Paid posts, contributions, advertising on Pocketables
As I’m getting flooded with requests the past couple of months, I thought I would post a linkable piece that also may serve as a site update for some of the users and as a guide for some of the editors.
This covers advertising, sponsored posts, guest contributions, becoming an editor, how much it costs to review a product.
Pay us to review your product?
No. We don’t do this. While the authors generally do end up keeping the product unless it’s being sent back (shipping paid by company,) we do not currently take compensation for a product review. You can read about contributing products for review here.
Yes, some other sites do. I don’t know that I’d trust a review from one, and that’s what I’m hoping to promote here. We might in the future for some of these products that take more time to review than they’ll ever pay off for us (powerbank meet steamroller, steamroller rental ain’t cheap,) but that’s not in our current round of operations.
While editors may be influenced by the abilities to keep and get shiny toys in the future, it’s my hope that is not the case.
Sponsored posts
You want to sponsor a post? Go for it. We’ll write something and slap on “this post sponsored by so and so.” and link sponsorship info to your web page. We will not review your product for money. We probably will not take money to mention a product exists. The post will most likely not be about a product that relates.
Examples might be: article about how to fix lockups, sponsored by a backup company. List of SSDs performance, sponsored by a company known for audio. Basically any sponsorship is not going to be on an article in which the sponsor is offering a solution.
Want to contribute a piece?
I get a lot of emails asking if an author can contribute a piece to the site. We love that sort of thing. What we don’t love is then having to explain who our readers are, pick a topic, explain we don’t really do listicles, dig to find out that the whole thing will end up being a link back to a storefront or a tie in with a product you’ll say is the only solution to the listicle.
You have a burning desire to tell our readers how to fix a problem in six steps? Let me know I’ll let you know if it’s already been addressed. Those six steps lead to a subscription service? Probably not interested.
Trying to promote your competing tech blog? I do not have a problem with this. We each do our own thing. If you can bring something to Pocketables that benefits us both go for it. Pocketables went from 12 pieces published a day to about 1 and traffic reflects that so we’re pretty low on content these days, although hopefully the content is a little more researched.
I will not give you an editor account for a guest contribution, this means you’ll need to format an author bio that will go in the article.
If the contribution raises more questions than it answers I’ll ask you to fix it. If it’s unreadable or just not that good it’s not getting on the site. I hold exclusive rein of being able to post not that good content.
Want to become an editor at Pocketables?
Contribute a few good pieces regularly.
Why would I want to become an editor at Pocketables?
Get to play with tech toys (which you will have to review or never get a tech toy again,) get a foot in the door of the low/no-paying world of tech blogging. Have the desire to build up your abilities to take extreme criticism when you get something wrong, on average make enough money for approximately 96 Costco brand beers monthly on Amazon referrals (assuming you’re reviewing tech,) or make the world a better place for people.
Maybe you like banging your head against a wall trying to explain why this particular thing is actually more useful than it presents itself as.
Want to advertise on Pocketables?
I’m going to attempt to post this in simple English. At the moment there is no way to advertise on Pocketables. The site is owned by a company called Crowdgather Inc. They handle advertising, or anything that would make money on the site. They will not respond to you. I don’t care if you come at them with offers of several thousand dollars they will not respond.
They’re keeping Pocketables in their control and on life support because they paid an absurd amount for it and also owe Paul a large sum of money and dangling ownership of the site in front of him as a potential payoff.
There is no way you can advertise on Pocketables at the moment.
How do you make money then?
Editors use tagged links when available to get commission on sales. The site pays for itself with the Google Ads advertising. No, this isn’t ideal.
