I need more liquor, my fellow inebriates, and I’m hoping my parents will buy it if I justify my existence with numbers.

By numbers I mean income and/or booze freebies. When I told them back in October that by summer we’d be awash in hooch and naming our price for coveted advertising spots, they didn’t even bother snickering. Their question was: “If we give you a blog, will you stop bothering everybody?”

So they did give me a blog, and I didn’t stop being a nuisance. Every day I recruit them for their opposable thumbs, in exchange for which they disparage my ideas. My dad gets mad at the photos I post of our messy house, and my mum ditches me the minute paid freelance work comes in.

OMG! Maybe we should monetize.

I wish I could post from the future telling you about our fabulous success at monetizing, the influx of booze samples with which we can barely keep up, and the bling weighing down my floppy little bear physique. Sadly, our present-day reality is very dry. Can’t it even be done? Do blogs really make money?

According to Income Diary, Problogger makes $40,000 a month, which is a lot of freaking gin. Darren Rowse started the blog in 2004, diving right into topics such as product branding, SEO, and pay-per-click advertising.

I worry, when I visit Problogger, that Rowse is doing a lot more work than I’d like to do. His site has a lot of focus, and it contains useful information. Moreover, I suspect he’s written his posts while sober.

All of which is highly intimidating.

In addition to Rowse, who I’m sure is earning good money, there are dozens of other bloggers blogging about blogging who claim to be making money but might just be getting a bit of pocket money—and to get it they probably started by saying they were earning money, and kept on the fake-it-till-you-make-it path until a trickle started, even while they were bursting forth with monetizing wisdom. What do you humans think?

I don’t know what to think. My brain cells can’t handle it—either one of them.

Now you might say, quite rightly, that I should just read these informative blogs that often outline in careful detail how to build successful income streams from blogging.

But these sites lack a certain sordidness that would otherwise draw me in. They don’t have features about cannibalism, zombies, or eating roadkill. They just have relevant information, the devoted study of which wouldn’t leave me any time to play Wrestler Unstoppable or look at the People of Walmart.

So I’m throwing down a challenge to all those bloggers in my inbox telling me they’re getting rich. I DON’T BELIEVE YOU MAKE MONEY! I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IT’S DONE! IF YOU TRULY MAKE SOME DECENT COIN, PROVE IT BY HELPING ME—AN IDIOT BEAR—MAKE MONEY.

IF YOU CAN MAKE A DRUNKEN BEAR RICH, I’LL BELIEVE YOU!!!

Yes, friends, this is a throwdown. Send me your links to anyone you know out there GETTING RICH BLOGGING, MAKING MONEY WHILE THEY SLEEP, or ENJOYING FINANCIAL FREEDOM. I will CHALLENGE them personally to help me GROW MY BUSINESS so that I too can bask in COMFORT AND SECURITY and finally, finally have a decent bar.

And for anyone out there BLOGGING FOR PROFIT, a brief survey:

• Are you making money blogging?

• Is money more important than fame?

• Is money more important than altruism?

• Do you prefer gin or vodka in your martini?

And for you, GIANT INTERNET MONEYMAKERS who take the challenge!…

• I will share your links with my small and often justifiably perplexed following.

• I will recommend excellent cocktails.

• I will accompany these recommendations with random, specious and occasionally offensive factoids enhanced by the most amateur, slapdash photography ever produced.

You will learn:

• WHY HEMORRHOID COMPLAINTS OUTNUMBER ASTEROID COMPLAINTS

• WHAT WINES PAIR WITH ROADKILL DELICACIES SUCH AS BADGER AND KANGAROO

• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR CHILD’S STUFFIES HARBOR RESTLESS AND POSSIBLY EVIL SPIRITS

• WHY MOOBS SIGNIFY SPRINGTIME, AND WHEN THEY MAKE THEIR ANNUAL APPEARANCE

• AND EVERY WEEK: YOUR ASTROLIQUOR—WHAT THE STARS SAY YOU SHOULD DRINK!

For any blogger who’s wondered, “Is there more to this?” now’s the chance to engage with BLOG GENIUSES who EARN WHILE THEY SLEEP. Let’s start bothering them. If they can make themselves rich, they can make US rich! And if they DON’T WANT TO DO THAT, then maybe they’re not getting rich at all. Let’s challenge those successful bloggers to this THROWDOWN. It’s a CAGE MATCH, people!

BLOGGERS WHO EARN

vs

BLOGGERS WHO ARE REALLY GOOD AT HITTING CONTROL/ALT/TAB WHEN THEIR BOSS FINDS THEM BLOGGING AT WORK

Share this RIGHT NOW by clicking Stumble, Twitter, or any of those little buttons (I don’t know what the hell most of them are). We’ll launch this plea into the blogosphere—the PLEA FOR SUCCESSFUL BLOGGERS TO HELP US ALL GET RICH!!

Now, you may be worried—will this make you a target for SPAM and things you don’t want? NO! You won’t get SPAM. But you won’t get anything helpful either. You won’t learn the following, for instance:

• How to optimize your web site

• How to urge your visitors into the conversion funnel

• How to set up multiple streams of income using your blog as a magnet for business

• How to make money while you snooze!

Hitting the share buttons won’t teach you any of these things BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THEM, PEOPLE. That’s why I need BLOG MASTERS to help! And chances are you do too. So let’s share this message. Click it, share it, send it like a sacrilegious little prayer into the blogosphere and get our traffic up. Because if we can get savvy, Internet GURUS to help us, we can ALL roll around naked in money, festoon ourselves with chainlink gold, or pour vodka all over ourselves—or whatever the hell else we want to do.

So why would these Internet SAGES want to help us? I DON’T KNOW! I HAVEN’T THOUGHT THAT FAR! If you can think of a reason, let me know, and leave a comment about WHY you blog.