Over the next couple of months, Yakezie.com will be featuring Member Posts Monday through Friday. Originally we had estimated that only about 30 or so would sign up out of 100 and we would use the days in between to post updates and other miscellaneous things. However, it looks like we have over 50 Member Posts in the queue already with ever more continuing to sign up! Hence, it looks like the only time we can fit different type of posts in are during the weekends.
Traffic is generally slower on the weekends and as a result, we’ll use Saturday and Sunday for Yakezie.com announcements and promotional giveaways. There won’t be something every weekend, but just know that this is what we’ll be reserving the weekends for in the future.
The first thing I noticed when coming up the rankings over at Financial Samurai was the amount of solicitations for book reviews. It was the most wonderful thing given I love getting things for free, especially books! Unfortunately, I’ve been incredibly swamped over the past several months, and my book reviewing efforts have dwindled. I could just highlight the book and put up a blurb, but I’d rather do a full book review and give the full attention it deserves instead. It’s such a shame to not offer these giveaways to readers due to my time constraints.
The proposal I’m offering to Yakezie Members is to form a Yakezie Book Review or Yakezie Product Review team. Books are a natural fit for all of us bloggers and I’ve found that readers from all over just love them. Winners can include Yakezie Members and non member readers alike!
BENEFITS OF BEING ON THE YAKEZIE PRODUCT/BOOK REVIEW TEAM
1) You get a free book or product to read or test out.
2) You learn something from the book or product. As we are a Personal Finance and Lifestyle blog network, we’ll expand our reading opportunities to many new topics!
3) You earn 25 points per post in the Belts of Honor system. Score! Furthermore, if you would like to be the Yakezie Produce Review Team Leader, you’ll get an extra 25 points every month.
4) You’ll gain tremendous exposure by interacting with many of the members and readers and bring them over to your site.
5) You’ll build relationships with publishers, agents, and publicists which is key if you eventually want to publish your own book! Do you realize how hard it is to get the book industry world to write back to you when you’re pitching your own book proposal? If you help the publishers, agents, and publicists, they will remember your efforts the next time you need their help.
6) Often times you’ll get to build relationships with the expert authors themselves. When I wrote a book review on “Your Money Ratios“, Charles Farrell was very happy to grant an interview, and answer all my financial questions which have been bugging me for a while over the phone and on e-mail. I’m sure Charles would be happy to help out again if I just asked.
7) You’ll become proficient at doing book reviews and will probably be contacted by publishers to do them on your site directly. In fact, after you do the book review, you can simply ask the publisher/agent/publicist whether you can host your own giveaway on your site and I’m sure they will oblige.
8] You’ll be helping in the Yakezie Scholarship vertical, which is a place where we want to give back to the community.
LET’S ROLL
For every single book review and giveaway I’ve done at Financial Samurai, I’ve managed to secure 2 to 3 books per giveaway. With a platform like ours, perhaps we can lift that giveaway number to 5.
We’ll start off with books, and will likely gradually morph into doing other products as they come. Please let me know if you are interested in signing up to be a part of the Yakezie Product Review team!
If you have any other ideas on what we should use the weekend for at Yakezie.com, please feel free to let us know! We’ll just ensuring the Member Posts are all up and ready to go for the next several months, which means we’ve got some time to do a lot more writing as well.
Best,
Sam
* Note: Click the following for Yakezie registration and Yakezie Member Badges.
Count me in! I have a couple of review copies sitting on my desk I’ve been going through so I can post about them on my blog, but I love free books and I’d be happy to do some more for the Yakezie.
Excellent Mike. Will count you in for sure. When u back from vacay? Looks like we have three Members who’d like to be Product Review Leaders.
I’ll be back sometime 8/28. I don’t have to be Team Leader necessarily, but I’d definitely like to contribute.
Enjoy Napa!
Very good idea Sam to make the weekends for promos, giveaways, and announcements! Sunday mornings may be good, like the Sunday morning paper.
