Making Money By Association: The Power of the Review

One interesting approach to the idea of making money is that you can do it by standing on the shoulders of others who are making money. And this concept is illustrated particularly well by showing how you can make money by writing reviews about things.

Consider that people make a living writing reviews about music, products, events, books and even personal experiences, and you begin to understand the power of taking what is already there, adding your two cents to the mix, and potentially making a bunch of money on the process. There are a whole lot of people who are fighting for this space, but if you’re the best of them, that give you a distinct advantage.

Music Reviews

When you write music reviews, especially if you’re trying to earn money from it, what you want to do is wrap your experience with the music in words that other people can connect to, and then want to share with their friends. The more attention you get to your writing, the more attention the artist will get, and cross-promotional opportunities present themselves. It may be that publishers appreciate the extra traffic that they’re getting from links in your articles, for example.

Product Reviews

Posting product reviews is another way to make money by associate, especially if you have some sort of affiliate account. Basically, there’s a way to set up your blog or post so that if people click a link to a product and then buy that product, you get a cut of the sale. The better that you present the product, the more money you make, pretty much as a direct correlation.

Event Reviews

Sometimes the main benefit of volunteering to write event reviews is that you get free admission to the event itself. This is a really common arrangement between promoters and journalists and bloggers so that everyone wins. As long as you have a good platform to present your story and use links properly, everyone involved in the agreement will essentially create value (thus money) from the attention received.

Book Reviews

Book reviews are a little bit more of a subtle and detailed art when it comes to making money with them. It takes a deeper appreciation of both author and audience to connect with the people that are going to read this type of review, so you have to focus a bit more on really getting the words right to get the attention that you want.

Experience Reviews

Experience reviews would be sort of a subset of event reviews, except you’re focusing more on what you did and felt rather than just what happened. A good example might be your experience of going to the Grand Canyon. And this could translate into money through the use of monetized ads on your posting platform.