I’ll try anything once (especially things I don’t like) so last week I tried advertising on this blog. It wasn’t for me.
Some people can happily advertise away and get something out of it. Money, I suppose. Maybe even a fair bit. Not me. I got squat. Apparently my roughly 700 unique visitors a day aren’t buying whatever google is selling. I knew you people were clever (you’re reading me , after all) but I had no idea you were also cheap.
I can’t blame you: I never click through those things either.
I could have kept up with the idea, changed my strategy and tried to discover new ways of making money off this thing. And it’d be nice to make some money. (Since these days, I’m fucking paying to have a blog.) But time is money and investing all that time to make that little money is a losing proposition. I’m not sending the kid down the well to rescue the goat. The old lady who ate the fly will have to be satisfied with that.
And looking at those ads made me feel a little sick. They just don’t belong here.
It’s not that I’m anti-whoring. Pay me the right amount and I’ll whore like crack addicted runaway. It’s just that I have no reason to whore for small amounts of cash. At the very least, I need a new pair of cufflinks out of the deal. At the very least. And they have to be nice cufflinks.
Even given all of that, I remained on the fence with the whole thing until I was perusing the wonderful collection of smut on Penetrating Insights and saw this:
An owl with a message?
Owls are always sending me secret messages and I try my best to listen. So I’m not ignoring this one.
It’s not even an issue of credibility. I don’t really care about that. I’m more interested in the incredible than the credible. It’s an issue of genuine orders from the owl kingdom. I have to follow and relay those. It’s in my contract.
But even without such clear instruction, I like writing here and I do it for free. I’m not wild on having to pay the costs of upkeep and all that shit but, when it comes right down it, being read by you people is a privilege. (Often a dubious one.) If it costs me pocket change to enjoy it, so be it.
2 comments
xenia
October 27, 2009 at 3:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I come here to get away from the ads, so thank you.
Ryan Oakley
October 28, 2009 at 12:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Funny enough, same here.