29 Sep, 2008
Patronatus
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Publishing/writing/career stuff|technical stuff|The business of blogging
Once upon a time I said that I’d never run ads on the blog. I didn’t want to insult your intelligence, subject you to blinky annoying things, sell my soul to an affiliate that forced me to advertise for WalMart and McDonalds, encourage you to buy something you didn’t need, or clutter up my look. (LOTS of reasons, maybe more, but those are just a few off the top of my head.)
If you know me you can probably imagine how much I’ve been wrestling with this issue. In fact, I’m sitting here writing this with a healthy degree of uncertainty.
I do know this: I need this blog to be revenue-neutral for awhile. I need to cover some of the increasing costs associated with the hosting this website but I must do it in a way that suits me (and you!) best.
*deep breath*
So that’s why I am making this proposal.
I’m looking for a patron or two.* Ideally, they would be small, Ottawa-based entities. Maybe a fellow blogger, a store, an artist, a non-profit, a relevant service … ? And maybe I’m in living in bloggy la la land but it should be something I feel good about. After all, their logo will be posted on my front door.
They would need to understand that I will always follow my own editorial policies because my readers are important to me. They would supply me with web-ready graphics and I’ll loan them a square up in the upper right-hand corner. Say, this big:
If they don’t have a graphic I can make one.
For what it’s worth, my numbers, for a local lass, ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. Last week I had 4,725 visitors. That’s a lot of folks gathering around ye ol’ virtual water cooler. And my numbers keep going up. (I think that’s pretty good!)
I don’t know if this will even go anywhere, but tell me, what do you think? Friends, readers, lurkers, will you turn around and never come back? Or do you care? If you’re a blogger who sells her/his own space I would love to hear your experience too.
* Is this you? Are you interested? I am still tweaking and researching, but send me an email or leave a comment and let’s figure out if we can make this work.