I guess I’m fooling someone, because this blog has been declared a success.
Well, it was called a success by my friend and associate J-Dog, who claims that I’m more likely to get blog sponsors than he is.
Outside of being offered a free product sample two years ago, I really don’t see that happening. I could always sign up for Google AdSense and make some serious money like the Morning Toast (or at least one-fourth of it, because he has a whole network, and I have, well, you’re reading it).
But J-Dog’s comment got me thinking…if I could get paid to plug a sponsor on the blog, would I do it?
Because the Kingdom is mostly for your and my entertainment, I’d do it if it was something I could get behind.
The obvious choices (and why they probably wouldn’t work) would be:
- The Yankees (because the world doesn’t hear from enough obnoxious Yankees fans)
- Lost (because the one remaining season needs more promotion)
- Weezer (the label doesn’t promote their albums anymore, why would they pay to sponsor a blog?)
- Star Wars (see The Yankees)
I think it’s highly unlikely I’d land any of those prime accounts. And I wouldn’t want to shill for something I don’t believe in (or something that’s used to prepare a food I don’t like to cook). So unless I were to sign up for AdSense, it doesn’t look like the dollars will be rolling into the Kingdom.
Speaking of advertising, the one little bit of marketing I do for the blog, sponsoring Hideki Irabu’s baseball-reference.com page, continues to pull in tens of visitors each month. Best five bucks I ever spent!
I wish someone would pay me to write stuff on my blog. And I don’t think getting paid to write about a product would mean you have to give a positive review…although, if you were to review something you like anyway (like Weezer) you’d probably give it a good review anyway. So it’s not really shilling at that point.
AdSense is the way to go, honestly. And since your topics are pretty consistent with Yanks, Weezer, and soon enough, parenthood, you’ll get a good set of words. That doesn’t mean people will click on them, but it doesn’t hurt.
Here at the Kingdom I’d create a horizontal adsense insert and place it just about the comments and below the end of the article. Maybe one at the top too below the headline.
If nothing else, it’s fun to see what type of ads show up since Google serves based on words and topics. You’ll get a lot of 24/Bauer too once the season starts.
Man…the pennies will just be rolling in on the kingdom! After a year or two you could use that mad cash to buy junior a sock!
Getting paid for blogging would be cool, and it would probably inspire me to blog more than once or twice a week.
I’m strongly considering the AdSense, even if it is a few pennies.
I may be getting some more free stuff real soon. My new Hot Wheels blog is getting some good traffic from that community and I should be receiving some free toys here this week or next.
Granted it’s not straight up mad cash like Google gives me, but getting free stuff I’d otherwise pay for just because I write a stupid blog – I’ll take it. It’s all about focus.
And how many sites do you think constitute a network? I’m not sure if I’m quite there yet 😉
That’s not a bad deal at all!
I think if you have more than one site, that’s a network. But that’s just like my opinion, man.