Last week an advertising firm approached me and asked me to write a sponsored post for their client (who shall not be named). They offered to pay me more than my asking price, a lot more. They offered me $400 to be exact. Sweet!
You may have noticed that I do occasionally sell sponsored posts on here, but in fact I have very strict guidelines to prevent my site from being over-run with spammy crap. My demands go something like this: You give me a lot of money, I write a post (usually something I was going to write anyways), you get a link in the post, and I disclose at the end that you pay for it. Everybody wins. Surprisingly this doesn’t go over well with too many advertisers…
The disclosure at the end is key. I always insist on that for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I think bloggers are made and broken on their integrity. You guys read this site either because for some reason you see value in what I have to say (thanks for that, BTW). If I’m going to link to something that I don’t have experience with or can’t endorse myself, I want you guys to know that.
Anyways, these corporate guys want to pay me $400 to write a post- on a topic I’d probably write about anyways, just to include one link to their company. $400! That’s a hell of a lot more than I usually make per post ($0). It was pretty tempting I admit, and you’d probably be reading that post right now if it weren’t for one thing: they insisted I leave off the disclosure at the end.
Now, I really wanted that $400. It’s kind of a lot of money for me. It’s almost twice the cost of my plane ticket to Colombia! I wrote back, are you sure we can’t squeeze in a disclosure? Just a tiny one? Pleeease?
They were insisitant that this collaboration be hush hush so in the end, I had to say no. I’ll admit it wasn’t the easiest decision, but it sits right with me.
So why am I telling you my sob story? It’s not so I can brag about the purity of my blog or my moral superiority or any bullshit like that. I rarely ever talk about behind the scenes blog writing stuff on here. I don’t care much what other blogs do, I just have to do what seems right to me.
The reason I wanted to tell you guys this is actually kind of the opposite: I know you guys see the ads on my site, the sponsored trips I’ve been lucky enough to go on and yes, the occasional sponsored article. I do these things because I need to make money to you know, live, and keep doing this website. I’m sure you guys understand my desire to like, eat and stuff. So I will continue to sell ads and do things for money: but I will always try to be clear with you guys about what is sponsored and what isn’t, because this site is about nothing, if not honesty.
