From ProBlogger:

I enjoy these requests, I love to help others (otherwise I wouldn’t make my contact details public) but it is now starting to get to the point where I could dedicate a few hours each day to the task which whilst an enjoyable task is one which takes me away from my other business. I do try to accommodate all requests, but as the readership of this blog rises (as it steadily is) I can see that the day is coming where I’m either going to have to say no to such requests or find a way to either make it pay for my time or decrease the time needed to do it.

The post continues with some ideas to help accomodate all the requests. As a blogger’s readership increases the requests increase proportionally. There is an interesting issue though, with free advice there isn’t an expectation. With paid advice, there definitely is. I would strongly suggest consulting an attorney before implementing any paid services. There are many issues to consider for example conflicts of interest and entering inappropriate business relationships.

Either way every blogger has to learn how to say no. It’s relatively easy to build a consulting business via a blog but he brings up a good point about pricing:

The other issue to consider is that many readers of this blog can’t afford to really pay much at all for my time because they are just starting out and often have either no blog or a blog with tiny readership that could take a substantial amount of time to build into something that is profitable. On the other hand others are already earning decent money from their blogs. Is it fair to charge both the same for my time? For example, a few days ago I helped two people within an hour of each other. Today I found out that my advice helped one of them increase their daily earnings from $1 to $1.30 and the other one increased their earnings by $40 per day. I spent the same time on both of them but obviously one is in a better position to pay than the other simply because their blog has been going longer and has a larger economy of scale.

Don’t get me wrong, if he helping people make money with their blog he should get paid for his time. What saddens me is that these people aren’t giving back…if they were, this discussion would be a mute point, wouldn’t it? The fact that he has to ask such a question and he is obviously helping people brings home the point how some bloggers are extremely greedy.

Darren, good luck with your decision…I wish you the best.