If there’s one thing I learned at BlogHer, it’s that there are a lot of bloggers out there who have got this whole selling-your-blog thing down to an art. There are also some whose marketing skills could use, um, a little polishing. (If any of you here are the ones who interrupted private conversations to throw your business cards at people, yes, I am looking at you.)
Honestly, the idea of doing product reviews or giveaways has never appealed to me because I didn’t think it would fit in with the narrative of my blog. All I do here is write about my daily life; I think of this blog as my journal, where I tell stories about my kid and oh-hey-this-random-funny-thing-happened. I think it would come off as awkward and contrived if I suddenly threw a product review in the middle of it. There’s a really great post at Suburban Turmoil about how reviews and personal posts shouldn’t mix, and I tend to agree with her. The last thing I want is to pull people in with a long sob story about my poor toddler’s asthma and then twist it with a, “But it was all magically healed with ACME Lung Fixin’ Balm!” at the end. (Note: I know of no such balm in real life. If you came to my site searching for it, I apologize.) You know what I mean? It’s disingenuous and phony, and I don’t want any part of that.
But, at the same time, I’ve gotten a couple of offers to do some reviews, and I don’t want to turn down a potential income source for my family. So to that end, I’ve created a new site:
My first product review will be coming up soon, and seriously y’all, I’m SO excited about it. I’m working with CSN Stores, which is a perfect fit for me since they have all kinds of great home decor stuff, patio furniture, kids’ toys, and basically anything you might need for your house. Since we’re moving to a new house at some point in the next month, and we need stuff for said house, this little project is going to be very near & dear to my heart.
I’m also going to do some reviews for the lovely Room 704 ladies, which should be a lot of fun, since I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to cuss in those. And since I very rarely allow myself to cuss on my own blog, I’m really looking forward to that.
So, stay tuned. Should be some fun stuff coming up on that horizon.