Let's Talk About... Why I Don't Have Ads on My Blog

First, I want to establish that I see absolutely nothing wrong with having ads on your blog! I'm only talking about this to share my personal reasons for not having ads and because I'm curious about other's opinions. Okay!

In the time since I decided to buckle down and be a real blogger (figuratively), posting six days a week and making the blog a priority, my page views have gone up. Quite a bit. They're still modest, but they're consistent both in general number and in growth. With that, I've inevitably received multiple inquiries about putting ads on my blog. For a while, I considered it. Heck, who doesn't love the idea of making a little bit of money doing something they're already doing? I even did a sponsored blog post with Grammarly (though that was a bit different, since the idea and content were my own and Grammarly only wanted a one-sentence mention).

But, I came to realize I didn't want my blog to advertise anything but exactly what I decided to put there. While I could sell my own ads and control what was put up, that's a lot of work, and working with a third-party, which is less work, gives you very little control over what ads show up on your site. I blog because I love it. I blog because I love reading and sharing my opinions and talking to other people about the books that I'm passionate about. I don't blog to get free books, though that's kind of the best perk in the world. I certainly don't blog for money--in fact, I spend a lot more money on my blog than I probably could ever take in with ad revenue. And I imagine a lot of bloggers do use that ad money towards their blog, which is a good idea, actually.

I love that my blog is all mine. It's my little corner of the internet to put up exactly what I want and say what I feel, knowing absolutely no one else can control it. When it comes to social networks like Facebook or even Twitter, I don't feel that kind of freedom. Here, I know people are visiting because they want to read and discuss books. And honestly, that's kind of all I ever want to talk about. (Seriously, everyone I know gets bored listening to me talk about books.)

And I guess that's it. It's really the same reason why I've stopped doing a lot of promo events, except for things I'm personally really interested in or love. I don't run my blog to promote anything and everything. I don't want ads because this blog is mine. Everything here is here because that's where I put it and made the decision to put it here, and I want to keep it that way.

So what about you? What's your stance on ads? If you're a blogger, do you have ads on your blog? If you'd like to share, what do you do with the money? And if you're a reader, how do you feel about ads? Do you notice their presence, or is it a non-issue?