Last night it occurred to me that I’ve been holding out on you, and doing so has been a disservice to all of us.
I’ve had a brainwedgie around what to do about reviews for quite some time now, I used to do them regularly but I just stopped because I went through a heavy consumption period, and I’ve been building up a pile of Stuck every since then.
What I forgot, though, is that the reviews helped people. It let you know about the good stuff I ran across and helped you decide if it was worth your time and money. It helped the good people whose products I reviewed put food on their table. And when there was an affiliate program for the product, it helped me put food on my table and have more time to help other people. We all lost out on this.
About five weeks ago, I made up my mind that I’d start writing reviews and having them go up as pages on the blog so that I could get past the Stuck without there being a barrage of reviews on your end. But it occurred to me that this really wouldn’t be helping you any unless I told you they were there, and that created more awkwardness than just doing the reviews as posts.
I also realized that “the barrage of reviews” was mostly a myth conjured up by insecurity; though I have a backlog of good stuff to talk about, it’s unlikely that it’ll come out in a short amount of time. Or maybe it will, in which case I can clear my head and focus on other stuff.
So, if you see a bunch of reviews and recommendations hit the blog in the near future, you know what’s going on. The reviews themselves will be valuable, but if you don’t want to read them, just skip them and be patient with me as I do what I should’ve been doing for the last few months.
Charlie, this is fantastic news for me! I often go to particular sites just browse through reviews and decide what to buy next (Tim Brownson’s book reviews/recommendations, and Trent Hamm’s longer reviews on The Simple Dollar are some of my favourites.)
Like you, I’ve been unsure how to “fit” reviews into my blog, and I resorted to doing the majority as pages not posts, but having a couple as posts — where I thought they were very on-topic for Aliventures, and where I had something a bit more personal to say. (Glen Allsopp’s Cloud Living, and Tim Brownson’s How to be Rich and Happy, for the record.) I then link to the other reviews within posts and the free ebooks, where appropriate, so that they don’t get “lost” for readers.
But I think your approach is equally valid; thanks for being upfront about it and giving me something to look forward to 🙂
.-= Ali Hale´s last blog ..Why You’ll Never Be Finished (And How to Figure Out When You’ve Done Enough) =-.
If your reviews are valuable, nobody will care if you use affiliate links or not, because we’ll both benefit from them.
.-= Oscar – freestyle mind´s last blog ..How to Prioritize Tasks in Your Life =-.