Support
Brian Clark of Copyblogger wrote a post called How to Turn Affiliate Marketing Disclosure Into a Selling Point. The post mentioned that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will soon be monitoring bloggers and filing claims against any who receive money for writing reviews or talking about products without sharing that information with their readers.
In the post, Brian suggested that bloggers disclose when they make money from the products and/or services they tout. He suggested this, not only because it’s required by law, but because people will appreciate your honesty.
I have to say that I agree with him.
My goal in taking on affiliate marketing was never to hide this fact from my readers.
But to go a step further (as I know Leo Babauta would), I’ve added this page to inform you of how I keep this blog going…
- I am a Holly Lisle affiliate–When I started getting serious about writing, I needed inspiration to keep me going. Doing research one day, I came across author Holly Lisle. Holly has written tons of books on the craft of writing. Her books have helped me immensely with my fiction writing career. In fact, I’m positive her Create A Character Clinic (yes, that’s an affiliate link) saved my first novel from being yet another unfinished project.I love Holly Lisle. She keeps me motivated to write. After all, she is living proof that it is possible to be a full-time writer. She’s knows her stuff. And she knows how to teach you what she knows. That’s why I recommend her books and writing programs.I’m a HUGE proponent of her How to Think Sideways Career School for Writers (affiliate link). HUGE! I’m always pointing people to this program.And let me just add that a couple of you readers agreed with me about How to Think Sideways (not an affiliate link, just more info about the program). So much so, you signed up for it and now I get a little bit of affiliate income every month. (Thank you for that! You keep this blog alive!)
- I’m also an Amazon Affiliate–I recently signed up to be an Amazon Affiliate because I’m always recommending things to people so I figured if they buy the things I recommend, it would be a good way for me to earn more money for the blog. There are several Amazon Affiliate links on this blog, such as The Writer’s Idea Book
(affiliate link). I absolutely love this book. Love it. Can’t live without it. I always let you know when a book I’m recommending is an affiliate link.
- I just recently became an affiliate of Larry Brooks’ books (affiliate link). Brooks is one of my favorite writers and motivators of all time. His advice is always dead-on accurate and he provides you with everything you need to make your novels sellable. His brilliant, writing advice has changed my writing career. I hope you enjoy him as much as I do.
Now before you think that I’m making all this money from my affiliate links, let me just tell you now that I don’t make very much money. The money I make is not enough to cover the amount of time I spend building this blog (preparing, writing content, learning web design, researching, etc).
But I DO make enough money to cover the costs of running this blog (web hosting, a domain name, tools like Thesis, etc).
This blog means a lot to me. I’d love to one day have it be part of how I make my living full time (as that is one of my dreams/goals–to work full-time for myself). But even if it never makes me more than it does currently, I’ll still keep at it because it’s important to me.
Now I was against this at first, but I’ve received several e-mails from people saying they’d like to invest in my project (thank you to those of you; you know who you are). So I’ve decided to open up this blog for donations.
I created Procrastinating Writers to be a place where struggling writers could come to get free writing advice, information and support. That will always be the case.
But if this site has been particularly helpful to you and you want to give back and help me keep the good advice and information flowing…consider giving a $25 donation (or more if your heart so desires).
I appreciate each and every one of you for being a Procrastinating Writers reader. I will continue to provide you with the best, most useful content I can for as long as you’ll let me.
Thanks for reading.
jennifer
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I don’t know if this is related at all, but I was wondering if you thought about making your blog available on Amazon Kindle? I don’t know if you would make any money, but I would love to get your blog on my Kindle instead of in my email inbox so I could read it at night or at lunch where I don’t have my laptop with me. There is a monthly subscription fee to users like me, so I assume that you would receive something as well.
Also, have you ever visited Blurb.com? I haven’t used it yet, but it looks like you could stream your blog into a book format and sell it in their bookstore (you set the price). It sounds like a neat way to capture all of your posted advice in book format for people who would like to have it as a reference.
In the interest of full disclosure, I do not work for either Amazon or Blurb and receive nothing whether you use their services or not – although I would subscribe to your blog on my Kindle, and I would seriously consider buying your blog/book on Blurb.
@Andrea No, I didn’t think about adding my blog to Kindle. How would I go about doing that? And I’ve never heard of Blurb.com, but I will most definitely look into it. Thanks so much for the great tips, and thanks for reading!! I appreciate it so much.
Hi.
I think if you go to the Kindle section, you can fill out a form. Here is a link you can try: https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/gp/vendor/sign-in/188-0486770-6925126.
Good luck!
Here is the link to Blurb: http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook. I think you can put it for sale in the bookstore for free (no charge to you) and set your own price (less their cost to produce it).
Like I said, I haven’t used it myself yet, but I am thinking of putting my friend’s personal blog into book format as a gift for her.
Good luck and tell us how it all turns out.
Procrastinating Writers is NOW AVAILABLE on KINDLE!
Here’s the link to subscribe: http://www.amazon.com/Procrastinating-Writers/dp/B002GU66E6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1249668659&sr=1-1
And thanks, Andrea, for the brilliant suggestion!