I want to congratulate JD at Get Rich Slowly on making the next big move that many bloggers aspire to - the title of full-time professional blogger. Yes, JD is quitting his job at the box factory and will become a professional blogger.
JD started Get Rich Slowly 18 months ago and has seen the site grow from a handful of readers to over 30,000 RSS readers. The blog now generates $5,000 per month in revenue, which is enough to cover JD’s living expenses. However, JD isn’t diving head first into his new full-time position. Instead, he plans to transition from full-time job to full-time blogger over a one year period.
Beginning 01 January 2008, my Tuesdays will be spent working on Get Rich Slowly.
Beginning April 1st, I’ll drop Thursdays at the box factory.
On July 1st, Mondays will be spent writing.
Next October, I’ll be down to only Wednesdays at the day job.
Finally, on 01 January 2009, I will be an official real-life full-time blogger.
I personally feel that taking a year to transition is a mistake but he is “Get Rich Slowly” so I can understand why he wants to become pro-blogger slowly. I wish JD the best of luck.
When Should You Quit Your Day Job?
I get asked this question a lot. My recommendation is to wait until your Internet income matches your full time job income. Once it hits that level, tell your boss to take this job and shove it (only if you don’t like him). Some people would recommend you keep both job and blog and make twice as much. However, those people don’t see the big picture. If you can match your full time job income with part time blogging, imagine how much you can make if you work at it full time.
My friend Greg Morgan quit his $80,000 a year job at Yellow Pages when his Internet income matched his job income. His Net income isn’t at $160K yet but it’ll be there soon enough. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t have a job to tie you down.
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Congrats to JD! How does he manage to have 20,000+ subscribers and have less earnings and alexa ranking compared to you?
Most probably because he is not pre-selling stuff like John does or is not as evil as John
Well this is just a guess as I have not read JD’s blog, but i certainly will.
Congrats to JD.
Though I read John’s blog for inspiration, I don’t practice evil at my own site. I leave that for John!
My site is straight-forward personal finance advice. I try to mix in some entrepreneurship now and then, but mostly it’s boring stuff like finding the best bank accounts or maxing out IRAs or how to save money when buying a car. Like I say, it’s boring, but a lot of people have questions, just like me, so I try to help find answers.
Lately I’ve been wondering how much I could make if I were evil like John, though.
p.s. Thanks, John!
If it’s a personal finance website . . . the type of sponsors that want to advertise on his site are in a highly competitive market that have much higher ad rates than the type of sponsors that advertise on John’s site . . . JD was fortunate enough to find a demographic that has high paying sponsors and i’m assuming if you want to do what JD did and work from home, you’ll have to find a niche with high paying sponsors as well - i.e. mortgage, health and personal finance are the highest that I can think of right away
I quit my day job once i made enough to cover what it was paying. Which was $1500 a month. Now I’m upto almost $6,000 last month and i’m surviving nicely!
So it can be done! Well done.
Go for it man.
I wouldn’t mind quitting my day job either
Congratulations =D
This evil thing is a reccuring theme haha. We should all just become evil and start an evil revolution full of evil people and we’d do evil things all day long just cause that’s what evil people do.
Isn’t that what we are doing?
Hay I want to get there but not slowly. I love the fast Evil
way
Why not? I thought there was only one way, fast Evil way.
Congratulations!
Wowow good stuff! Congrats.. that’s inspirational stats right there!
Hopefully I’ll be in the position of quiting my job soon…
congrats to the fella…
18 months is pretty good to be at $5k a month.
Yeah it’s nice pocket money if anything.
I quit my job a year ago, not to blog full time, but to pursue other ventures full time. I only blog for fun. But John is right, it is amazing what you can accomplish without a job holding you back.
I love how in the 00’s, we’re all saying that its the job that holds us back haha.
Yup, now I see a “job” as slavery to some boss at a company. Before I got a job, everyone told me to get one, now, I hate the term “job”. (except for the other “jobs”….)
