This is my take on Thomas’ series at GeneaBloggers entitled Genea-Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money).

Why is it just one or the other?  I find it fun to make a profit.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Thomas MacEntee, creator of GeneaBloggers.com, has brought to light a very timely and important topic this week.  For the next 5 days, I will be giving my take based on the topic he presents.

In every other blogging community I have followed, namely healthy living and mommy blogs, it is well known that if you become a top blogger you will be able to make a profit off of your blog.  Until recently, I had not seen the same happen with GeneaBloggers.

I do not have a problem with people making a profit off their blogs, although I do believe in disclosure statements and telling your readers that you are posting an affliate link.  It does get annoying when nearly every blog you read has the same giveaway/review.  It gets unethical, in my opinion, when bloggers review items positively that you know they do not like or normally support, just because it was free.

Upon graduation, I hope to have a more regular blogging schedule and expand my skill-set to become a more useful resource in the community and, eventually, leverage my skills to become a speaker, webinar giver, etc.  I hope to review books and projects (that I receive at not cost), host giveaways and become a blogger of honor or conference blogger.  Although I started doing this as just a fun, personal project, I now want to take it to the next level.  I do not believe all bloggers want to or should do the same and that that is okay.  It should not be an us-versus-them mentality, just that different people have different ideas and want to do different things, and we should respect each other for our choices, as long as they are being done in an ethical way.