So, one of my fellow bloggers (Artemis) sent me this link
Herding
Cats and Burning Soup and asked if I had seen it and I had something hit
me while I was writing the comment, that was never posted.
Some of you may say she has opened a can of worms, but for
most book bloggers, no she has not, this issue has been there for years. We have
always tried to figure out ways to make some kind of money for what we do.
People want to say we make money by offering buy links to
Amazon… What the crap? Do they not understand we only get some small percentage
of that price and if they go into downloading free books while they are on our
account then we get nothing? If you don’t know what it’s all about then you
need to keep out of it. We as bloggers know Amazon links are only getting us a
few extra free books a year and that is it people…. We do not make real money
by being an Amazon affiliate. UGH!!
So review bloggers let’s think about this. We are review
bloggers, meaning we review books and that is all we do, right? Nope, it should be but that is
not all we do and this is where I can really kick myself. I cannot believe it’s
been right there in my face and I have not thought of it before.
We all know book bloggers receive a free book in exchange
for an honest review and I am a blogger that will never accept payment for
reviews, but as a review blogger we do not have to offer: guest post,
links, giveaways or free book promotions, for free to authors. NOPE! Most of us do this to
help authors but this is not part of reviewing their books and I now that I am really thinking about this I am really wondering why authors expect us to place so much of our free time posting their guest post etc unless we ask for them ourselves. So, the way I see it, we as review bloggers can charging authors
and book tour host for these extra features.
I can vouch for all book review bloggers here and say. Reviewing
authors' books is not really the huge issue. Yes, it does take time but what takes
the most time is the guest post, tour post, giveaways, and any other promotions
that authors expects us to do for free. Links
and pictures are the most time consuming issues because most authors, or assistants
for that matter, never give them to us, therefore we have to go hunt them down and that
can end up taking hours. Oh, and something else just hit me. As a review blogger
we should only post the reviews on our blog. If authors expect us to post
their reviews everywhere else, then that is something else we as bloggers need to start thinking about pricing, too. Posing reviews on Goodreads, Amazon,
Facebook, Twitter etc. takes a lot of time to do.
So, how much should you charge authors? You have to keep
in mind your status and popularity in the blogging community. If we were still Bitten by Paranormal Romance
and getting over 20k hit a day I would be pricing on the higher side, but since the
name change and the fact I have been MIA for over a year there is no way I
could get by charging higher price So my suggestion is to start low and you
can increase as you go. Remember you are still not going to make a lot of money
here but it will help some as time goes.
If this is something you think you may want to try, then make
sure you create a pricing policy page, letting the authors know for sure what
they are getting for their money, including if they get top post for the day
and so on. And authors if you are planning on buying a feature and you have
questions make sure you ask before buying.
Also remember this is something quite new and it will take time to perfect. So, do not get frustrated
with it, just adapt and change the policy as you need it to change.
I understand this is not necessarily what Anna
was taking about us getting paid for reviews as some sites do, but
I for one see this working better for both authors and bloggers and I feel better doing it this way because I refuse to get paid to review a book.
So what do you guys think? Could you see yourself charging for guest post, giveaways, etc?
*We here at Bitten by Romance review blog will no longer be accepting spotlights, cover reveals, giveaways, tours, guest post, book freebies, links etc for free any longer. We will be creating a new policy and letting authors know what comes with each feature and how much.
*All guest post, spotlight, etc that have previously been scheduled will not be charged. We are also not going to charge for any special events or guest post that we ourselves create.
Great post. I am so thrilled that Anna had brought this topic up!! Because I feel like at times bloggers get taken advantage of all the time with this. I think its fantastic you are taking action and showing what you expect from authors. Putting posts of interviews and promo's take so much time, much of the time, we aren't given the information they just expect us to go find us on our own when we are doing a service for them. I don't use affiliate links because it doesn't really do anything for me. Love your thoughts on this issue, I am still debating what I plan on doing for the future.
ReplyDeleteAffiliate money really isn't much of anything. Most months are less than $1.00 - so no one is getting rich there. But that isn't the point. The point is to be compensated for taking the time to be part of a marketing team. Because at this point, that is what many bloggers are. They are part of dozens of marketing teams for hundreds of authors. We just don't get paid to do it.
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