Experiments With Selling Out

You may have noticed that I’m now running ads from Cafe Press on this blog.

I have mixed feelings about it myself. I’ve linked to Amazon in book review posts before, but that felt more like a blogging service than like "advertising" — although of course, it was. And Amazon’s accounts say that I have $2.80 sitting and waiting for me to earn the rest of whatever their minimum to cut a check is.

But with the unexpected costs of the move, on top of the expected legal fees for the adoption, well, our budget is out of whack. I doubt the Cafe Press ads will generate enough revenue to buy more than the occasional coffee, or if we’re lucky, maybe it’ll cover the cost of hosting the blog. But it feels like doing something, in the face of a pretty helpless-feeling situation, and I needed to do something.

And, I love Cafe Press. They’re a cool idea, and I’ve found things I absolutely LOVE there. People are SO creative!!! That’s where Aunt Sarah bought Noah our favorite onesie:

If you loathe the ads, I’m sorry.

I hope to be doing more experiments with the hosting and design, and maybe with other ads, over the next few months. At least this is a project I have control over.

Fruit & Veg Count, 4/24 & 4/25: 1 cup green beans, ~64 oz apple juice

4 Responses to “ Experiments With Selling Out ”

Comments:

jen (in md) says:
April 28th, 2006 at 5:56 am

i think the ad looks very tasteful. it’s not distracting and annoying like a lot of blog ads. i think it’s cool that you picked cafe press, which is a pretty cool site, rather than one of those services where you don’t know what you’ll be advertising.

i don’t think i’ve ever bought something from there, but it’s fun to look through sometimes.

Liza says:
April 28th, 2006 at 8:01 am

Thanks, Jen! The other cool thing about the way they do ads, is that you select the keywords. So I shouldn’t have any really inappropriate stuff come up.

Incidently, I had to drop the keyword “baby” because it kept showing these “My Daddy is a Soldier” baby tees, and similar items that would just be strange in context.

Mindy says:
April 28th, 2006 at 10:10 am

I have to say…I kind of like the cafe press ad. I always like their site–and what’s not to like about having funny and clever gay and reading slogans/designs up on the right hand of the site? I even refreshed a few times to see what else came up! So do you only earn when people buy…or is it just dependent on click-thrus?

Liza says:
April 28th, 2006 at 10:22 am

Only if people buy. Click throughs mean nothing. BUT you don’t have to buy the thing you click on here.

They will track your traffic from the point of entry through the point of purchase. (Yeah, my privacy radar tingles. But that’s not unusual for online businesses.)