Note this post is from March 2007. There are no sponsored posts on Plain Jane Mom.
On March 1st, 2007 I started an experiment to try writing posts for Pay Per Post and ReviewMe — go ahead and read Part 1 and Part 2 of my notes on it if you haven’t already.
I don’t have anything especially enlightening to report on my time doing sponsored posts. It turned out to be very simple. The pro: they pay you. The cons: you have intrusive ads on your blog, and it can be hard to find high paying posts that aren’t about payday lenders, online poker sites or other folks I won’t do business with.
A tidy summary for you
During the month of March I did 44 posts for Pay Per Post and I earned $1,039.25. In the first 9 days of April I did 3 for PPP and earned $108.85. I also did one post for ReviewMe and one for someone who contacted me directly which each earned $50. I’ll do the math for you: $1,248.10 in 5 weeks.
(Note that I had also signed up with SponsoredReviews, but the dealings I had with them in email revealed them to be, frankly, kind of snooty! I thought it was hilarious that they were acting like they were better than others given the business they’re in, but I digress.)
Behind the curtain
I know that there are some bloggers who think of their paid posts as part of their blog, but I am not one of those bloggers. For me, paid posts were 30 days of premium advertising on my site. Each of my posts had “This is a sponsored post” as the first paragraph.
None of my paid posts ever appeared in my RSS feed, so people weren’t getting constantly pinged that I had a new post only to discover it was an ad. Plus the sites I allow to re-purpose my content (9rules, MayasMom, Technorati…) weren’t cluttered with ads either.
Then what?
After a post has been up for 30 days (a PayPerPost requirement) I delete it. But the big question is “Was it worth it?” And the answer is “yes, but…” The “but” is that it was worth it to me to do it for just the 5 weeks or so. I wouldn’t do it long-term. I earned enough to justify going to the BlogHer conference this summer, and for that I am grateful, but I’m not interested in continuing with sponsored posts as a long-term project. Just to close the loop, I’ll be deleting my accounts with PPP and ReviewMe as soon as I get my final payments from them, and my SponsoredReviews account is already gone.
Thus ends the great PJM Sponsored Post Experiment of 2007. I made some money and learned from the inside what all the fuss is about with paid posts. Please return your seat backs to their upright and locked position. You freaks in the back row who have gotten too drunk to walk will be escorted off by security. Prepare for the cavity search.
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