Wednesday 18 November 2015

40kaddict Terrain Competition



You should have noticed I’ve added a totaliser on the navigation bar to the right. If you recall, thanks to the furious clicking of my readers over the last 4.5 years I finally got to cash in my first £60 of Google AdSense money. I then revealed the next £60 would form the basis of a prize fund for a competition. I honestly expected it would take a similar length of time before I’d have to give an update on ‘where your money is at’ but it seems that I’ve been quite lucky over the past 4 months and already we’re 20% there. I’ve had a look at the dashboard to try and work out what’s going on and it’s all CPCs and RPMs – way above my head. I was particularly lucky though as I had 3 clicks on an advert that was worth 42p a click, when the majority of my adverts are between 2-10p but alongside other clicks that put £3.68 in the prize pot in just one month

I have to admit that despite all this 'trying to give something back' I am feeling a sense of discomfort as well as excitement, I don’t know, maybe I'm just overthinking. I have covered the 'dirty' topic of monetising your blog but even though I felt comfortable with the decision to only go down the AdSense route and this time all of the proceeds [and I will add to that fund if necessary] will go to a lucky competition winner. So I’m hoping the transparency will help alleviate this feeling and I think the key next step is to set up the rules of the competition, perhaps you want to start early to get some entries in place? If people see there is a competition, what the criteria is and see the fund building it will make this the fun community payback event I wanted it to be.

As a reminder here's what I had planned for the competition:
The initial plan of how to win the prize will be based on a picture competition with the only criteria being that it must feature an item freely available from this very blog – STC templates, Print & Play buildings, even just the wound counters [although the picture will have to be pretty darn good to secure a prize using just the wound markers]. The choice will be yours.
Therefore you could build one of my STCs straight out of the downloads, or even amend it, remix the template like Fenrisian Studios did, take a picture and that's your entry. Alternatively there's the Print & Play templates, but as they're relatively simple to do the picture best be all kinds of awesome - perhaps you fill an entire gaming club with my templates, or manage to get a table populated at a big tournament with my terrain [with links back to the templates] - now thats worth serious kudos. The chance to be creative in how you approach the task is up to you so it's not solely down to someone's hobby skills or photographic skills, so everyone can take part.


Now I'm not sure how I'll judge this just yet, I may want to solicit the help of the readers, allow them to vote somehow but reserve the right to make the final decision. We'll iron this part out as the fund grows but please do offer suggestions on how this could be managed. As to the prize, this was my initial thought
The next £60 in adsense revenue I will put towards another Imperial Knight [alongside my own money to make up the difference]. I will even offer to paint the Knight at no extra cost. But of course whoever wins the competition can choose an alternative model of equivalent value or for me not to paint it should they wish, it will be up to the winner.
I'm a little hesitant about the painting side of it now as that borders on commision painting and I really don't want the added pressure of having to deliver something for someone else. Also, by not painting it I can ensure the winner gets their model this side of the 41st millenium because, as you know, I really don't paint that fast. So, again I'll seek advice from readers if that's something I should offer. But this will definitely be an international competition so anyone can enter, I certainly wouldn't want those guys in Syria who've clicked my adverts feeling left out of the competition. We'll work out the details of how the winner will get their prize if it's abroad but it will definitely require a photo of you looking suitably impressed and shocked at the win, so everyone knows the comp was real [I trust that's OK].

Ultimately there are a number of reasons for this competition:
  • I want to give back something to the community after I was able to get an Imperial Knight from my AdSense revenue
  • I want to generate renewed interest in my FREE terrain templates and markers/gaiming aids
  • I'm genuinely excited to see how creative people can be to win the prize
  • I want to de-stigmatise AdSense clicking, so other hobby bloggers can feel comfortable monetising their blog without too much inconvenience to their readers - its a click on an advert created by their browsing habits, that's no hardship
Hopefully its clear there are some genuine altruistic reasons for me doing this and conversely there are some definite benefits to me and the blog too. But I believe that the benefit to me - 'more web traffic for the STC page', for instance, is offset by more people accessing and building the FREE terrain templates and markers. This in turn makes the effort I invested in them more worthwhile because it's enhancing their hobby at minimal cost [aside from materials]. There's nothing more disheartening than me putting effort into these templates if no one actually uses them. I'm trying to make the hobby easier to get into and although I know the fun that can be had from building terrain I also understand for some, it's the last thing they want to do when they have a whole army to paint/build/buy. But feel free to let me know what you think, once I've had more feedback and we're reaching another milestone in the prize fund I'll pin down the full details of the competition so everyone is happy about what's expected. And also let me know if you're keen to take part, how you might approach it etc.

2 comments:

  1. Just to let you know what a difference your clicks make, I just checked back on the dashboard and here's todays stats:

    Page views: 248
    Clicks: 13
    Page CTR 5.24%
    CPC: £0.20
    Page RPM £10.29
    Estimated Earnings: £2.55

    The last stat is key one [in conjunction with the clicks] the 13 individuals who clicked on the ads just contributed £2.55 to the prize fund! That's all it takes so please consider, when visiting a blog if they have AdSense, how little effort it takes to make a small difference that eventually will get someone a pot of paint or an Imperial Knight ;)

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  2. If it counts per click as opposed to per computer, I hope to have helped quite a bit. It's not for the competition (I don't currently have a printer, so I can just stare at the templates :P ) but I just wanted to give something back (in return to you giving back, in return to us giving back...). Everything you do is greatly appreciated, so keep up the good work! Regards, Rob

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