I now am targeted when it comes to ads– not showing regular readers ads unless the post is 20 days old. So I’m more picky with who sees what.

It’s hard to blog and have a family, and do all the side work (like commenting, participating in social networks, etc.) and then justify it by declaring it “an art” or “a hobby.” There’s a lot of effort going in– what do you want to come out?

As a person in publishing for several years: I don’t know what your book deal is, but you may have an issue w/ keeping it in print if it’s not as successful as you planned, so I think if you create products beyond even a book (reliant on the publisher’s over-extended mktg/publicity dept. to make it successful –on a wing & a prayer), that you’ll get beyond this dead market.

Anyhow, you need to make sure you’re getting an e-book ISBN too.
Also, make sure you have some outs in that contract! You don’t want your book dead in their backlist. They’ll not want to give you the rights back & it will die there.
Books are great, but truly interactive “Trent” products are even better. Brand yourself & make yourself indispensible to us–a book makes you dispensible.
Seth Godin & Drayton Bird may help you take your thoughts of where you can really go to the next level.
Just some ideas. Good luck to you.

I am myself trying to figure out how I want to incorporate advertising into my site, if at all. I’m torn, because on one hand I’m very anti-advertising and very anti-consumerism. I look at magazines like Real Simple and very clearly see how they’re basically just books of ads. But I love blogging and writing, and I would love to be able to do what you do and make a living from it. Ideally I’d only promote products I personally agree with, but I know that wouldn’t be even near enough to buy a coffee once in a while.

Anyway, I’d love to hear more about this topic, and know that I support you in all your endeavors. I totally understand what it’s like to make that tough decision.

As several other commenters have mentioned, magazine article content is swayed by advertisers. They may have articles mentioning specific products, or they may run articles that promote a lifestyle that is in line with their advertisers (all the weight lose articles in women’s magazines come to mind).

Would you trust a study that claimed that smoking cut the risk of brain tumors if the study were payed for by a cigarette company? Yes, research needs funding, but there’s a conflict of interest there when a cigarette company funds a study that “just happens” to find that smoking has some good points. How is it any different when a magazine “just happens” to mention a specific brand of cleaner in their “green laundry room” article?

My ideal is that I can just get specific ads from companies that I strongly agree with, and I’m at least partially there (hence the ING Direct ads and the Coupons.com ads, both products I use at least weekly and almost every day). The problem is that hunting for these individually is a lot of work with a very high failure rate. What I’d really like is to get some books in print and then slowly remove the ad space for other products and replace it with ads for my own books, which completely mesh with the entire focus of the site.

I don’t have the full leverage yet to do exactly what I want, but I’m getting there. You’ve described exactly where I intend to go over the long haul.

I will ONLY suggest or refer a product/system that I use or have experience with. And I’ve learned about programs from other bloggers who have recommended them and been very happy. As long as everything is transparent – i.e. the blogger admits that they will get a monetary benefit if I click a link or sign up.

What I really HATE are those “sponsored posts” where someone talks about a product as if they are recommending it and then at the end it says “post paid by” or something. Those bug me.

BTW, returns in the publishing industry are averaging 50-80% lately…get a back-up plan for your book release…think Seth Godin if you want to explore profitability & getting your message out there.

For the record, even though I used Adblock plus, I have directed at least 10 people who now read on a regular basis AND have donated directly to a few sites (although I haven’t to yours just yet). If I find it interesting enough, I always support financially.

There are some stories on Snopes– I forget what category they are under, “lost legends” maybe? That make this point.

I was reading one of them. My train of thought: “Huh.. that’s interesting… wow, that’s downright weird…. that’s getting harder to believe, but this is Snopes, and they’re reliable…. OK, if this were ANYONE other than snopes, I’d be calling BS….OK, now I’m calling BS even though it IS snopes….what the heck? Is ANYONE supposed to beleive THAT… OK, this is getting to the point of being intentionally over-the-top. What’s going on here?”

At the very bottom there was a button “about this page…” which led to a piece saying that yes, the story you just read really was utter BS– and that it just goes to show “you should never trust ANY single source– even us [snopes]“. I laughed out loud when I saw that.

“Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1-18)

(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

1. get an ad blocker
2. read the site through a feedreader or via email.

Another point is that blog content is completely FREE but it takes WORK to churn out good content day after day.