Blog Monetization

I'm monetizing my blog already by using it to introduce people to the books I write. Here's the picture and hyperlinked text I use to do that.



This post continues below, and if you are enjoying it, why not check out the sci-fi novels I write. They belong to a series called Dark Galaxy, which starts with Galaxy Dog. Here is some of Galaxy Dog's blurb:

What starts as an ordinary invasion of an alien planet brings to light an ancient archeological site of huge importance. A young man called Knave makes a life-changing discovery there and rises from a lowly position as an infantry trooper to become a player among the powers of the galaxy.

The entire series is ripsnorting space opera in the style of Doctor Who and Blake's 7, and they are available to buy from Amazon. Just click the link and take a look.



The thing is, I wonder his effective this strategy actually us. My gut feeling is that it is not hugely effective at all. I don't have a lot of time to read sci-fi novels, so my blog isn't primarily about sci-fi novels (except my own and a few latest releases from giants of the field, who certainly don't need the coverage I give them here on m bsite).

In actuality, what I write about on my blog tends to be the popular culture I have time to consume, and that tends to he TV, comic books and ye occasional movie.

This all means that the people visiting my site, and there are thousands of you, are more interested in stuff like that than the ebooks I'm trying to sell. That's not a happy realization for me, because those ebooks are the ones I've written myself, and I think they're great and should reach a wider audience than they currently do, but that's another issue.

If my Amazon advertisements for my own books aren't an effective way to monetize my blog, what would be? I don't want to just give up blogging, but it is an enormous drain on time and creativity, because Google seems to demand a regular 1000 words or so o'er day to give you a worthwhile search results ranking.
 I am using Blogger as he engine that delivers my blog pages, at least for now, so turning on Google ads is relatively simple. Google owns Blogger, and they have integrated adsense right into the interface. It walks you through how to set the ads up, along with pretty graphics to easy your journey to monetization, and it's a process I've been through before.

I clicked the bright orange button to put ads on my site, and I was shown the following graphic, along with a reassuring message:


Getting your site ready to show ads

This usually takes less than a day, but in some cases can take longer. We’ll notify you after we’ve run some checks on your site. In the meantime, place the code on every page that you want ads to appear. After our checks are complete, your site will be ready to show ads.
So I guess some algorithm did a check on my blog to make sure there was no objectionable content to be found, and very soon after I was able to place advertisements. This is very easy, considering that  there is an entire menagerie of advertising to chose from. With just one click, you can turn on a global setting that works across your entire site. Google will then optimise ad placement for maximum revenue and, so they say, a great user experience. 
The menagerie includes; banner ads, in-feed ads, in-article ads, native ads, overlay ads, anchor ads, mobile ads, vignette ads, and full-screen mobile ads.

I just switched them all on.





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