I had three donation links on the sidebar of the main weblog page. Amazon Honor was never used and hence has been removed. The Paypal button fared a little better but with the last donation 8 months ago, I have decided to remove the Paypal button as well. The only donation link now is for donating money directly to Dreamhost for my webhosting bill.
I also installed Google text ads on the individual entry pages as well as the main page a few months ago. The result has been a trickle of money, not much but still useful for the webhosting bill. However, the ads on the main page haven’t even netted $1. Therefore, I have removed the ads on the main page.
I link to books I read in the sidebar as well as review some of those books in individual posts. All the Amazon links for these books are part of the Amazon Associates program which means that I get a small referral fee if you follow the link and buy that book. There is no cost to you, so I suggest if you get interested in a book you see here, please do follow the link to buy it.
I have not accumulated enough fees through this program to be paid by Amazon yet, but I am going to keep using it. In fact, I have expanded my use of the Amazon Associates program with the new sideblog showing the movies I have watched recently or am thinking of watching. The movie sideblog links to the DVD version as our chances of going to the theater in the near future are nil.
The sideblogs list the books and movies but their reviews have been in posts on the blog. I have modified the sideblogs such that there is a link to my review post with each movie or book. I hope that feature would prove useful to some readers.
Salaams, where’d everybody go?
I just ordered Tao of Islam from amazon, zack, but you didn’t have that one listed. I am eyeballing the LOTR boxed set though.
sume: Comments here are very irregular. Sometimes there are lots in a day (especially on a controversial post) and at other times no comments for a few days.
I just got the LOTR DVDs today. Now I have to find time to watch them.
I’ve got Amazon Associates, too, and not much has happened with it, though I tend not to update it very much.
I dunno, I always go for the cheapo freebie sites (but theyre not as nice as the hosted ones). What’s it go for per year, usually?
Leila: I pay $120/yr. There are cheaper options but I have a great plan with Dreamhost.
You should keep going with the Amazon Associates. I’ve managed one book and postage for a book so far. (I don’t update mine very often though – my bad)