What do I need to do/know to start a profitable blog?
ChrisXYZ: You have to put effort into creating good content and in promoting yourself.Writing good posts is a no brainer, but it's easy to underestimate the importance of marketing yourself.  It can take a lot more time than you'd think.If you look at the most successful bloggers, they write stuff people want to read, but they're also good at networking and self-promotion.If you're an incredibly good writer, than maybe all you'll need to do is post articles and let word of mouth do the rest.  Otherwise, you need to put effort into getting the word out to make up for the slack.