Where did the ads go?

Those of you who have been reading my posts for a long time may remember when I joined the BlogHer network for women bloggers and started running their ads down the left side of my blog page.  I didn't do it because I ever expected to receive any ad revenue (which is good, because I haven't), but because I wanted to be one of their book reviewers.

The idea was that I would receive FREE books, in categories I selected, in return for posting reviews on my blog.  That seemed like a sweet deal, since the free books would enable me to feed my book addiction painlessly, and at the time I was regularly posting book reviews anyway.

Well, it was one of those good ideas that didn't pan out.  It turned out that in order to review a book, I had to respond to the call for reviewers within about 30 seconds of receiving the email.  Every single time I tried to respond, I received a message saying that they had already filled their quota of reviewers.  Then the criteria changed; in addition to posting a blog review, reviewers also had to mention the books on other social media.  In all, it was just too much work, even for free books.

During the time I belonged to BlogHer, I was the featured blogger for one week, but I saw only a very minor, statistically insignificant uptick in readers during that time, which was very disappointing.  In the meantime, the ads have gotten more animated and more annoying.

Which is why, when BlogHer recently told me that they were removing their ads because I am no longer meeting their "at least one post a week" criterion, I wasn't exactly heartbroken.  I haven't been posting regularly because all my spare time for the last six months has been sucked up by my mother's health problems and my increasingly demanding work schedule.  BlogHer did offer to reinstate the ads if I ever resume weekly posting - which I hope to do this summer - but why bother?

Instead, I'm reformatting the blog so it will look like it originally did - one wide column of text and a single sidebar on the right side of the page.  That will undoubtedly throw off the formatting of some of my previous posts - particularly the ones with photos - but that's not the end of the world, either.  On the whole, viewing my blog will now be a more restful experience.  And that's A Good Thing.

"Advertising: the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it." ~Stephen Leacock