Comments on: State of the Blog: eBooks, Donations

By: Iqbal

Iqbal — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 05:20:51 +0000

Ebook Gratuit it was a great effort to write such blog. e books should be for poor people too. every body should donate for this purpose. with this you can spread knowledge in the corners of world.

By: Andromeda

Andromeda — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 01:55:17 +0000

We had this same issue with the Buy India a Library blog. What you need to do, instead of the standard donate button — there’s an option for an email link; see http://en.support.wordpress.com/paypal/. (Thanks to Jan Holmquist for figuring this one out.) You can put this code in the wordpress.com textbox.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:00:43 +0000

I just purchased the option to go ‘ad free’ for this blog. I didn’t like what people would encounter when they landed on the page if they weren’t logged into WordPress. So, I’m at least $30 in the hole for this otherwise free site.

My only problem with the Donate button at the moment is that as a free WordPress site it won’t let me put in the PayPal code in the widgits or any of the pages. I may have to look into hosting so I can do that. As they say, you have spend money to make money.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:58:25 +0000

Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to check it out and maybe even try it out.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:58:00 +0000

I don’t think giving away content and having donate button go hand in hand; I see them as mutually exlcusive. If I was putting a button where the free content was, then it might work out as such. But, otherwise, I would disagree with that assessment.

By: Bobbi

Bobbi — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:01:20 +0000

Personally ads annoy me but I also understand how much time and effort it takes to write blog posts and I don’t expect to get something for nothing. There is nothing wrong with recouping your time and effort (and funding conference attendance) whether its ads or a donate button.

When I initially asked about ads there was a strong response from readers against ads, including some who felt is compromised the integrity of the blog and would detract from the sincerity and honesty of the content. Someone suggested a donate button and I was iffy about it at first, it felt a little like begging, but less like selling out which was how ads feel to me.

I’m keeping a spreadsheet of donations as they come in and they are still coming in. I can tell you that Librarian by Day will remain ad-free for 2011 then I’ll re-evaluate.

By: Andromeda

Andromeda — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:37:01 +0000

I don’t mind ads as long as they’re not popup/jittery/auditory; I see them as the price of getting free content (and appreciate that someone is willing to make it free for me).

I’m not into donate buttons. To me, if you’re going to give your content away for free, stand by that decision.

I *would* like to see more library blogs experimenting with some kind of freemium model, although I don’t know entirely what that would mean in this sphere. Then again, you’ve already proven you know how to do merch…

By: Scott Herbert

Scott Herbert — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:47:57 +0000

Just thought you should know, Sahakara will soon be opening up as a publishing platform for epub e-books.

It will allow you to publish and sell your own books for free. The price will be determined by the popularity of the book, so more popular books will earn their authors more money.

I’m not sure if that would help you or not but…