After four months of watching me bring my vision for this blog from concept to darn-near reality, my eight-year-old asked which of my freelance clients had hired me for all this work. I explained that none of them were paying me for it; that this project was something I decided to do on my own because I want to help other families.
“Wow. Free labor!” he said in disbelief.
Needless to say, I laughed. I’m not sure where he heard that term or how he remembered it, but then again, that’s what these kids do! They hear or read something one time, intuitively understand what it means, and then surprise you with it months or years later!
Even he doesn’t remember where he heard it, so it must have been a long time ago.
Having said all that, this blog does require a lot time that I could be billing clients. Therefore, I’ve decided to include affiliate links in various posts; only when it’s a natural part of the conversation, though. Heck, some of my blog posts contain no affiliate links; others have just one out of the five or six links on that page.
If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, it’s a practice involving product and service referrals. So for this blog, if you end up purchasing something via one of my affiliate links, I’ll receive a small amount of compensation. In many cases, that might be enough to buy a latte.
More importantly, you’ll never pay a mark-up for one of those products or services. It will be the same price you’d pay if you weren’t using an affiliate link. In fact, if I end up with a strong following, I’ll be able to leverage affiliate relationships to offer you discounts!
In truth, I’ll be lucky if I ever get to the point where I recoup what I spend to run this site, plus the hours of potential client work I’m sacrificing. (I’m a perfectionist, so I didn’t go with the free and super-cheap blogging products and services – especially when it meant I’d have to lose valuable features or functionality, which often was the case.)
I’m okay with paying for quality, though. If my blog design, photographs, email software and other tools, enable me to attract – and help – more kite kid families, the lower pay is worth it. As you’ll learn if you follow me, I created this blog to help reduce bullying and exclusion; not to make a quick buck. I mean that sincerely.
All the best,
