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6.30.2011

Book Blogging 101: How to Make Money off of Your Book Blog





How to Make Money off of Your Book Blog


1. Advertising.

The most obvious way to make money but also one of the harder ones to cultivate. If you decide to open your blog up for advertising and think to manage it yourself it will take a little bit of hustling and a few questions you might need to ask yourself:
  1. What if they need ads designed?
  2. What kind of web real estate will I sell?
  3. How do I promote advertising?
  4. What should I list as selling points to potential advertisers?
If you don't feel like you want to manage your own ads, there are also other alternatives that you can go through. Programs such as Google AdSense and Blogads can earn you some extra bucks to line your pockets. Google pays you per click and Blogads will actuall solicit advertising for your blog and take a cut out of the money you make. These are both good programs, but I think Blogads would have more of a guaranteed payout since it is money up front and not based off of clicks.

Yet, on the plus side the Google AdSense is already set up to go hand-in-hand with your blog, just by clicking MONETIZE on your blogger dashboard you are a few clicks away from setting up your AdSense account - and you literally have to just sit back and let it generate revenue. Either way it is a sweet deal and a way to make a few extra coins a month. This is something you might not get rich on, but it might pay the gas bill - or buy a book or two.

Using the business model of parajunkee.com as an example I currently participate in both solicited advertising and GoogleAdSense. I generate about $20 - $40 a month in advertising dollars. I use that money to pay my audible.com bill.

2. Become an Associate

People are making hundreds of dollars signing up for associate programs through certain online retailers. It seems everyone is offering associate programs, even the publishers. The main one you hear about a lot in the Book Blogging community is Amazon Associates. They have an app that configures with your blogger blog so you can generate images and links that will generate revenue. You are already advertising the books, why not push people towards Amazon to make a little extra dough?

Not feeling too cozy with Amazon? Sites like BookDepository and even Random House are offering up associate programs.Take a look around and see which one fits you best. If you direct your readers to their sites and they make a purchase you will get a portion of those sales. It might just be .06¢ a transaction, but if you have a few of those it adds up.

Using the business model of parajunkee.com as an example I currently participate in Amazon Associates and Lynda.com Associates program. I don't opt to get paid out by Amazon I just roll the money back in as Amazon gift cards. Once again I buy more books with that money. I recently won an Amazon gift card and got a larger Amazon payout and I managed to purchase all of my daughter's 4th birthday presents through Amazon. I was very happy about that. On average I usually generate about $10 - $30 dollars in associate money monthly. Enough to buy one or two books.

3. Accept Donations

You will be surprised at how many people want to help a person out. Two bucks here and there might pay for that domain name and maybe you'll get enough to pay for the hosting charges that you've taken on since your blog went MEGA. If you are doing a service - like say a tutorial called BOOK BLOGGING 101 - hint hint - asking for a donation isn't unethical. I mean you are spending a good bit of time and offereing up FREE information to readers, just asking them to spread the love is a nice way to get a nice contribution. Paypal has a great and easy way to accept donations, and all you have to do is insert a little bit of code. It looks like this:







Once again, using parajunkee.com as a business model, I have accepted donations in the past, specifically when hosting large contest that I sponsor myself. Usually two or three people will kick in a few bucks.

4. Exploit your Natural Talents

Do you make jewelry? Bookmarks? Book covers? Something intrinsical that book bloggers would like and would buy? Could you come up with something? Sell it on your blog!

Crafty people can make the most amazing things and people eat them up on web sites like Etsy. I've seen some beautiful book inspired jewelry that I am dying to get my paws on. Just today I saw a steampunk Alice in Wonderland necklace that had me drooling. I'll probably buy it soon. I've seen bloggers make hand-crafted book marks and those fancy cover things that your wrap around your books. You could sell t-shirts that you provide through cafepress.com .

The options are endless, you just have to find something that you are good at and exploit it.

And finally, using parajunkee.com as a business model, I actually use parajunkee.com to generate followers which if they choose can find out more about me and learn I also design. This generates business for my freelance work as a designer which keeps me pretty busy.

All in all, you can use your blog to generate a few bucks every month. I've heard reports on news sites that say blogs can generate hundreds of dollars a month in revenue very easily. The one thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to work on your content, increase your readership and establish a prescence. This takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to have the drive and the gumption to work hard on it everyday...if not that blog might fall flat. The one thing that all of these options have in common is that you need to attact attention. You need to get your blog out there. Because without the traffic no one is clicking, or buying or donating...

That's it folks. Talk Less. Read More. Happy Thusday.








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11 comments:

Carissa said...

Wonderfully informative post! I love your BB101 series! Thanks for sharing.

My Latest Review: Dead Rules by Randy Russell

Bibliotropic said...

I get about... 5 cents a month thus far from AdSense, and I believe I've made almost $5 from Amazon referrals. Yeah, not much going for me right now. Problem for me is that I can't seem to generate as much publicity for my blog as I'd like, even when I network and comment and advertise as much as I see everyone else doing. I've come to the conclusion that I probably never will be able to make very much from my blog, even enough to cover the cost of a single book a month, but I can accept that. I get lots of books in other ways, anyway!

But I definitely appreciate the advice! I love that you do this feature!

Unknown said...

I really enjoyed this blogging 101 post!!! Thank you for sharing!

Lisa @ Read.Breathe.Relax. said...

Great points, Rachel! I also recently signed up with BlogHer. They offer CPM advertising (Cost Per 1000 impressions) and their ads are very un-intrusive.

It actually surprised me the number of bloggers with over 1,000 followers who do not monetize their blogs. There's so much potential, and it makes sense to try to make some income from something that we work so hard on!

Emily said...

Thank you for the helpful post! I look forward to this feature every week.
As These Pages Fly

Denise Z said...

Thanks for sharing today - you are appreciated.

Maria Behar said...

Wonderful advice!! Thanks for your fab blogging posts! One can always learn something new by reading this section of your blog, or get a different point of view on a given issue. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! : )

Maria @ http://anightsdreamofbooks.blogspot.com/

Chrystal said...

As always BB101 shares some great tips... especially ones that I am just learning about. Thanks so much for taking the time to write up these entries. :)

Tales of Whimsy said...

Great advice.

Jennifer A said...

Interesting. Thank you for sharing! Especially the dollar amounts. i was always curious.

I don't mind when people have a few ads here and there on their blog. What I don't like is when there are so many ads that I can't even find the actual content. Yuck! Your blog needs to be front and center, not the advertising. I'll close out a blog and never return if that's what it looks like.

Kathleen said...

May I just say, please do NOT put adds in your text, it's so annoying!

Great advice.

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