To monetize or not?

A lot of bloggers are now monetizeing there blog as a way to make extra money. I am all for this. I think it is a great idea.

Some ways to do this are to sign up as an affiliate for companies and post there banners on your website or blog. The best places to do this if you are using a blog are blogger and wordpress. Also if you start making money from it and want a domain they make it easy to set up.

Then you can just add the banner to your sidebar and anyone who clicks on it and makes purchases will go towards a percentage for you.

Another thing you can do is to sing up to receive free products for review. Companies will send you a free product and then you just write a review about there product or company and post links to it in your blog.

It might take a while to start making money from these things. Another way to make money from your blog or website is to create e-books. If you know a lot about something then you can write an e-book on the subject and offer it on your website or blog for a minimal fee. You don't have to pay tons of money to self publish it or go through all the hassle of having a publishing company pick it up.

You can release an e-book on a number of sites. I have put some on lulu.com which is a self publishing site. You can also post anything on there for downloading like pictures or music for example.


blurb.com also has self publishing and you can publish e-books on there as well.

wordless Wednesday

Welcome to my Wordless Wednesday blog hop. In order to enter you must be a follower of my blog. Leave a comment on my blog after your entry. All enter and runs will be deleted. Visit some other blogs and have fun. 

What I'm loving Wednesday

I'm Loving having the day off. I love having Wednesdays off so I can catch up on my blogging and writing. 

I'm loving my handsome fiance 

I'm loving we heart it to get pictures and other neat things

http://weheartit.com/

I'm loving these earrings they would be great for my wedding

I'm loving these shoes not that I could ever wear them 

I'm loving this cocktail dress

Blogger Vs. Wordpress Vs. Tumblr

Blogger: This Site
I have to say I love all the sites. They are all cool and unique in there own ways. The first blog I ever started was on blogger. So I think blogger will always be my favorite. First of all blogger is free unless you pay for a domain. I currently don't pay for a domain but might sometime in the future. You get a lot of free things you can add. You an add linkwithin for free which directs people to other posts on your site they might like. You can add html and it's easy to do that. There is a follow button which makes it easy for anyone on google to follow you. Plus, for people not on google you can add e-mail subscriptions and feed reader subscriptions so people can keep up with your blog on anything. I love all the templates on blogger and they are free so that is something that also rocks about blogger. You can have a private blog where only people you invite can see. There is no option to make only certain posts private.

Wordpress: Wordpress Blog

I like wordpress because I think they have some very neat and clean looking layouts. I also think they are pretty simple and straightforward to use. My biggest issue with wordpress is that there are not many theme options otherwise you have to pay for some of there premium options. Also if you want to make a more complex site you have to have your own domain otherwise there are certain features you can't add for example linkwithin. It is hard to follow people as well but people can subscribe to your blog via e-mail and you can add google friend connect. You can have a private blog that only people you invite can see and make posts private as well.


Tumblr: Tumblr Blog

Tumblr is great for adding short posts and pictures. It is hard for people to follow you though unless they are already on tumblr. Mostly people use tumblr for blogging things they like and adding pictures they like. They have some cool free layouts but for some of the better ones you still have to pay for. The same as with wordpress. It is easy to blog on tumblr and you can have more then one blog the same as with blogger and wordpress. You can't import to tumblr though so if you want a new blog you will have to start from scratch.
You can have a private password protected blog and you can also make posts private that you don't want anyone else to see.

wordless Wednesday

What motivates you?

I was reading a blog from the Lady Bloggers Society. The topic was whys you can be inspired to create. I liked a lot of the ideas and the ones that always inspire me are other people's creativity. Listening to music is always a way that sparks me to come up with a new idea. I came up with a few the other night that I'm thinking about working on.

Watching movies inspires me. And so does reading a good book. Seeing how other people write helps me to get ideas about my writing style and how I might want to go about a project.

So what motivates you to write? What inspires you?