Show Me the Money!

In blogland, there often seems to be a question circulating of how to make money from blogging. There’s ebooks promising to fulfill your every bloggy dream, there’s vague references to sponsorship, some talk about affiliate programs, but you kind of have to dig to find out the real info and how it relates to you. It’s kind of like the Holy Grail of blogging isn’t it?! (Ok I know this isn’t a pic of the Holy Grail, but hey a genie in a lamp – I’d totally be asking for money first up!)



So with no sewing to share, and no new patterns to post about (you can tell I’ve been sick if there are no new patterns!!) well why not post a bit about this topic? I’m no expert. I don’t make a fulltime living from my blog (ha!) but it does make me a little bit of extra money that goes towards my fabric addiction (or more often and more boringly, bills!).

You may have noticed I do have a list of sponsors in the sidebar of my blog. But I don’t get paid directly by them (though I know some other bloggers do). Instead those sponsors have offered prizes for the And Sew On BoM or other blog hops that I’ve organised. It’s so lovely to have those prizes available, I’m more than happy to advertise those shops! I don’t gain anything personally from those, but I do get to share some fabricy goodness with people who’ve joined in the BoM/blog hops etc.



For me personally though, direct sponsorship doesn’t appeal. I would struggle to write posts when a new sponsor comes onboard, or when there’s a big sale. Others seem to do it easily, but not me. So for me, an affiliate program works nicely. Basically how an affiliate program works is you sign up with them, get approved, they give you a magic link/ID number and you use that in your posts. When someone clicks on that link and visits the site and makes a purchase within a specified amount of time, you get some kind of commission.

There are a couple of affiliate programs around (Book Depository and Amazon are a couple I’m aware of but have not used myself), but the main (only!) one I use is Craftsy. Now in full disclosure, I’m using my magic affiliate link in this post – so you know, feel free to click and help add to the “Kristy-needs-a-new-fridge fund”. But I’m hoping you might find some benefit through it too.



Craftsy is a logical choice for me to affiliate with. That’s where I sell my patterns. (See what I did there? Magic link!). As a pattern designer, it’s the perfect place for selling patterns – a website dedicated to crafts of all kinds so there’s a target audience, easy to use, instant downloads, oh and there are no fees to list patterns! Yeah! Just the usual Paypal fees when someone purchases a pattern, but nice not to be hit twice for fees. Then of course there are the classes (awesome!) and for the lucky US/Canadian folks, you can even buy fabric (no international shipping as yet though).

So what’s in it for you? Where’s the money part already?! Well, if you sign up to become a Craftsy affiliate, there can be some nice commission involved.

If someone goes to Craftsy via your magic link and signs up as a new user… you get $1.00. Easy peasy.

If someone goes and buys a class or a product… you get commission. 30% on classes, 10% on products. For doing nothing other than adding a magic link to your blog.

If someone goes and signs up to be an affiliate… you get $10.00 once they are approved.

And let me say again – money for simply adding links in your posts or a button on your sidebar and encouraging clicking. Can’t get much easier than that can it?



I will freely admit to being a bit skeptical when I first signed up. I didn’t think there would be much money in it. But I figured it was worth a shot – because hey, here’s a nice not-in-your-face way to advertise and maybe earn a little extra money. And it has been worth it for me. I’m sure you’re dying to know the real money amounts- though that’s hard for me to say exactly as each month is a different amount. If there’s a sale on at Craftsy, my commission is higher. But let’s just say that most months, I receive enough to buy a full international envelope of fabric – or pay my phone bill (mate, I hate having to be responsible sometimes! Also! Why don’t I have a paper pieced pattern of a phone to share here?! Must work on that).

So, interested? You can pop over here and check out the details for yourself. A couple of questions I had at first that I can answer are – yes you can be international and still be involved in this program. Yes they do pay straight into your bank when you have reached a certain level in your account. Yes it actually can make you some money. You just have to work out how to make the program work best for you

 

And now I return you to your regularly scheduled program. Or at least I hope to make friends with my sewing machine today and have something fabric related to share soon! Oh and hey – those of you who’ve clicked magic links at some time on my blog – my stash and I thank you (as does my electricity company, phone company and landlord).