{"id":541,"date":"2010-01-21T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/21\/question-for-my-readers\/"},"modified":"2010-01-21T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-21T00:01:00","slug":"question-for-my-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/21\/question-for-my-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Question for my readers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I read a post on the Blogger Buzz last month about their new integration with Amazon Associates, and have been mulling it over ever since. The full post is <a href=\"http:\/\/buzz.blogger.com\/2009\/12\/blogger-integrates-with-amazon.html\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>When I first started this blog, I had a Google AdSense widget in the sidebar that displayed ads that were supposedly relevant to my blog&#8217;s content. I removed the widget six months later without making a single cent from it; believe it or not, this blog started with a high level of scientific content*, specifically new research in evolution and my weekly <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/Primate%20Party\">Primate Party<\/a> feature (any current readers remember that?!), and most of the ads I saw on my blog were for creationist drivel (mildly annoying) or baby monkeys for sale (<a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/2007\/11\/no-more-ads.html\">completely unacceptable<\/a>).<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But this Amazon Associates programme looks like an interesting alternative. The way I understand it is that it makes it easy for me to insert links to Amazon products into my posts, and I get a small commission if anyone clicking through to the Amazon site from my link buys the product.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>How would you guys feel about it if I tried this programme? I review <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/book%20review\">books<\/a> (and occasionally <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/movie%20review\">movies<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/music\">music<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/television\">TV<\/a>) anyway, so would it be OK to add a link or two to these posts? I&#8217;d use the following guidelines:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;d only review products that I&#8217;d usually blog about anyway<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d give a 100% honest review every time<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d state on each eligible post that I get a commission on any sales resulting from my links<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d link to these guidelines on each eligible post<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d only spend any income I earn on more books, music, or DVDs that I would subsequently review for my readers. (Oh, and maybe iPhone apps&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d declare how much money I&#8217;ve received (or maybe just what I&#8217;ve bought with it) every six months or so<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>I don&#8217;t want to breach any trust I&#8217;ve built up with my readers, so I&#8217;ll let you guys make the final decision for me! Please let me know what you think, and feel free to suggest any additional guidelines. I&#8217;ve finished a couple of books since my last review post, so I&#8217;ll hold off on posting those reviews until I&#8217;ve seen the first few comments on this post.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>BTW, I very rarely get any hits on my book or movie review posts from people searching the internet and randomly clicking through, so any income (and I aint expecting much, if any!) would be from my regular readers. I don&#8217;t think my traffic&#8217;s as high as some of you seem to think it is&#8230; I think I just have a higher than average commenter to lurker ratio!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: small\">*you can blame Nature Network for the current state of affairs; they made me <a href=\"http:\/\/vwxynot.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/drum-roll.html\">an offer<\/a> I couldn&#8217;t refuse, and most of my sciencey posts end up over there now.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I read a post on the Blogger Buzz last month about their new integration with Amazon Associates, and have been mulling it over ever since. The full post is here. When I first started this blog, I had a Google &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2010\/01\/21\/question-for-my-readers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}