Let’s talk about money, friends.

I know. I can hear my mother’s gasp in horror from here. But we can’t just not talk about money in this day and age, especially when it comes to blogging.

It is hard to make money online nowadays. There are a lot of options, and not all of them are great. Book blogging specifically is notoriously difficult to monetize, because, for some reason, people expect us to not make any money off what we do for reasons of purity.

I think that’s bullshit. You’ll notice that in the last year I’ve done a couple of things to try and support my blogging habit while still being entirely candid here – and that’s hard to do.

So, today I’m gonna tell you all about the ways I make money here on the blog.

Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are great, because I choose what to link to, and where. I always make sure that if someone is available on not-Amazon, I link to it on Indiebound. However, you never make a lot of money on affiliate links, unless someone goes on a shopping spree from one of my links. (It’s happened once. I made $4)

I’m affiliated with Amazon, Indiebound, Book Outlet and Gumroad for specific books!

Ads

You’ll have noticed there are ads in my sidebar. There are occasionally ads on my twitter, too. I earn about $0.30 a month from the ads here on the blog, on average. If someone clicks the ads, that shoots up into the several dollar range, but it’s rare. And I don’t see any of that money until I make $50. Sooooo, it’s gonna be a while before I see it.

Sponsored posts

Sponsored posts are tricky beasts. You have to be very very careful with them and not overdo, because otherwise the viewers feel used. Thus far, I’ve only done them on instagram, and they’ve been #onbrand, as it were.

 

Came home to an accidental doggy mess today. Thanks to @gotrinova, I cleaned it up and the smell is almost gone! It’s all natural, and safe around kids and pets, but still works well! get 15% Off with code HBSAVE15 #ad #sponsoredposts #gotrinova #hbttrinova #hbtsponsored

A post shared by Ceillie Simkiss (@candidceillie) on Aug 10, 2017 at 2:20pm PDT

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing to make money here on the blog. But, as of today, there are now other ways to support me!

I now have a Patreon, and a Gumroad (that is still being worked on)!You can find me on Patreon here or follow me on Gumroad! You can also donate to my Ko-Fi, if you want to!

What do you do to monetize your blog? Got any tips or tricks? I’d love to hear your thoughts!