We get mail

I received this email from a friend whose name I won't mention to protect their identity. I hadn't told anybody that I thought of purchasing ads to increase traffic, so the timing of peculiar.

You should get advertising for loadedmouth with Ghastly's Ghastly comic (http://www.ghastlycomic.com). He lost his sponser because after years of making comics about tentacle rape, chicks with dicks, and bestiality, his sponser finally threw in the towel when he showed man-woman missionary-style sex for the purpose of procreation. His readers are a bunch of sick fucks (like me!), so they'd fit in perfectly for your "sick fucks who like current events" demographic.

Tentacle rape? I'm not sure if I want to place a Loaded Mouth ad next to a reenactment of "Legend of the Overfiend." I received a reply reassuring me that it's not as bad as it sounds, just silly in that tentacle rape kind of way.

And just so you know, there isn't any ACTUAL rape involved in the comics. I'd be pissed if there was. Two of the main characters are just tentacle monsters (similar to the kind found in anime tentacle porn) and one of the other characters is s girl who is really into the whole hentai tentacle rape thing, and she follows them around trying to convince them to indulge this fantasy of hers. One of the monsters is horrified by this idea, while the other keeps trying to, but always ends up with performance problems.

Anyways, with that cleared up, I checked the site out. Found out that if I blow $100, I can get a small ad up there for a month, $300 if I want a large banner ad. These advertising rates are nothing to sneeze at because the site gets 700,000 hits a month, so as far as advertising goes and how many times the ad gets seen, that's pretty much pennies. But, still, parting with $100 is tough these days, and while I'm sure running an ad on there would give me some hits, I'm not sure if spending $100 is worth it if I only add 10-15 hits per day to my average. I'm not sure if this site is the right demographic.

And there's also you people to deal with. ;> Over the past year, Loaded Mouth has slowly built itself into a small, cozy community. The hits have increased, and I've even gained some regular commenters who I don't know personally. I'm not sure what kind of commenters running ads will bring in, but I want to make sure current readers know that I intend to increase the readership of this site, and it probably will probably be a different place a year down the road. I hope my current readers are OK with that.

So, to advertise or not to advertise? It's a matter of how much money I want to blow at this point. I'm thinking about running ads at two places:

Ghastly's Ghastly comic, $100, 700,000 hits a month
eTalkinghead, $12, 60,000 hits a month

eTalkinghead had has a conservative tilt, but I believe they also have a bipartisan readership. And it's cheap. So should I run ads? Any other suggestions for where I should place some ads? And if you think I should run ads, I've added a donation button if you feel like helping me pay for them. I like money. Money is good. :)

[Donations button removed because PayPal is a bunch of assholes. Switching to Amazon soon.]