Most “pro” bloggers make money from adjunct services or products that they promote from the platform of their blog. That includes the vast majority of bloggers that we would call “successful” (i.e. they make a decent salary, primarily from blogging).

I don’t think Sol is totally wrong – blogging isn’t really something new at all. My first “blog” (back in 1995) was a website on the York U Computer Club server that I referred to as my “web diary”. The only thing that has changed from one of the ancient Roman diarists to today is the platform that the web can provide for the aforementioned blathering.

A blog can provide the means for an amateur writer to publish their first works, and can ultimately make them money once they have written sufficient quantity to publish in a book format. Whether you want to call this person an essayist, or a writer, or a blogger is irrelevant – they used their blog to make money.

Making a living writing reviews makes you a professional reviewer.
Making a living by blathering writing genreal interest articles would probably have been called an essayist or writer in the world before easy Web publising. I think they made money by publishing their essays in collections or in journals and magazines. I guess REALLY popular bloggers could still make money by selling hard copies of their essays blog entries, but I don’t think most will ever actually do it. And they probably won’t care.

1. Get paid to write reviews of products or services (I think we talked about this before, and the ethics of doing this).
2. Publish some of your blog entries as a book (I’m in the middle of reading “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain” by Scott Adams, which is essentially his blog in book form).

a) make sure you have a business model that makes sense (i.e. not just ads), and
b) make sure you have some money saved up to help you through the lengthy build-up process.