I keep feeling the need to reiterate what I'm about to say, so I'm devoting a post to it, and I'm putting a link to this post in my sidebar, where it will stay for whatever the realistic cyber-version of perpetuity might be.
What I want to say, in the interest of full disclosure, is this:
1.
a. I sell Usborne Books. The link to Usborne Books in the sidebar is a link to my personal Usborne e-commerce website. If you buy books through that link, you are buying from me.
b. I often mention and recommend Usborne books in the course of posts on this blog. There is no way that this can NOT be construed as product placement, and I feel self-conscious about that. On the other hand, I can honestly say that I would never mention or recommend a book I either do not own, or am not interested in owning. Overall, I love Usborne Books, and I like the company; however, there are books and products which this company produces which I would never buy or recommend. I would never mention a book on this site purely for the purpose of selling it. The books I talk about are books we use and like, and one of the purposes of this blog is to share and review our learning resources. I have often been guided by other people's reviews, positive and negative -- the time which other bloggers and e-list posters have taken to assess books and materials which they have used has saved me a fortune in useless purchases, and helped me to make almost uniformly good ones for our family. So when I talk about books, that end is what's foremost in my mind.
Clearly it's nice to sell books, and if I'm going to spend time blogging, it's also nice if my family benefits in some way from the time I spend. But I will still love you if you never, ever buy a book from me. It's not a requirement; it's not an expectation. It's not why I started this blog. The link is there, but if you never click it, it's all the same to me. Truly.
2. I also feature sponsored links to Amazon books on this site. That's why you see the nifty book images, and I have to admit, my first thought was that having visuals would jazz things up a bit. I always like to see what books look like. Everything I said about Usborne applies to these sponsored links as well. They're there. If I'm going to mention books, as I do quite often, because there are just so darn many that I own and love, or would love to own, I figure I might as well link to them so that you can see them for yourself. When people buy through these links, I get a little commission fee, currently in the form of Amazon gift certificates, so I can go buy more books to talk about, hooray hooray. But as with Usborne books, my mentioning these books and providing links to them in NO WAY means that I expect anyone to buy them, or that my love and goodwill for anyone will be affected by their book-buying habits.
Again, I have appreciated the time and energy other internet posters have expended in sharing their book recommendations and non-recommendations, and my real aim is to return that favor.
Whew. I feel better, anyway. I hope you do, too.
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5 comments:
Well, if that's a confession, I'd say you need to deal with your scruples!! We trust you, MrsT! Well, I do, anyway.
Not a confession, just a disclosure. I start feeling sometimes that I'm writing infomercials, and I hope they're more info than mercial.
But thanks for the vote of confidence!
And if you would like to borrow my digital camera to photograph some things for your blog, we could make that happen easily.
Ooooh, I am so enticed. I never really wanted one until I started blogging, and now I go around my house thinking, I wish I could photograph that reading corner, I wish I could photograph the windowsill over my kitchen sink, etc. Reading Regina Doman's House Art Journal has made me feel so house-arty of late (even if we do own way more plastic stuff than she does, and my kids' rooms are not nearly as cute!).
But I was saying . . . I'd love a digital-camera tutorial. I really am angling hard for one for a combined birthday/Christmas gift, maybe from all my family members combined. They don't have to get me anything else! Just chip into a camera pool. So if my extended family happen to ask you what I want for my birthday, do please tell them you're not sure, but you THINK I want a digital camera.
By the way, Regina has a post up today featuring a picture of her children sitting at the dinner table on a church pew -- calls to mind the beloved bus bench mine sit on.
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