Many of you may know Nancy Carter, editor of The Homeschool Minute E-Newsletter. Did you know that Nancy is also a TOS affiliate? I was just informed that she earned over $200 in commissions last month! I had to know how she did it, and she was gracious enough to agree to an interview to share a few affiliate secrets with us.

Cheryl: Hi, Nancy! Thanks for meeting with us. I have visited your blog “Lessons Learned on the Farm” several times—you write such inspiring and encouraging entries. Tell us about your motivation for your blog.

Nancy: When I first started blogging, we had just moved out to our farm and I was looking for a way to journal all that we were experiencing and learning. Hence, the blog name, “Lessons Learned on the Farm”!

Cheryl: You have 185 friends on your blog, and you are a friend of 199. After reading your blog, I know why—there is such a wealth of information. How did you begin to gain and keep loyal readership?

Nancy: It's just like in real-life, to have a friend, you have to BE a friend. I do A LOT of reading and commenting on other people's blogs. Originally, I would just start by visiting the new bloggers and welcoming them to HSB or I would click through to interesting entries from the HomeschoolBlogger front page and comment on them. I think I was one of the first 25 bloggers at HomeschoolBlogger. It was a really exciting time to watch HSB grow and grow! After a while, I developed real, online friendships with some bloggers and would visit other blogs that they would mention. I discovered mommy bloggers, craft bloggers, homesteaders, and much more. Now I have to use bloglines to keep up with them all!

My blogging has slowed down a bit in the past year as I got busy with other things (probably reading blogs—ha!), but I used to try to post every day or at least a few times a week. Now, I'm doing well to post once or twice a week, but thankfully folks still come by and comment. ☺

Cheryl: I also noted that you are a TOS affiliate. How long have you been promoting TOS products?

Nancy: I have ALWAYS promoted TOS products on my blog (even before they HAD an affiliate program), because I absolutely love The Old Schoolhouse and had just discovered the magazine when I first began blogging. It looks like TOS first set up the affiliate program with ShareASale in April 2008, and I jumped right in there at the time. It was so new though, I didn't have a clue about what I was doing. I put some buttons on my sidebar and one at the top of my blog, and that was about it for months. Somehow or another though I got my first check for $67.80 a few months later in October ‘08. I was pretty shocked, but pleasantly surprised when that showed up! After that, it took me a while to get in the groove of things, but WOW, I've been getting checks almost every month since May ’09, and my last one was for over $200!

Cheryl: You consistently post on your site. How many times do you add or change the affiliate links to your blog?

Nancy: Honestly, I put one product in my sidebar and the dynamic banner (which changes to promote different products and sales) at the top of my blog and have just left them there. I don't really like to mess with my template much. I do most of my promoting through individual blog entries about sales that TOS is having or new products. After realizing that I'm actually making some money doing this, I think I need to pay a little more attention to what I'm doing. Ha!

Cheryl: How do you get information on sales for TOS, and how do you decide how to present it on your blog?

I get my information from reading the emails that TOS sends out. Every affiliate needs to be on the TOS Special Offers email list so that you see every email special promotion, new product, or freebie that comes out. Even if someone just clicks through your affiliate link to claim a TOS freebie, ShareASale tracks their cookies so that if they later make a purchase (within a certain time frame), you will get credit for that purchase! I love it, and my readers let me know that they appreciate the heads-up about sales, freebies, and helpful products.

I also really appreciate and make sure that I read each TOS Affiliate E-Newsletter. Those always give a great review of the best products to promote and include your ShareASale ID and graphic information. Sometimes there are also little goodies (like free E-Books) for promoting certain products. I just have a lot of fun with it!

***We have just started a blog on HSB for TOS Affiliates to keep you updated on new and current sales and promotions on the SAS site. Visit The Affiliates’ Corner here: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/TOSAffiliateCorner/ and add us to your friends list!

Cheryl: Congratulations on making over $200 in commissions last month using the affiliate program. Any other ideas you can share with us?

Sure!

First of all, save your affiliate newsletters in a folder for future reference. They will have your ShareASale ID number in them. Don't let those newsletters just get lost in your inbox.

Then bookmark the Totally TOS link to the Schoolhouse Store and the Get Code link. It is so much easier to promote products when you have those links handy.

Be sure to keep your friendly conversational tone on your blog and continue blogging about other things so that people don't think your blog is becoming one big advertisement after another. They are reading because they are interested in what you have to say, not what you have to sell.

Don't forget that you can also promote the TOS products via links on email, Facebook, etc. . . . I got a great response from the Labor Day Subscription Sale on Facebook!

And finally, take time to post your personal opinion on the products if you can. Your friends and readers are probably interested in the same kind of products you are, and they will enjoy hearing what YOU have to say about them. You can always use the text used in product descriptions, but—it's just a suggestion—you can always add your opinions. And if you read an article that you really love or use one of the activities from an E-Book, feel free to post about it (and give your affiliate link to the appropriate product) whenever you want. Yes, people love sales, but TOS products are a great value even at full price, and sometimes people are looking for a product even when it isn't on sale.

Cheryl: Thank you for your time and sharing these great ideas . . . I, for one, will definitely use them!

Nancy Carter, editor of “The Natural Schoolhouse” column and The Homeschool Minute E-Newsletter, is a homesteading, homeschooling wife and mother of three sons. Her family enjoys a lifestyle of learning on their farm in Kentucky. Read all about their “Lessons Learned on the Farm” at www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/tn3jcarter.

Cheryl Allin serves as a marketing assistant for The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine. She and husband Gregg stay busy homeschooling their two children in North Carolina and are always on the lookout for educational materials and opportunities supporting their faith and the “free or almost free” philosophy they have adopted. Check out their blog at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/cherylallin/php.

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