AdSense: Is It Worth It? A Few Discreet Questions

Fellow Bloggers!

So I see the people with the ad banners on their blogs, and I'll level with you people: I don't look down on any of you for that. Not at all. Why would I? It's good sense. You're doing something you love, why not get paid for it, right? If The Man wants to funnel lucre into your pocket, well, hold it open for him! Right? Right. That's just a righteous straightforward artistic-integrity ethos, circa '77-or-so-era punk rock. No one could possibly look down on anybody for that, except a moron. Funnel money away from the corporate paymasters, to fuel the revolution! Take 'em for all that you can!

But for me, from a pure design, content, tone, "artistic" and what-have-you sort of standpoint, I have this kind of look or mode I'm going for, that doesn't involve ads flickering up to the side, or between posts, touting some random quasi-related product in a way where that quasi-relatedness might interact or juxtapose "amusingly" with the page content. It just feels like that would function as an unwanted meta-critical running commentary. That page content is carefully chosen and crafted for effect. I work hard on tone, and I don't want some adult-diaper ad breaking up the delicate moment I have striven for, making my whole post come off absurd. That sounds right, doesn't it? It's not about judgmental, it's just my personal aesthetic, here.

So basically, I'm throwing a feeler out to those of you who have seen the other side, and might be able to provide the other perspective. Give me a sense of how you've found it. Was it worth the tradeoff? For you, I mean? Did you think it was worth it? And how much was it worth it?

I guess the real question is: "AdSense: is it worth it?" How much money do you get from it a month? I don't mean "the indefinite you," I mean you specifically. Give exact $$$ examples, please: break it down like "In January I got $$, in December I got $$$, in November I only got $." A general idea would be okay too, I guess - but much less helpful, so please do try to be specific. The bottom line is, I'm coming right out and asking people how much money they make. I try to be pretty classy, all the time, and I want some real way to gauge whether it's really worth it, if I'm going to take that "classy" stance that I just fall into naturally all the time out of pure comfort-level, and sell that off. Just for some ad dollars that might end up making me look bad, compared to how I actually truly am on the inside. Which, as I've emphasized, is classy.

So yeah, how much money are we looking at, on the reals? Just put it in the comments! Oh, please also tell me how much you make from your other sources of income as well (combined annual is fine - it needn't be itemized). That'll give me some baseline to compare against, to put it in context.

If you could all please have that data in to me by say end-of-business Friday? I'm trying to make a decision over the weekend. That's when I make just about all my personal decisions.