I disagree with the thought that you need to focus on just one thing to start with. I think that when you're beginning, it's a good idea to have a few projects, that way you're not a discouraged when one fails or simply doesn't find success that day. (A lot of websites are like the latter. They just haven't caught their 'lucky keyword'. Stuff like that.)
You said you had autoblogs with unique content. I'm assuming you're using Wordpress or have access to something that uses awstats. Check which blog posts are getting hits from search engines and monetize specifically on those pages.
And since you're getting visitors from search engines, focus on doing some SEO work on those pages specifically. Read up on some stuff in the SEO subforums (Blackhat, Whitehat, and Linkbuilding in particular), formulate a strategy that works, then devise a way to do it for less. Pay $5 at Fiverr for those Scrapebox AA comments, AMR blasts, things like that. If you still can't get it to rank, try a different strategy or alter your old one. Add another layer of AMR articles followed by a round of bookmarking.
You said that you haven't had much luck with adsense and chitika. For now, leave them there on whatever sites you have them running on. If I were you, I'd recommend focusing on a set of products for your most popular autoblog, go back and edit your posts to link to a page where you can really sell a related product, and then go from there.
In the time I've been at BHW, one thing's really stuck with me when I've been stumped about what to market on a site. I ask myself, "Who's reading this stuff?" Then I ask, "Why are they reading it?" Finally, I try to figure out, "What problem can I solve and make a little money from doing so?"
Anything above this isn't really blackhat. It's just general IMing.
If you want to go Blackhat, there's a few alternatives to simply selling something.
You can offer a piece of information for free, but lock it with a content locker. IF you're the only person on the internet who can solve someone's page and all they have to do is fill out a survey? Of course they'll do it.
Slap on an offer for something free. Say it's a contest, but redirect them to a place that has some sort of email or zip submit for loads of free stuff. Even if you don't exactly live up to your promise, most people won't get too irked if you give them something close that they don't have to offer a limb for.. yet.
Just remember to not give up. Learn from your failures, and I mean really pay attention to them. Take them apart, dissect them, learn why something didn't work. Stop buying tools, if you can. Tools are more of a luxury than anything else. You can pay someone a fraction of what a new tool would cost in order to try something different.