The Truth is Out There
on August 12th, 2010Posted In: Creator Resources, Agents/managers, Creator Resources, Art How-To, Blog, Creator Resources, copyright/trademark, Creator Resources, Creator Resources, Education, Creator Resources, Legal, Creator Resources, Money Management, Creator Resources, Publishing, Creator Resources, TAXES, Creator Resources, Time Management
…or you could just keep reading my blog.
Just kidding.
Tad Crawford’s books are full of legal info with handy forms.
If I would just stop putting this stuff on a blog for free, I might be a richer woman. Working for tips kind of sucks. But every time I stop one of you from running over a precipice (I’m looking at you, iUniverse,) I can’t help but feel like my time on this blog has been worthwhile.
I hug you all.
c
Well, it really is helpful.
(And honestly, the people who need help the most are the people who can’t afford to put money into the resources… ..or who dump too much on such resources when they shouldn’t. I think its usually one of two extremes. ;P)
When you link to an Amazon listing, do you get a kickback via their Associates program?
I’m not a professional, but I’ve studied this industry for over 25 years, so I know enough to get help if the opportunity arises. Of course, as a librarian and bookseller, I know that many of these books are *FREE* at your local friendly neighborhood public library.
Yeah… that feeling you get when someone tells you that you provided valuable assistance or encouragement… that’s when you realize just how rich you are.
Yes, I do, but the kickback is so small it’s not worth posting the link for the money.
My local library doesn’t have a single one of these books. Almost any art business books they do have are my old cast offs.
You live in a big city. Where I grew up, our local library was in a small strip mall on a small road, in a small room. The entire art business reference section consisted of about five books.
Posting to the link makes me pennies, only if someone orders a book. Posting to the link allows a potential reader to get a complete synopsis and read reviews.
If I get a few pennies out of that, big whoop.
The only real money I make is if someone buys one of the books on which I also make a royalty. Then I get pennies on top if my royalty.
If ten people buy a book off this link, I will make about $2-$3.
It cost me more in time than that to post the info. In a really good month, I might make about $20 off my Amazon referrals.
It takes more than $20 of time to post this stuff every month. Seriously. Just in case anyone thinks I am making scads of dough and recommending books for the kickbacks.
FYI, Don’t forget your inter-library loan service, which is great in theory, but not so great in practice. I’ve waited weeks to get a book.
Point being, a huge section of the country does not live near a big library with big resources.
I certainly don’t.
I know what you mean about the Amazon links – heh. I have them all over my website, but I certainly don’t get enough click-throughs to get money from it. (Of course, I haven’t been driving traffic on my site, either.) But I find there’s something satisfying in being able to have right there, when I’m talking about something, the Amazon link to it — just in case.
And now, I’m going to click through and put a couple of these titles on my wish-list.
I hear ya, sistah.
I know Torsten wasn’t implying anything, I just wanted to get that out there.
I like having the links so people can look at the books.
I tried reading The War of Art a year two ago when someone on here recommended it. I thought it was a terrible book: a complete waste of my time and money.
No offense taken. Just (trying) being helpful. (Before I started working at B&N, I never thought about art business books.) Most of these I had not seen before.
You are VERY helpful, Torsten! The library is always the default, when you can get to one.
Allan: that one of to books on this list I haven’t read. It came highly recommended and I have been meaning to buy it.
I loved Art and Fear, though.
I enjoy other people’s freelancer tips. Some of them work for me, some of them don’t, but it’s interesting learning about other people’s work styles and habits.
sooooo….
overall, is monetizing your blog worth it or not?
I have a handful of loyal readers over at mine, and I’d just as soon not clutter it up with all that stuff if it won’t really help me.
Your finances are your business. This is intended as a very general question.
Well, yeah, assuming you get enough traffic.
The major point of posting the Amazon links isn’t monetization, since there’s no money in that. It’s to give people an easy-to-browse catalogue of my work, with plot synopsis, reviews, and ISBN #’s.
I can’t tell you how much work that saves me.
And if I want to rec a book, I just grab the Amazon link. For all the same reasons.
My ads pay for me to advertise. I funnel ALL ad revenue into my site. In the last 12 months, my traffic has gone from roughly 500 hits a day to more than 5000. The last few weeks have been even higher. Up to 12,000, right before we got hacked. More importantly, we are getting more unique visitors and more returning visitors. When I started, we got about 200 uniques, not we get several thousand. Before, 40 returning visitors a day. Now we get as many as 700.
The question is, what do you want to accomplish with your ads?
Donations and art sales bring in the majority of the money.
But advertising dough raises my traffic.
FYI, my ad income is really low, averaging only about $100 a month. We were doing much better when we had an open source ad service, but that’s how we got our first big hack. The client never cleaned up the mess, so we left.
I have funneled every penny of my ad revenue (and then some) into promoting my site on the theory that if we get more readers, we will get more sales. Eventually.
One thing’s for sure, we have more readers.