Offers I can refuse

Maintaining a blog is an interesting enterprise. Regardless of how private it feels when I sit down and start hammering away at the keyboard or how vehemently state that it's for my own amusement, there's a very real point where such claims are no longer accurate. This forum is not located entire and pristine upon my hard-drive in complete private anonymity. I have also not expended any effort to turn my entries into a "gated community" of sorts, where only those with the right credentials can espy the thoughts I am committing to the data stream. My words and thoughts are out there for people to discover. As soon as I hit the "publish" button, I can no longer truthfully declare they are wholly private, for I have chosen to share them and by inference, invite comment.

I make no effort to check my popularity. I don't have the vaguest notion how many page views or readers I get per day. I possess only the sketchiest of ideas regarding how many regular readers I may have. Every so often, I'll discover I have a post linked by Fleshbot or another blog and I'll enjoy a small surge of surprise and happiness that someone thought what I wrote was worth sharing with a wider audience. For the most part, it's sufficient for me to know I'm not entirely obscure. I won't lie and say I don't have moments when I envy the comment counts for places like ErosBlog, because it is nice to feel that what one has to share is worth further discussion or at a minimum an acknowledgement. At the same time, those people devote a lot of time and energy into their blogs to the point of being almost a full-time job if it isn't already, they've earned the readership they've developed.

However, I seem to have been around long enough or crossed some threshold for readership that I will get emails from companies asking me if I'd like to enter into a "link exchange." I've rejected every proposal so far.

It shouldn't be that hard to understand why I would take such a stance, but I've discovered that few things are as overlooked as the blatantly obvious and common sense is anything but commonly held. Therefore, I shall outline my thoughts on the subject.

1. What would it cost me? This is the first thing that comes to mind when I discover an offer in my email in-box. You could accuse me of being a suspicious, cynical sort for me to automatically look for the "catch" or more accurately the fine print done in invisible ink and backward at the bottom of some random page of the contract, but that doesn't mean I'm in error. In all honesty, this is why every offer to date has been smothered quietly at conception. The cost was too steep.
   • First of all, I currently write for the fun of it. If I accept an offer, then I have pretty much accepted a second job.
   • In addition, I work for a "brick and mortar" adult store. If I start directing business to an online distributor of products we carry or hope to carry, then I am in essence bleeding away commerce that would otherwise be contributing to my paycheque.
   • Lastly, there is my integrity. If I link to a company, then I am committing a portion of my reputation along with it. Even if it's just me who cares, I'm not willing to treat that lightly. Along with that is strong disinclination to fuck with my readers. "Selling them to the highest bidder" strikes me as disrespectful.
     
2. What do I get out of it? Site traffic is not something I sweat out in the wee hours of the morning. Potentially elevated numbers of readers caused by the curious clicking a link placed unobtrusively on some corporate page hardly qualifies as motivation for me. Am I being offered a book contract? A paid admission to some conference or expo? Free merchandise? Or even flat-out offers of cash? I'm not ashamed to say I'm mercenary; it has to be worth my while to even consider it.
3. Is it equitable? I receive no tangible remuneration out of maintaining this blog. Without any exception of note every one of the sites proposing a link exchange has been commercial in nature. It costs them nothing to direct traffic toward my blog and could even serve as positive publicity in supporting adult industry blogs. At the same time, I can pretty much guarantee they are expecting that an increase in traffic from my blog to their site would also yield an increase in revenue for them. If someone is going to make money off of my work, it's only reasonable that a portion of that money finds its way into my pockets.

Chances are that I'll never be tendered an offer that will result in a commercial type link. I'm completely alright with that. It keeps things nice and neat on my end.