Yes-I WOULD LOVE TO DO BOOK REVIEW(S). I’m especially equipped to revew the more technical, finance, & investing type books. Looking forward to giving back!
Would LOVE to do some book reviews! I’m constantly reading, so I think this would be a great way to get my name/blog out there a bit as well as do something I enjoy.
Great opportunity! Let’s do it!
I can also review at least one product or book a month. I’d prefer products since that sounds really interesting! Thanks!
I love books and the products sounds interesting. I am definitely interested in reviewing. Thanks for this opportunity. I will be happy to be part of the review team!
Cool, it looks like we’ve got a team of 5.
* Wealth Informatics
* Budgeting In The Fun Stuff
* Jon DeGroff
* Barbara Friedberg
* Mike At Saving Money Today
I’ll go contact the publishers to send the books directly to you. I’ll make the introductions, and basically they’ll send you a book, you put up the review, and highlight the contest. The winners will be sent books directly from the publisher.
Please e-mail over your respective addresses for the publishers to send to, and I’ll build the data and have it for future reviews and such. And if you prefer, you can always just send your mailing address to the publisher themselves.
Thanks Yakezie Product Review Team! For others interested, we’ll make room.
Count me in Sam
If there is still room, I would love to also!
I’d also be interested in participating. I can’t do them all the time, but I’d be happy to do one or two, especially ones on frugal living or personal finance (investing, etc.) for newbies type books, as that’s where my focus is and where my audience seems to be.
OK, sounds good guys. Will add you to the Product Review team.
* Beating Broke
* Eventual Millionaire
* The Saved Quarter
I think the best way to communicate is to get the forums up and running with a “Product Review Page.” Whenever something comes in, I can just list the info (bio, email, name) of the person who wants their product review, and the Team can pick and choose as they come in.
After each publicist contacts me, I’ll have a template response if I think the product is review worry and introduce them to you guys and say that one of the Product Review team members will be in touch.
The forums are going to be instrumental in a lot of things going on here. Can’t wait for Chris to finalize it!
Thanks team!
Sam
I’d love to help out with product reviews! I’ve enjoy doing them and would like to get back into it again.
I’m in. I could realistically read then write 1 book review every 6-8 weeks or so. Looking forward to tomorrow’s blogger intros!
If you need another reader/reviewer, I would love to join the team.
Count me in, if there’s room. I’ve recently cleared out my “to read” pile specifically to make room for reviewing more books.
I would love to be a part of the book review team. I could probably do a book every 6 weeks or so. If you are looking for a specialty, I can specialize in books about economics or Christian personal finance – or any other PF topic if necessary.
Awesome stuff :)…. I am too backed up myself to commit to anymore book reviews right now but I will certainly see if any review opps are available if I catch up :).
Perhaps what we can do is for those who also have offers from publicists to do book reviews, to offer out the reviews to others to do here! Thoughts? I’m offering out 5 books right now and have been in touch with 5 YPRT members tonight.
Hey Sam,
I’m up for a book review! I will be starting courses within a couple of weeks, but I think I’ll have the time to do at least one book every now and then.
oh how cool. I love having something to look forward to on the weekends. I want to read more books this year too and stop watching so much tv. :)
I wanted to start reading again, but it would take away from “valuable” blogging time, lol. I’ve actually compromised by listening to audio books on my way to work (thank you public library and online downloads).
Sam, does this offer still hold? I am very interested. I have been traveling with my family, but not school has started and it is a very good time for me to reorganize my time and priorities, and I would LOVE to fit this in. Books, products – whatever. If you have stuff for kids, that’s right up my alley. Family/household finances, ditto. But I’ll read anything. I hope I’m not too late. Great job going with this site! I’ll be adding my member post to the queue soon.
Um, “now” school has started…
Hi Jolyn, will try to get you in. You’ve got to register first though. Thnx
How have I not seen this until now?!? I think my first comment on your site was how impressed I was with the free books!
With my recent injurt, I’ve got plenty of downtime so guess I need to swing over to my profile and check in!
Best –