Some (but not all) of the links you’ll find on Parlor City Sound will lead you to Amazon products and product categories where you can buy stuff. If you click one of these links and buy something, we earn a commission on that sale, at no additional cost to you.
You’ve probably seen disclaimers/ disclosures on other websites where they use the word “affiliate” a bunch. That’s what we’re talking about here, too. Affiliate marketing describes a vendor (in this case, Amazon) paying a website (that’s us) a commission (a percentage of the profit) for pointing a customer in their direction, if doing so results in a sale.
If you click an Amazon link on our website and buy something from Amazon, Amazon pays us a commission. We also allow Google AdSense to share advertisements on our site. We earn revenue when you see these ads or click on them, though we don’t earn any commission from sales if you buy through those AdSense links.
Why is Parlor City Sound selling out ‘monetizing’?
We’re required, both by law and by Amazon, to fully disclose our use of affiliate marketing links on our website. And we surely could’ve just slapped a little disclaimer into each article with affiliate links in them and called it a day. But when we started Parlor City Sound, revenue prospects weren’t a part of that discussion. And with so much of the Internet dominated by slimy, greedy monetization gibberish, we decided to take a step toward transparency and forwardness and clearly define our monetization efforts.
Operating Parlor City Sound costs money. We’d like to be able to compensate our small, dedicated team for all of their hard work, too. And we’d like to take our support of the music scene and our community a step further than simply writing about it, sponsoring and hosting events and giving away nifty prizes. So we decided to start monetizing the website, hopefully doing so in ways that don’t take away from your experience here.
What decision process goes into displaying affiliate marketing links?
We want all of our content at Parlor City Sound to be as useful to you, our readers, as humanly possible. We take our time to exhaustively research topics before writing guides. And when we decided to start including affiliate marketing links in our content, we set some pretty strict rules for what products those links are allowed to point toward.
Simply put, we will NEVER tell you we like a product because someone paid us to say that. If a company wants to send us their products to review, we’re more than happy to accept them. But these reviews will be honest, objective, fair, and rational. We do not accept any form of compensation for promoting products, ideas, or opinions.
Our policy regarding affiliate marketing links is pretty simple. We’ll use affiliate links only when they point to something relevant, and we’ll never encourage you to buy a product unless we genuinely believe it’s worth it. In other words, we’d endorse that product whether Amazon (or anyone else) gave us a commission or not. So if they want to compensate us for sharing our own honest opinions, great!
If we mention a specific product, we try to point toward a relevant Amazon product or category page. If we didn’t have affiliate links to share, we’d be linking to something else there instead—a manufacturer’s product information page, a product listing on another website we aren’t affiliated with, etc.
How exactly does Parlor City Sound generate revenue?
Parlor City Sound is compensated through:
- Advertisements from Google AdSense
- Affiliate marketing links from Amazon
- “Subscriptions” through Patreon (Patreon subscribers don’t actually get anything for subscribing, apart from our love and admiration)
We also intend to roll out other monetization efforts in the future, including (but possibly not limited to):
- Selling static advertising space to local businesses (more on that in a bit)
- Selling merchandise (t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, etc.)
- Publishing books and white papers
- Selling compilation CDs
- Hosting live music events
… And here are the ways we won’t monetize this website
- We will NEVER sell your information to someone else. We also promise to try and use a lot of curse words and laugh maniacally if someone offers us money for your personal information.
- We will NEVER publish “sponsored content“. We don’t use the word “hate” on this site too often, but we’ll gladly say we hate those phony “sponsored content” articles posing as real news. We flatly reject any and all offers to publish sponsored content on our website. Every article you’ll find on Parlor City Sound is written by us, saying what we ourselves believe.
- We will NEVER accept sponsored “guest posts”. Some sites accept money from others to have a “guest” (one of their writers, an influencer, or some other shill) write an article for that site. It’s basically another spin on sponsored content. If we have guest writers, they’re actual guests. They did not pay us money to share their opinions.
Does Parlor City Sound sell advertising space in any other ways?
We don’t, but we’d be open to doing so. We’ve had a few discussions about the prospects of selling static advertising space related to the music industry (music stores, venues, etc.) and local businesses in the 607 region in general. If you represent a business interested in advertising on Parlor City Sound, definitely reach out and let us know.
Can I pay you guys money to review my band’s new album or write a profile on us?
You could, but that would be pretty silly, and we’d end up giving the money right back to you. Parlor City Sound does not accept money for profiles, reviews, interviews, news, etc. If you’re a musician in the 607 region and you’re doing something newsworthy (releasing an album, gigging, touring, etc.), please feel free to drop us a line and we’ll write about you, entirely free of charge.
If you really want to “compensate” Parlor City Sound for promoting your music, tell a friend about us. Like/ follow/ share us on social media. We’d love that!
Does Parlor City Sound accept donations?
We haven’t as of our writing this, but we definitely would. So long as it’s understood that a donation is just a donation, and doesn’t buy you special access, privileges, or anything else. You can donate via our Patreon page (as of our writing this, you’d be the first!), or make one-time donations by contacting us. Please be aware that we’ll likely praise you on social media unless you ask us to keep it anonymous.
Can my company send you guys a product and get you to review it?
Yes you can, however:
- We only review music-related products. This includes instruments, equipment, tools, accessories, etc.
- We only review music hailing from the 607 region of New York, and music with deep ties to our region
- Our review will be entirely honest and objective, even if you’re giving us a product free of charge
- We don’t accept compensation of any kind for our reviews
- You’d be entirely responsible for shipping and handling costs (both ways, if you want that product back)
- Don’t send us stickers unless you’re fully prepared for us to keep those stickers and stick them on things
Where can I learn more about all of this stuff?
If you’re interested, check out Amazon’s affiliate marketing program here and Google’s AdSense program here. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line!