Yay! I made some money!

You may have noticed that I do a fair number of book reviews. You may even have noticed that I link to where the books I review are available on Amazon. Yes, I have an Amazon affiliate account. For no apparent reason.

Until now.

I was in my account getting another link for a recent review when I noticed someone bought something based on my link, and I got paid for it! Cha-ching, baby! I’m buyin’ the next round! As long as it’s penny gum. And no more than a dozen take me up on it. Yup. I made twelve cents.

I actually made more money writing for Examiner.com. A lot more. Like a hundred times more. Enough to where it was actually worthwhile to cash out from time to time. But still, considering the time I was putting into it, as fun as it was, I’d have done better flippin’ burgers. But Amazon? I could do better wandering the mall parking lot looking for loose change.

I don’t blog to get rich, obviously. All tongue-in-cheek whining aside, I get some perverse thrill from putting my random musings out there where anyone can stumble across it. And I get great amounts of satisfaction knowing that my regular fans find my blog so spam-worthy. Oh–I guess I’d better turn off the Snark-O-Meter before someone gets hurt.

Seriously, I enjoy thinking out loud. Forcing myself to write down what I’m thinking–a much slower process than thinking or even speaking–makes me organize my thoughts better (and considering how jumbled my posts can be, you now have a frightening insight into what my actual mind is like!) and think things through more.

Okay, bottom line, it’s cheaper than a therapist. Okay?

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s cool that I could actually make a little money from throwing my thoughts out there online. Cool enough to write a post about how I actually made twelve cents! But I think this is proof positive that writing is not about the money for me. I can certainly think of other ways to spend my time, and more effective ways to make money. But writing always pulls me back in. I will probably always write…something. It’s just a part of me.