Almost every book or article or blog (!!!) that I have read about blogging makes a big fuss about monetizing one’s blog, either by affiliate marketing or by allowing advertisements. Frankly, I do not like either of these ideas – the one seems extremely contrived, with SEO and blog articles that are designed around product links, mostly to amazon.com, and the other is downright messy, what with all the clickbait distracting from what I really want this blog to be. The other big problem is finding programs and products local to me that are worth supporting. After all, my goal is to become a locavore, supporting the community I live in and not someone up there in an ivory tower.
That said, though, I realized that a lot of my readers are or will be from the USA and in need of some quality tools and products that haven’t been mass-produced in a factory in China. And to them, “made in the USA” is local.
I have found some affiliate programs attached to products I can live with. One of them is for Lehman’s Hardware Store in Ohio. From what I have seen on their website and other Internet footage, this is not as much a hardware store as a general dealership, where one can purchase almost anything you need on an off-grid homestead. Many of their products are Amish-made, so that already speaks for the quality of what they have on offer. With that in mind, their prices are also extremely reasonable.
I have one problem, but that is not as much with the store as with the logistics. Due to the sheer weight of what I want to have (which is just about EVERYTHING!), the freight costs will be ginormous. Hopefully, I shall be able to afford that soon, and then I can take a few products through their paces and tell you all about it!