So I added a widget and ads were added. Sometimes for related products, sometimes for women's underwear.
I read the terms and conditions, or at least casually glanced over the important ones.
It said that I was not allowed to click the ad links myself. It also said that I should not explicitly direct my readers to click the ads. I don't think it said anything about mentioning that I should not explicitly direct readers to click the ads, so hopefully this paragraph is OK.
And then I blogged and waited. From time to time I looked at the stats to see how much money I'd made. With tens of readers, it came in at a massive 0.0 cents. Over a hundred readers, and it was still 0.0 cents.
June saw my biggest readership, and it was still 0.0 cents.
After June the readership tailed off, which I was a bit worried about. I think the reason is quite simple. I posted more in June, 19 to be preceise, compared with only 13 in July and 12 in August. A simple rule of the internet, perhaps even a simple rule of publishing: the more you publish, the more people will read.
And then 7,500 yen arrived in the post. Actually, it was a coupon for 7,500 yen, not cash. A coupon for use on google. And not just for use anywhere on google, but 7,500 yen to advertise on google. The idea I suppose, as far as google is concerned, is that I'll advertise my blog, get more people to read it, then that will generate more advertising revenue for them. It may even be that after I spend 7,500 yen of their printed money, they expect me to start spending my own money advertising my own blog.
I think this is very clever on Google's part. The 7,500 yen costs them practically nothing--just a few bits of paper and postage--and they must be charging much more for their advertising than they are paying content providers.
On the other hand, printing money is the beginning of inflation and financial catastrophe, as we've been seeing in global economic doom of the past few years.
September so far seems to have earned more than zero. I'm not sure whether this is due to my recent superior writing, or some cumulative effects, or that the advertisers have realised that my readers are not all interested in women's underwear.
So, in the first week and a bit of September, I've earned 17 yen, which is not bad. Actually 17 yen is a pitifully small amount. It's only good by comparison with 0. Looks like I'll be keeping the day job for the time being.
