Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A word about paid reviews

I have gotten some offers lately offering to pay me to review websites and products. I have accepted a couple of those offers, but I want to comment about that.
People who know me, who know that I write this blog, often say to me, "there ought to be a way for you to make money off your blog." Yeah, that would be nice, but the most obvious way would be to accept advertising from local pizzerias, which I won't do (some ads from national chains do appear on my blog through Googe Adsense, but I have no direct control over which companies do that, I don't have much interest in writing about those chains, and their ads would probably appear on the blog regardless of what I say about them).
Having said that, it does cost me money to travel to so many pizza places to review them. It's not just the cost of the pizza, but the gas money. So if I can defray my costs by reviewing a product now and then, that's not a bad thing, from my perspective.
I certainly don't want to take the focus off local pizza, though. So while a review or post about some non-pizza-related product may show up here from time to time, I will try to do that in addition to, rather than instead of, the pizza reviews.
One other upside is that sometimes these companies offer me products for reader giveaways. So I'll be doing that from time to time, too.
Bottom line, if you see a non-pizza-related post here once in a while, yes, I probably got something in return for it, but the pizza reviews will keep coming as frequently as I can crank them out, and those will not be paid reviews.

3 comments:

  1. Awesome. No complaints from me. You deserve it!

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  2. I think that this is completely understandable to support something that you are passionate about, which you clearly are. Besides, I kind of like your reviews of non-pizza items because I feel that they're written in a way that is very relate-able.

    Unrelated but I stopped by Brandini's to grab a slice a couple of days ago, and it was just plain awesome. Loved the crust on it.

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  3. I salute you and congratulate you on your great posts. There is a fine line at times about accepting payment for reviews.

    Sounds to me like you are honest and have integrity. I appreciate the fact that you are very open about the entire process. I hope you continue to review pizza and non-related pizza items.

    Keep up the good work. There is nothing wrong with being compensated about your passion.

    pizza all over Rochester and beyend,
    Albert Grande
    Pizza Therapy

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