Chris Blattman

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Am I making money off of you?

It’s about time I create a permanent page on blog financing.

Here in brief:

Obviously I don’t have ads, mainly because that would feel–to use the technical term from moral philosophy–kind of icky.

But, for the sake of transparency, am I otherwise being paid to endorse a blog or book or issue? Pretty much never.

Occasionally I get a free book in the mail from a publisher, and once in a while I’ll blog it if I read and like what I see. But I only blog things I like, and my research funds pay for all my regular non-fiction books, so I’m mildly indifferent to free books. I figure my judgment is unaffected.

Essentially, the only way I make any money is when you click on a book link to Amazon. If you buy something, Amazon gives me 1 or 2%, or something like that. I don’t really know how much this adds up to, but I think it’s a few hundred dollars per year–roughly the amount it costs me to maintain and host this site. So it all balances out.

That said, if you want to pay me exorbitant sums to write about something, fire away. But I’ll disclose the payment at the beginning or end of the post. Sadly no one so far has thought my opinion worth more than free, which frankly should not be so surprising.

4 Responses

  1. Blogging is like hockey (bear with me, I have a point) for the vast majority, participation is a pasttime and has its own personal rewards besides monetary. There are very few bloggers turned-pro that can decide to do it full time.

    Actually, the motivation for my own technical blog is a bit fuzzy. I don’t make a cent off of it, but one of my motivations is that I hope to one day use it as a modern kind of resume.

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