he didn’t want to discolse any numbers, but he said he’s already making more than he used to at his “regular” job.)

I already spend a lot of time on my website. It’s my favorite hobby. If my hobby could become my primary source of income, justifying all the time I currently spend on it as well as the extra time I would put into it, that would be unbelievably great. In addition, I would spend less time online in my free time because I would get plenty of time online when I “worked.”

Problems:

1. Generating that kind of income isn’t easy. I would need something like $1000 per month to fully support myself in Shanghai.

2. No matter how I earned the money, it would most likely be in dollars, and need to be transferred to me here. That probably means inconveniencing other people and money transfer fees eating into my income.

Thinking, thinking…