Haggling Over the Price
I'm proud to be a member of the No Ads ring hub. As far as I know, all the buttons on my sidebar are for free stuff (mostly services and informational resources), the only exception being my husband's artwork. I was very pleased when Blogger scrapped its banner ads in favor of top-bar search tools, even though it had been plain that bloggers like me who didn't want to pay money for their hobby weren't actually endorsing any of the banner ads. I've never solicited nor succumbed to any entity wanting to advertise on Pen-Elayne; why should I? We'd pay for internet access whether or not I had a blog, and both Blogger and Haloscan are free, so the only "expense" I've ever put into this is my time. Which, yes, is valuable, but it's just as valuable when I read or go to restaurants or play with my cats, and I don't ask for money to support those hobbies either (again, except for my tongue-in-cheek crequests asking people to buy my husband's artwork to keep us in sushi).
Back when I was doing weekly comic book reviews, I'd get lots of free comics and ashcans and even proposals and scripts from people asking me for my opinion. And it was cool, I knew my reviews were fairly widely disseminated and I was one of the few folks to actually discuss in detail things like art (you'd be surprised how few comic reviewers still only talk about the writing, which I think is like reviewing a CD and only discussing the lyrics) and they knew they'd get a fair assessment from me even though I never promised to give them a thumbs-up. Likewise, I'll occasionally get a book or DVD from someone wanting me to blog about it, and if I can spare the time (which I really can't for books any more, the last non-graphic-novel book I read was the fifth Harry Potter novel so you see how behind I am in that) I'll talk about it here, but as you can see by this essay a positive review isn't guaranteed there either. I even got a free ticket to a Broadway show last year on the day it closed and got to meet some cool bloggers there. And my friends know I'll plug their projects if they want me to, because they're my friends. But I never go out of my way to whore for anyone.
I'm very happy so many bloggers I know are going on a free trip to Amsterdam thanks in part to the Blogads they've agreed to solicit on their pages. I'm insanely jealous, in fact. Robin and I have been hoping we can get back to England this year, but I don't know if I'll be able to get permission to be away from my job for more than a few days, and even then there are lots of restrictions in terms of when I can take off. So yeah, to be free enough to just hop over to Holland all-expenses-paid is way cool. And to tell you the truth, if it didn't mean taking ads I might have said yes myself. All they need to do, after all, is "[a] be interviewed about the trip (the Dutch Tourism Board may be using this for online/offline promotions), [b] give Holland.com one month of premium adspace, and [c] put the 'Bloggers in Amsterdam' logo in their nav bar for one year, linking it to this blog post to disclose the nature of the trip." How onerous is that, when even the bloggers who don't take ads are giving this trip free PR by talking about it (and you know what they say about publicity)?
And you know everyone has their price. If we say we don't we're lying. I like to be nice to friends and aspiring creators, because I'm one as well, so it's my pleasure to devote some of my hobby (blogging) time to reviewing unsolicited stuff I'm sent. But there are those who would put a dollar sign on that and say "aha! that's your price!" Sushi dinners work well on me as bribery for -- well, I can't think of what at the moment, but I'm sure they work well as bribery. I've been to see TV shows where we're all required to sign a waiver allowing the television station in question to profit from showing our faces without us demanding a cut; we do that in exchange for being able to sit in the audience. If it comes down to it, the job world itself is nothing but giving up your time and talent in exchange for monetary reward.
And I'm certainly not above that; I find money and health coverage very necessary to live. But I don't find blogging as critical. It's something I enjoy the hell out of, I hope I keep doing it for awhile, but it's Just A Hobby, y'know? And as such, I highly doubt I can be bought off by any enterprising tourism boards out there looking for an Abramoffian quid pro quo.
But hey, you're welcome to try.
Update: More from Astarte and Roxanne.
I'm proud to be a member of the No Ads ring hub. As far as I know, all the buttons on my sidebar are for free stuff (mostly services and informational resources), the only exception being my husband's artwork. I was very pleased when Blogger scrapped its banner ads in favor of top-bar search tools, even though it had been plain that bloggers like me who didn't want to pay money for their hobby weren't actually endorsing any of the banner ads. I've never solicited nor succumbed to any entity wanting to advertise on Pen-Elayne; why should I? We'd pay for internet access whether or not I had a blog, and both Blogger and Haloscan are free, so the only "expense" I've ever put into this is my time. Which, yes, is valuable, but it's just as valuable when I read or go to restaurants or play with my cats, and I don't ask for money to support those hobbies either (again, except for my tongue-in-cheek crequests asking people to buy my husband's artwork to keep us in sushi).
Back when I was doing weekly comic book reviews, I'd get lots of free comics and ashcans and even proposals and scripts from people asking me for my opinion. And it was cool, I knew my reviews were fairly widely disseminated and I was one of the few folks to actually discuss in detail things like art (you'd be surprised how few comic reviewers still only talk about the writing, which I think is like reviewing a CD and only discussing the lyrics) and they knew they'd get a fair assessment from me even though I never promised to give them a thumbs-up. Likewise, I'll occasionally get a book or DVD from someone wanting me to blog about it, and if I can spare the time (which I really can't for books any more, the last non-graphic-novel book I read was the fifth Harry Potter novel so you see how behind I am in that) I'll talk about it here, but as you can see by this essay a positive review isn't guaranteed there either. I even got a free ticket to a Broadway show last year on the day it closed and got to meet some cool bloggers there. And my friends know I'll plug their projects if they want me to, because they're my friends. But I never go out of my way to whore for anyone.
I'm very happy so many bloggers I know are going on a free trip to Amsterdam thanks in part to the Blogads they've agreed to solicit on their pages. I'm insanely jealous, in fact. Robin and I have been hoping we can get back to England this year, but I don't know if I'll be able to get permission to be away from my job for more than a few days, and even then there are lots of restrictions in terms of when I can take off. So yeah, to be free enough to just hop over to Holland all-expenses-paid is way cool. And to tell you the truth, if it didn't mean taking ads I might have said yes myself. All they need to do, after all, is "[a] be interviewed about the trip (the Dutch Tourism Board may be using this for online/offline promotions), [b] give Holland.com one month of premium adspace, and [c] put the 'Bloggers in Amsterdam' logo in their nav bar for one year, linking it to this blog post to disclose the nature of the trip." How onerous is that, when even the bloggers who don't take ads are giving this trip free PR by talking about it (and you know what they say about publicity)?
And you know everyone has their price. If we say we don't we're lying. I like to be nice to friends and aspiring creators, because I'm one as well, so it's my pleasure to devote some of my hobby (blogging) time to reviewing unsolicited stuff I'm sent. But there are those who would put a dollar sign on that and say "aha! that's your price!" Sushi dinners work well on me as bribery for -- well, I can't think of what at the moment, but I'm sure they work well as bribery. I've been to see TV shows where we're all required to sign a waiver allowing the television station in question to profit from showing our faces without us demanding a cut; we do that in exchange for being able to sit in the audience. If it comes down to it, the job world itself is nothing but giving up your time and talent in exchange for monetary reward.
And I'm certainly not above that; I find money and health coverage very necessary to live. But I don't find blogging as critical. It's something I enjoy the hell out of, I hope I keep doing it for awhile, but it's Just A Hobby, y'know? And as such, I highly doubt I can be bought off by any enterprising tourism boards out there looking for an Abramoffian quid pro quo.
But hey, you're welcome to try.
Update: More from Astarte and Roxanne.
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