I have mentioned in passing that I am trying to post more often as an exercise in writing. As I’ve been clicking around reading about the art of blogging in general, I have been intrigued by the idea of earning money while doing it. It turns out that successful bloggers who write about successful blogging are also having success earning money while doing it. Not to mention the various niche blogs (design, do-it-yourself, cooking, family management, homeschooling, special needs, you name it).Blogging for an income is by no means a get rich scheme. It takes time and effort and a lot of work. There’s a lot to learn about codes and links, traffic and technology. I definitely understand that. My thought is that if I’m investing time and energy to this hobby, I might as well apply some strategies that I’m reading about to see if I can make a little pocket change.

I’m fascinated by bloggers and internet entrepreneurs who have discovered these strategies and are super transparent about their methods, mistakes and earnings. I am planning a post about my favorite resources for this subject.

I read 2 blogs regularly, Elizabeth Foss‘ and Sarah’s over at Clover Lane. Two moms who I admire for their honest writing about family life. Both of whom have monetized their blogs to some extent. Sarah got in relatively early on the Blogher network after she started a blog on a whim. I emailed her about a year ago to ask about it and she said that at first she might earn pennies or dollars. As her readership has grown, she has sometimes made a lot more from banner ads through Blogher or affiliate links from companies whose products she’s reviewed. She doesn’t do a lot of reviews or sponsored posts and I’ve always gotten the feeling that her reviews are completely honest. By the way, Blogher doesn’t just accept any blog. I’m not sure what their criteria is but you have to be accepted.

Elizabeth has Amazon links which give her a small commission on sales through those links (according to her disclosure…I have not discussed this with her personally) and also runs direct sponsor ads on her sidebar for companies that make products that she has used or really believes in. These are in the form of different sized squares or rectangles on her sidebar. Like Sarah, Elizabeth’s affiliation does not influence the tone of her blog and you never get the feeling that she’s endorsing a product that she doesn’t believe in or writing an infomercial just to make a sale. When she gets a new sponsor, she does a post about them to introduce her readers to the people behind the product and sometimes has a giveaway to give readers a chance to try something out.

About a month ago, I decided to start using my affiliate code for amazon. I had signed up for an account more than a year ago but didn’t bother to learn how to install my affiliate link. I wasn’t that interested in earning money with the blog, wasn’t posting too often, don’t have much traffic, blah, blah, blah.

Since then I learned how to include my affiliate code with links and yesterday I discovered a sale which earned me………ready for it………$0.16! Yes, that’s an exclamation point! I am not kidding when I tell you how fun that was to notice.

The thing is, I love books. I read a lot and I love to talk about books, so it’s pretty natural for me to have links to books I love or books that we’ve read together as a family or listened to together or that have inspired me in some way. Whether you purchase through Amazon or pick it up from the library, I hope you read the books I talk about.

Federal law requires all bloggers to disclose affiliate relationships and I have been doing that since including affiliate links in posts. I always want to be up front. I think it would be fun to write about this topic (blog monetizing) to encourage others to try it if I have some success.

Honestly, I don’t anticipate raking it in. I haven’t quite found my voice here and even in my own brain haven’t clarified the point of this blog aside from sharing some information about projects, tricks, things that I’m learning or reading about and occasionally writing about funny things that happen in my home so I don’t forget. But that’s totally fine.

I’m working on some technical things behind the scenes which I plan to share as soon as things are ready. In the meantime, I’ll be posting but a little less often than I have been. For all 2 of my readers…Hi Kel!…I’m sure this will be devastating. Because I don’t have a huge following, now is the perfect time to attend to this stuff.