Congratulations to JD. I can’t wait until I can quit my job and strictly work on the computer.
bloggin is still a hobbie for me. damn need to blog more!
type faster, faster, damn it!
Congratulations indeed, Congratulations to anybody who makes it online.
Hey the world is a big place. Every space for everyone to carve their own little nichie
I’m going to start mine on flying pigmy possums soon…
JD’s blog is amazing. This guy is really dedicated and tremendous insight. I think he can monetize the blog more without up-selling stuff. When I’m at 30K subscribers I am soo becoming a full time blogger
Very nice. Thats stickin it to the machine trying to keep the man, or woman down.
Haha… cool, stick it to the MAN or WOMAN!
Great inspiration to all of us!
Congrats to JD!
congratulations! I can’t wait until I can do the same
Congratulations. Most people would love to be in your shoes.
Instead of seeing your online income matching your current job’s income, isn’t it better to wait to see if it can be sustained over the long run? What if you make $5000 this month but only $2500 the next? If you don’t have an egg nest to cover that loss, you be screwed.
I think Roth is smart to wait. If he’s not in a hurry, he’ll be able to evaluate whether his online income remains constant and stable from month to month and whether it truly enjoys a business model that can be sustained over the long haul.
That’s a really good point - it’s still amazing to see that a living can be made off it. If you told me all this a couple of years back, I would have laughed.
It depends… if you think there’s a chance, and you don’t have much to lose by not doing it, then it’s a good idea to jump ship… Not everyone would do that… but I might. I just wouldn’t get a mortgage with it though.
Very smart to wait IMO. He is doing it well.
Quitting my job over a year ago was the best thing I have ever done. I highly recommend it to everyone!
Quite inspirational, but all blogs are trying to make money now, so it isn’t as easy as it used to be.
-Mike
Well-planned move with adequate checks and balances. Especially if one has kids, might become reluctant taking the risk. I would rather say, quit your daytime job only if your online income sustains over the baseline level at least six months or one year. Else, very much encouraging post.
Congrats JD.
yea with a family to support you have to be a bit more careful.
October was the first month I actually made more in my online ventures than in salary, but I’m not even close to considering leaving my full-time job. Sustainability is key - doing it one month is great, but until I’ve got at least 6-12 months of sustained income at this rate, I’m keeping the day job.
Very wise decision… and what’s to say you can’t continue making your online venture better? Double stream of income yeah baby!!
I checked out Get Rich Slowly for the first time because of this post and it seems like that blog could easily make two or three times as much as it is now with better monetization.
I think with him dedicating his full-time attention to it he will see his earnings accelerate considerably… and hopefully be able to loosen the purse strings a little bit and enjoy having more free time.
He probably commented on John Chow so many times to get 30,000 RSS sbuscribers ehh?
Offhand, I was checking out this article in my feed reader when I saw one of the ads, it said Buy Page Ranks? John Chow, is this true? Can bloggers buy Page Ranks? Why? What’s the point if it doesn’t relate to click thru rates on ads?
Buy PR? Possibly talking about buying a text link to increase PR…
Great advice John, finding that jumpoff point is tough and everyone has to decide when (or if) its time but when that time comes hesitating will only lead to a belly flop… dive in hard, or don’t, I agree.
I wanted to add a little more… if you DO jump into pro blogger status keep your eyes open for other opportunities. Your blog won’t be the only internet idea you come accross. My blog for example is only the latest in a series of ventures and it’s important to at least keep an eye out for other possibilities.
Great advice I think. Enjoy the ride that comes from the success but keep your eye on how you can leverage your current success onto bigger and better things.
wow,
very inspiring..
i am also looking for that moment to quit my job..slowly..
Most big blogs with huge subscribers don’t provide much content now. It’s mainly the little ones that provide all the supplies to the big guns.
-Mike
I don’t agree
Good luck to JD.
I never even had an offline job
i am still sourcing for a full time job online, i will surely quite my day job if i can make $5k/mth.
I second that.
I dream about this on a daily basis.