Love what you do and make money

— -- In his new book, Career Renegade, Jonathan Fields gives readers a guide to making money while doing what they want.

Obviously, the first step is to figure out what you want to do. To find your passion, he says, figure out what job you would do for free, or what job you would do if you didn't have to worry about making lots of money.

For some people, finding that passion helps them enter a "zone" or "flow state," where deep concentration on a task results in absorption in work.

At this point, Fields writes, most people ask themselves two questions before trying to make a living at doing what they want:

• What if the thing that makes my heart sing doesn't pay enough?

• What if it could be lucrative, but only if I were at the top of the field?

For most people, this is where the conversation ends, Fields writes, "Because there are no easy answers," particularly to the first question. As for the second, though, Fields argues that you don't have to be anywhere near the top of your field to make your passion lucrative.

He should know, having left his lucrative law practice to open a yoga studio.

Success at making money from a passion will come to those who satisfy an unfulfilled need in the market, who find gaps to exploit.

The book itself is an example for anyone longing for a writing career that can pay the bills. Fields found a topic where information was in demand, then aggregated, compiled, funneled and filtered that information to provide a valuable resource.

Fields recommends using modern technology to create a personal platform of authority. You can launch your own website, or create a blog, as a way to make a name. You can post to more popular blogs to promote your Web presence.

It's important to have high-quality content on your blog. That way, when people click through to your website, they find information that encourages them to come back.

Creating original content is not a requirement for blogging. Far from it, Fields says. "When I launched my blog, I knew nothing about blogging." Five weeks later, his article about blog marketing landed on the front page of a popular site and drew thousands of visitors. The secret? Aggregation. Fields simply collected the views of more well-established and popular experts, then created a round-up post. Fields believes strongly in self-promotion through linking to social-networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Career Renegade is full of links to websites.