As you might have noticed, there have been a few changes in the blog's aesthetics recently - the sidebar on the right sports now some commercial blocks and ads as well, as do some of the posts in the blog. The reason for this is very simple: I tried to keep the blog ad-free/cost-free for as long as I could, but this is now not possible anymore. Maintenance costs, equipment cost and the amount of time I set aside to write here (time that I take away from doing something else, generally something profitable!) together with the success that these articles enjoy here and on various forum over the web are forcing me to make a choice. A choice that I decided to make as transparent as possible and share as openly and candidly as possible with you.
The situation is this: philosophically speaking I'd like to keep the blog completely free from commercial concerns of any sorts; I definitely don't want to go look for sponsorships that will make it impossible for me to write freely about cameras, gear and photography in general. I buy all the equipment I test with my hard earned cash, try it and write about it what I think, for good or for worse; financially speaking, this is not possible anymore unless I keep doing it not even as a thing of secondary importance in my daily/weekly routines, but as an occasional side thing - if that. This would make the blog much less relevant than it is and definitely less relevant than what it could be. The choice is actually a simple one, thought not an easy one: it got to the point where I either have to slow down and lower the pace here, writing less than I have been doing recently and keep making money somewhere else, or to do exactly the opposite and dedicate more time to the blog, to writing articles about photography and gear, to posting more and more images and so on. In this case, it has to make some financial sense for me as well, not in terms of getting rich doing it but at least I'd like not to loose too much money in the process.
After giving this some thoughts, I decided to try taking the latter road and see what happens: not taking any brand sponsorships of course, but trying and add ads and subscription options to be able to increase my blogging time and do more user reviews and such. I didn't want the blog to loose its looks, its character and its feel to the demons of money-generating, multi-colour, Vegas-like ads: as a start, I decided to offer you the possibility to help with donations (either monthly or one-off) and to add just one referral program, Amazon, which offers me the chance of controlling what ad content I have on the blog. As you can see, I started by creating ads that "blend in" with the blog's looks and general tone, ads that promote the gear I actually review and use. If I will have to add some general Amazon ads & banners, I'll try and keep that to a minimum; with time, I will see what happens and adjust accordingly.
While ads are good to start generating revenues immediately, my hope in the mid-to-long term is to be able to sustain the blog with your direct help only (that is, through monthly subscriptions and one-off donations), and get rid of the ads altogether: time will tell if this will work out or if I will have to increase the amount of ads instead.
In the end, it's up to you! If you liked what you saw and want to see and read more, please consider helping me financially, either directly or by clicking on my links for your purchases, to keep this blog up and running: thanks in advance!
OK, this is it for today. Thank you for reading so far, and have a great week!
DID YOU ENJOY THE BLOG AND ITS CONTENT? HELP ME TO PROVIDE YOU WITH EVEN BETTER ARTICLES WITH A $4.99 USD MONTHLY CONTRIBUTION VIA PAYPAL: IT'S LESS IN A MONTH THAN WHAT YOU SPEND FOR COFFEE IN A DAY, AND YOU DON'T GET ANY GEAR REVIEWS WITH YOUR CUPPA!
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OK, this is it for today. Thank you for reading so far, and have a great week!
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