So I got an email from CSN Stores offering to sponsor either a giveaway where I'd give out a gift card to one of my lucky readers or shop for myself and give a review here on my oh-so-important blog that will surely influence the masses to shop their bizarre conglomeration of stores.
This is flattering, but absolutely laughable for many reasons:
1. My influence barely extends beyond my dining room table.
2. Pretty sure I'm related or at least personally connected to everyone who visits this blog. Hi Mom!
3. I'm using a standard blogger layout- I haven't even bothered to have one designed for me. How does that inspire confidence in my online marketing ability?
4. This is the doozie: I've purchased from them before and it was a total disaster. It was a few years ago to so perhaps they've gotten their act together since then, but let's just say it involved an expensive globe, Christmas, zero customer service and disappointment.
While this offer was ridiculous, it is a decision most bloggers eventually have to make if they have much of any traffic at all: whether or not to use their online presence to make money, get freebies or cultivate a following for whatever purpose be it ego or promotion of themselves as a brand. And yeah, as you may have guessed, I'm not going to do any of that. Yeah, I have an Etsy shop but I have to force myself to keep up with it most of the time. And this decision to not shill, is not because I don't like money or free crap or that I have some sort of moral standard where I think corporations are evil and and a corrupting influence in the blogosphere.
It is more that I'm lazy. Really lazy.
Plus, there are literally thousands of bloggers, a lot of them women, a lot of them stay at home moms, most of them more talented and creative then me who do need the support of people like CSN or Silhouette or Cricut to compensate them for the time and effort they spend on their blogs, not just updating and linking, but doing the crafts and projects in the first place. They don't need more competition from someone who doesn't need to do it and isn't especially good at it anyway. I don't want to feel obligated to do projects or spend hours checking out linky parties if I don't want to. If I want to spend the day like I did yesterday watching a marathon of "Criminal Minds" instead of sewing I don't want to feel bad about it. (I think the theme yesterday was episodes featuring Academy Award winners slumming it on CBS.)
Rest assured, my many loyal, non-existent fans, any product endorsement going on here will be honest and probably inconsequential! You have my word. I will remain lazy.
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