I personally build blogs in different niches, for example last week I did one in forex niche, yesterday one on football (soccer), try to build some traffic, and when I have around 50-60 articles, I start accepting paid and links spots.. I hardly sell any offers or cpa.. I don't use adsense at all. zero adsense for me.. never worked for me.. in the celebrity blog I put a teeth whitening and it converts at 1:50, with 50 bucks per sale.. but hardly use them.. The most money comes from companies that contact me and pay me for link spots, hardlinks, or banners. 90% of my mainstream money comes from that.
So far, I keep growing exponentially, started in mid 2010... Wish i could start earlier and could already been doing 10K per month.. for now its only third part of that.. but I keep growing every month, its just a matter of time.. the more blogs I make, the more money I will make.. buy new VPS's, etc..
For example, this last blog I did last week got listed in all the directories and sites I submitted a few days ago, check below:
I do the same with every new blog I make, RINSE and REPEAT... It's just hard work, but pays way better than adult. It's like adult in years 2001-2007.
And as for adult.. I let my adult sites on auto-pilot, make a few blogs from to time to time, submit to thehun, but hardly work more than 1-2 hours per day in adult, but still get some grands from rebills, etc that always help to pay the bills and all the extra money I make in mainstream I can use for whatever I want. I try to put most of the time I have in mainstream now, since adult is fucked. No sense to work like a slave for nothing.
Just my two cents.