How I have finally earned money from blogging!

Can I get a Woo Hoo? It's certainly taken long enough!

Thanks for buying these mugs
from Twinings 

For those readers who are newer around here, Stephanie Jane is my second blog (the first being the now-defunct local arts and culture blog Theatrical Eastbourne) so I have been blogging since April 2012. Over three years experience means I pretty much know what I am doing and also have a good idea of what brings in lots of blog traffic and therefore potential income. Unfortunately those sorts of posts aren't the subjects about which I enjoy writing! I am never going to be fascinated by celebrity gossip. Neither am I going to start trialling loads of different brands of makeup or getting Dave to photograph my daily dress choices! He's already frequently infuriated by having to wait to eat while I snap pics of our dinner!

So, as a niche blogger, where does this leave my potential blogging income? I use a few sources, some more successfully than others. Google adverts have adorned both my blogs since the start. My account there seems to be credited with about a penny for each hundred page views and a higher single payment if one of you kind visitors actually clicks through to an advertiser's website. Click amounts vary from usually less than 10p to once a massive 74p. Google won't pay out until I accumulate £60 though and, after over three years, I am still nearly £6 short of that magic total. I'll keep on slogging blogging.

You might have spotted the PayPal link in the right-hand toolbar? Dickens fans should get the Dorrit reference. I put this up after seeing other blogs with similar 'hats on the pavement' and the link has worked. Once. Thanks Adrienne!

Affiliate links used to be a lot more successful than they are now. A

Thank you for buying this t-shirt
from Red Dog Wear on Amazon.co.uk

website I curated a over decade ago brought in at least £100 every month from affiliate perfume sales. Stephanie Jane doesn't! However, I link all my book review posts to their respective titles on Amazon.co.uk. There's other varied links scattered throughout this blog too. Any visitor clicking through an Amazon.co.uk link who then buys any item will earn me a small commission. The purchase doesn't have to be the one I suggested and Amazon.co.uk's payout threshold is lower than Google's too. It's just £25. I have only £19.92 still to earn.

My passion for reading and blogging my book reviews has had unexpected benefits though. Independent authors and small publishing houses have begun to contact me via Goodreads and Twitter offering free ebook copies of their novels to read and review. These offers are becoming more frequent as I am better known. (I am now in the #200 top UK reviewers on Goodreads.) I get to not only save money on book purchases, but also to read some superb novels that I might not otherwise have discovered. One author even sent an Amazon.co.uk gift card with which to purchase their book. The card had a greater value than the book price so technically I guess I got paid the remainder to review the work! This week I have also been invited to guest post on a purely-books blog.

My final and most financially successful avenue is another affiliate

Thank you for buying this book
from Waterstones 

programme, Affiliate Window. This site is basically a middle-man between business advertisers and website owners allowing me to choose to promote companies whose products I actually like and use myself. I drink Twinings tea and Whittards hot chocolate. I like shopping at Go Outdoors, Waitrose and Waterstones, use Ordnance Survey maps and visit English Heritage properties. I adore spending hours browsing Etsy! This makes it easy for me to integrate name-dropping into my posts and my enthusiasm for the products must show as I get far more click throughs from specific text links than from generic banners. Pennies only roll in from purchases though so Thank You for purchasing those pretty mugs from Twinings, that English Heritage membership and those books from Waterstones. After three months with Affiliate Window I achieved their £20 payment threshold and my first payout arrived in my bank account a couple of days ago. How much was it?

Drum roll?

£21.66!

OK, it's not a life changing amount, but it is enough to cover our internet bill this month. And, if I could just get Stephanie Jane to earn that much every month, or even every day ... !

(Please remember that all income should be reported to HMRC.)