My blog started out as something fun.  I used to be on a different URL, and once I decided I was serious about blogging, I cracked down, bought this URL and decided to build up it.  I’ve also started blogging full time for another blog (which I will not name to save the innocent).

I blog for these guys!

That said… blogging is a job.  Sure, a lot of it is fun, but I sit here for 8 hours or more a day, and blog, juggling kiddos, diapers, lunches, school drop off and pick up, and all the other stuff that comes with being a wife and a mom.

When I post a great deal, 99.44% of the time, it is linked with an affiliate link, and I get a commission if you buy something after clicking on my link.  It’s good honest work, and it helps pay our bills and feed our family.

Speaking of, check these out!

All but one company, that I no longer promote and will not name — make your own assumptions — tells me and millions of other bloggers up front what our percentage will be before we make a post.  If I do a sponsored post, the rep tells me how much (s)he’s going to pay me before I make the post.  This is my way to ensure that it’s worth my time.

Have you signed up for THIS awesome site?

Until recently, most bloggers, if they did it correctly, made quit a bit of money with the “but one” company.  We started to see our commission drop slightly, and then after a huge promotion, said company decided to wait until millions of bloggers drove sales and traffic to their site by the droves  (1 million sold) to let us know that they would not be paying us for our time and sales.

Can. you. say. livid?

After that day, commission has dropped and bloggers all over have noticed a HUGE decrease in commission and a rise in complaints.  We’ve also noticed TV ads.  Now that we… those they would like to work for free… drove comsumers to the site, they have dropped us like hot cakes, lied to us, manipulated us, and flat out ignored our concerns.

Not only that, but when someone asks a question about commission on their Facebook Page, they posts and comments are being deleted as fast as they can go up.

Many bloggers, and yes, we’re ALL friends, and we do talk, have had to hound and hound this company for paychecks (we’re talking hundreds… sometimes thousands…. of dollars) yet we see TV commercials air several times a day.  If they’re dragging their feet to pay us until we hound them, what about all that money owed to people who do not realize they’ve made enough to get a check?

Keep in mind that this company pays a percentage of NET that they will not disclose.  So, if they sell a product for $20 and only make (or so they say) $1 off of the product, guess what, we only get paid $0.30.  So really, if they promote a $200 product that we think we’re going to make good money off of (because that’s a lot of money, right?), they don’t tell us, up front, how much their profit is so that we’ll promote it anyway.

Today, there was another HUGE promotion that I did not promote on this blog.  Affiliates were told they would be getting paid for

  • 1. Sign ups for their site
  • 2. Commission on the sale.

Not a single blogger that I’ve come in contact with has had a sign up commission… (which is more than 8 times the pay of the actual product sale commission)

 Is that even legal?

So… if you go to work tomorrow and your boss says.. “Hey, next week, you’re going to work on commission, but we’re not going to tell you what that percentage will be NOR will we tell you if what you’re doing is even commissionable, but go ahead and be here at 8:00 am sharp so that you can start working hard to make our company successful.”  Are you going to ask questions?  If the boss won’t give you any answers, are you going to ask someone else?  If that someone else shushes you, are you going to find a better opportunity?  I think so.

BLOGGERS DO NOT WORK FOR FREE.  

Now, it’s out there, and that “but one” reps can’t delete it!