I started a side project dedicated to reviewing books of a specific genre. I won’t go into detail as to exactly what it is as it’s fundamentally incompatible with this blog’s brand and image. Suffice it to say, it has been an exciting experiment and a monumental change to what I’m used to doing.
While this new project probably isn’t going to be my life’s work, it has allowed me to explore a side of my writing which I never had before. I found myself writing a lot more formulaically to make the tone match between articles. I also changed how I planned to profit off of this endeavor. This whole thing was started as an impulse decision, but it grew into much more.
I learned that being formulaic isn’t always bad. This experiment made me realize just how much more affiliate links make than traditional ads. The change of pace also ended up helping me with my other writing. I also learned how to avoid the mistakes I made with this blog. The whole project has made me a better blogger and a better writer.
Formulaic Isn’t Always Bad
Formulaic writing is boring in sequence, but doesn’t really matter if you’re targeting SEO. You might keep a person for a link or two, but if you’re targeting search results, you’re not going to see a lot of continued traffic. I might get a bite or two on my main blog for SEO bait, but they read a page or two if I’m lucky. A formulaic approach doesn’t hurt if no one sees the formula.
A steady formula removes the barrier to entry for writing. You still have to account for the content and the quality. A formula just eliminates one variable in the equation. The formula still has to be good or else you’re just wasting words.
It might be a bit cliché, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Fast food isn’t popular because it’s the best quality or innovates the most; it’s popular because it takes the uncertainty out of the equation and is easily reproducible. Dozens of writers survive and even thrive off of formulaic writing. A Tom Clancy novel isn’t going to amaze you with its departure into the unknowns of the genre, but if you like the genre, you’re going to be left with some brain candy. The formulas for Coke or Pepsi haven’t changed significantly either. That’s because they work.
Find your formula and use it to explore other factors in your writing. Writing isn’t one-dimensional, so fixing one single variable in the entire equation still leaves a lot of freedom and flexibility to be more creative in other ways. Since I’m writing about books and that sort of thing, I don’t need the format to be all that creative. I cover the same basic ideas with each post and maybe shuffle them around if there are multiple books in a series.
Affiliate Links Pay More Than Ads
I have heard over and over from my successful blogger friends that traditional ad support for blogs is dead since before I even started my main project. You use Adsense or something to maybe pay for your hosting, but the rest of your money has to come from somewhere else. You might be pushing a product you’ve created, or partnered with someone else. For a product or review based blog, affiliate links just make sense.
For this blog, my main income comes from Medium, ghost writing, and freelance writing. Affiliate links are by no means my focus, but they still bring in roughly what running ads does. Ads don’t bring in much due to the sheer saturation of advertising and the widespread use of ad-blockers. I get roughly a penny per 100 impressions, an ad click is anywhere between $0.05 and $2.00, but tends more towards the lower end (I average $0.51 per click per the ad console). I get thousands of impressions, but very few clicks. Out of just over 13k impressions from my last report, I have gotten 40 clicks (rounded up).
On the other hand, by combining book reviews with affiliate links, I build a much clearer path to purchase. If someone looks up a book review, they may be already looking to buy, or want to see if a book is worth it. They’re already further along in the traditional marketing funnel than most people. Ads are a complete shot in the dark, affiliate links are much more targeted. Depending on the type of link as well, a lot of ad-blockers won’t overtly block them either.
My new book review blog made it’s first $0.45 from an affiliate link within the first two weeks when I was still seeding content. The Google Search Console was still processing the sitemap, and yet it was able to make more than my main blog makes in a bad month with ads. At that point, I hadn’t even started doing a social media campaign either. The whole project had about 30 viewers tops at that point. I’m not retiring off of that money, but it’s just going to keep coming as the project blossoms.
A more sobering point is that my affiliate link purchases from my main blog for just Amazon roughly match my total ad revenue. I don’t even really push reviews on my main blog either. That’s just organic traffic I get passively. It brings in almost the same as something I put substantially more work into.
A Change of Pace
This blog and my other side projects almost all involve the same topics. I work with marketing, technology, software development, and business topics mostly. Writing book reviews for a niche genre unrelated to any of these topics is a complete change of pace. This change of pace allows me to keep honing my writing while letting myself recharge.
My book reviews become something like a writing prompt. I grab a work I’ve read and review it. This change of pace tends to be formulaic, but it’s easy to get going if I’m hitting my limit with other writing. Writing about technology and marketing and all of that gets old after a while.
I was employing the same tactics with my translation of the Dao De Jing, but that takes a lot more time to get rolling. It’s gotten harder and harder to set aside time for this while working on my book and trying to balance income streams while raising my daughter. Writing a book review requires a lot less dedicated time in a single sitting to get a publishing ready article out of it.
Growing As a Writer and a Blogger
I knew I messed up a lot with my first blogging project, but this gave me the chance to approach things differently. My earlier writing on my blog didn’t really follow best practices for SEO, and I was rusty at writing anything but technical documentation. Because I had done a lot of the hard work on my main blog, this project was much easier to get going. It also allowed me to take an entirely different approach for monetization.
I had worked out the kinks in my process, and my new blog project gave me the chance to approach things differently and more efficiently. This project also allowed me to test things which I wouldn’t be as comfortable testing with my more established project. Ultimately, I feel that this external project gave me a great out to test content which I would not wanted associated with my primary brand which is profitable. It also gave me an out to write different and experiment in ways which have allowed my writing to grow.
I practiced writing more formulaic pieces and working on my content more than the form. It showed me that a formula might weaken some of the artistic aspects, but ultimately it just lowers complexity for certain content. This project really made me fully aware of the disparity between traditional advertising and affiliate links. The change of pace also helped me write better overall. All of these factors made me a better writer and a better blogger.
Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay