How this site is supported & why no outside ads or affiliate programs

The condensed bottom line answer to how this site is suppported is:

• This site is supported by your membership fees and from the sales of materials Yvon Prehn and contributors (in the works as this is launched) of this site produce.
• We believe the worker is worthy of their hire. If the materials are useful for you, we believe you will pay to access them.
• It costs far more in time and money to do this than I ever imagined when I started, it is a great adventure and I am trusting will be a succussful one in serving church communicators.
• If you agree with this approach and what’s here—become a member and tell your friends about it!

This rather lengthy rant that follows answers questions about:

• Why there is no outside advertising on this site, no flashing ads or blinking images.
• My opinion on the pernicious nature of the Affiliate system and why I won’t participate in it.
• Why I do tell you about the books offered by my ministry.

Why no outside advertising on this site

This is not a decision I made quickly, but one that reasons have built up for in the course of many years. It first started when I was a young writer and I was quite excited when I was asked to write for a major Christian magazine—I won’t tell you who, you’ll understand why in a minute.

It was an article reviewing a number of Bible study programs. I worked for months going over the programs and writing the article. I sent it in; they loved the content. Then I got the phone call. I was told to modify a section  because the magazine had received a significant amount of advertising money for one of the companies I’d reviews and wasn’t very impressed with. To my shame, I did what they told me to do. I never did that again.

I quickly learned that this practice was common and that the line between editorial and advertising was quite permeable, even in otherwise highly respected Christian communications. I could not come to terms with it. I never wrote for the previous publication again and quit doing paid reviews. I may not have all the gadgets or software or some of the cutting edge tools I’d really like to have, but all I have I’ve paid for. I don’t accept free software or hardware, even “for review.” Some folks might be strong enough to take these things and not be influenced; I’m not. I want too much to be nice. If someone gives me something, I have a hard time telling them it’s junk.

Writing on the web has similar challenges, everybody wants you to take their ads. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been approached with all sorts of pitches to do that, but I just can’t. So many reasons—the junking up of space, the distractions, the garbage that is often pushed are part of the reasons, also:

**I want church communicators to be at peace when they come to my website. No flashing images, ads, or blinking links to click. As a side note, that’s also the reason there are no “thumbnail” images on every article on my home page. I don’t see how they add to the meaning of articles and I think they can greatly distract. Once you click on an article you are interested in, you’ll see images, videos, PDFs if they are intrinsic to the content.

**I want the messages, including the advertisements which I do have, which are only for products that I and other people associated with the site create, be of one voice to help church communicators.

**I do believe that the worker is worthy of hire and if my materials are useful to you that you will purchase them and I’ll make a fair living.

**To enable me to create the training materials, the videos, podcasts, articles, Great Idea Swap publications is why I’ve decided to make this a membership site. I’m very excited about this system as a way to produce consistent income so I (and I hope to involve others) can produce consistent materials to quip and encourage church communicators.

The pernicious nature of the Affiliate system and why I won’t participate

On this website, I work hard to research and tell you about sites and services of benefit to church communicators. In addition, I consider it a responsibility from the Lord to warn you about what I consider dangers of the web and the Affiliate system, which I see growing like a kudzu vine, entwining itself all over the web is a danger that needs discussion.

Some of you reading this may not even be aware of this system or how it works, so first I will explain what it is, what I consider the dangers of it, and why my ministry will not participate in it.

The Affiliate system explained:

The Affiliate system is where the creator of either a product or service sets up an “affiliate program” as a way to generate income for people who recommend or advertise their product. If another website endorses or advertises the product or service and someone reading that site clicks on the endorsement or advertisement and makes a purchase, the owner of the website will receive a commission from the creator of the Affiliate program. If you have a website and want to make money, you simply need to sign up for Affiliate programs, recommend the products or show ads and wait for the money to come in. The tracking is all done by affiliate software; it is invisible to the purchaser. It seems like such a great idea— a really easy, harmless way to make money.

But all is not as it seems and having recently been bombarded with offers to become an affiliate of numerous products and services and also having purchased something I later realized was the subject of affiliate distortion, I feel it is important to share my concerns.

The costs to me to share concerns

What I am sharing is not done lightly. I have been tempted to become part of this system and have had numerous people encourage me to do so, but after much time in prayer and consideration, I have decided not to do this. This is in spite of the reality that I know I could make a lot of money by participating in affiliate programs—people and a lot of them, tend to check out and buy what I recommend. Right now, I honestly need an income. My speaking income has ceased and I am still building up my membership site.

What I am sharing is what I believe the Lord has impressed on my heart, for my ministry. I cannot presume to speak for anyone else participating in these programs or advertising in general, but following are my reasons and concerns why I don’t participate in Affiliate programs:

Why I don’t participate:

The affiliate relationship is not immediately clear on websites

In many, many web endorsement situations it is not clear that the person recommending a product or software is receiving money from it. Because of that, a naïve reader can make a decision to purchase a product for the wrong reasons—believing an honest endorsement that was in reality a marketing pitch.

I felt victimized from this situation recently. I purchased a website template (and finances are incredibly tight right now and I agonized over spending the money) because I thought if I learned how to use it, that it would tremendously help church folks. It was only after wrestling with it for a couple of weeks that I realized that what had been so gushingly endorsed by several different sites about this particular template system, did not make it helpful, it was merely non-standard and actually very difficult to use. I’m not going to name the software right now, because I want to explore some things more and if my conclusions are the same, I’ll warn you. But I would not have made the purchase if I realized what was going on initially. The research I later did revealed that the glowing endorsements were made by “affiliates” of this software and numerous people complained about these sites when they also realized that the gushing comments could not be trusted because they were made by people interested more in making money than in giving honest evaluations.

That opened my eyes and since then I see site after site, recommendation after recommendation based, it seems, primarily on affiliate income potential . I’ve realized when people mention something on their site that is only marginally related to their topic, it is usually a mention motivated by money.

Big money and price inflation

I’m not talking about people getting small change for this. Rates range from 5% up to 40% of the asking price for the item. In some of the software packages of moderate- to-low pricing ($45-$90) it would not be uncommon for them to give affiliate rates of 30% or more. That kind of money ($15-$30) for one little click and a mention is extraordinarily tempting.

The harm it can do in integrity to the person making the affiliate recommendation is only one danger of this system. It also causes price inflation. The person buying the product isn’t just paying for the product, they are paying the commission to the affiliate.

I’ve had numerous people ask me for an affiliate program for them to refer people to my materials and for them to sell my materials. I turned them down because that would mean that I would have to sell my materials for much more than I do to afford their commission. I have had many people tell me I sell my materials for way too little and I ought to get with the system, raise my prices, and recruit affiliates. I won’t do that. I try to price my materials so anyone can purchase them for kingdom work. I try to set a fair markup for my work and market considerations.

I won’t raise prices to fund what I consider a pernicious pricing system. I’m starting to greatly resent purchasing anything from a vendor who has an affiliate system in place. If I’ve come into the site from a search engine, not via a affiliate link, I’d like to get the actual price of the item without the affiliate markup—but that isn’t possible.

Costs beyond money

Our time is precious. We only have limited hours on this earth to work for the Kingdom and to do our part in fully fulfilling the Great Commission. Setting up affiliate relationships, creating ad, and endorsements, following up, all that sort of thing takes time.

As I’ve considered all the Affiliate options I have to evaluate the reality that I have only a limited number of hours in my day. I want to create a training site and resources for church communicators and I don’t have enough hours in the day to do all I want to do. I don’t have time for the Affiliate game.

Just avoiding this systems is becoming difficult. In working on setting up my training site, I have signed up to learn how to do that from two groups that I thought were reputable and respected. Though much of their advice has been helpful, I have been disappointed that on both, a high priority has been (actually #2 item for one system) to “Set up your affiliate program.” This was recommended before putting up content. This same site is sending me continuous “opportunities” e.g. buy something from one of his Affiliate buddies, to make my site better. I did not sign up for that bother and as soon as I learn a few more technical things I need to learn will say a permanent goodbye.

I choose to spend my time creating the content and structure of a site that will be useful. My site and the site I am building will have a resource section—but it will be a tab you have to intentionally click on. I promise you NOT ONE resource will be paying me any commission to list them. There will only be ones created by my ministry or people and resources I truly trust and recommend.

Eye pollution and mind messing

That’s what many sites have become today: a mire of advertisements, flashing images, and visual junk. When desktop publishing was first invented with talked about the ransom note school of design where every available piece of clipart and five different typefaces were crammed onto a page. They truly are ransom notes today because you have to look past and navigate around Google ad placements to read anything of value.

I am so tired of this. On the new site I am creating I am seriously considering almost no images on the opening page, other than maybe a link for an intro video. I would like you to come on my site, take a deep breath and be at peace. Images that illustrate communications would be on separate article pages, not blasting you on the front page (my current design makes all this harder to do). We’ll see if my idealism can work out in reality.

Pushing affiliate purchases is not conducive to a quiet and peaceful site and I don’t want to contribute to eye pollution.

So how are sites supposed to make money?

I am not opposed to commerce or to payment for goods and services. Far from it—my husband and I work at income producing jobs ( he is a handyman bi-vocational pastor) so we can do ministry work for smaller churches without charge. The worker is worthy of their hire, but I think it should be for honest work or products, not incorrect, insincere or unthinking recommendations to purchase a price-inflated product based on affiliate marketing schemes.

Donations are fine with me—lots of shareware and free sites are donation supported. But that is free, open, and honest. I may set that up in the future for some things.

My site at present makes its income from the membership fees for this site.This site provides 24/7 online access to training materials, templates and other forms of instruction that would be difficult to sell as books or CDs. The videos have the same content of material available 24/7 as my seminars did that cost way too much money to put on.

With the membership fees I can provide all sorts of things that take lots of time to create  and either provide them as part of the membership site or for things that are optional and take lots of extra time (the Great Idea Swap materials fit in here) for very low additional fees. The membership fee will be a clear cost related to the services people will receive.

The site also makes income from from the sale of books and CDs from my www.lulu.com/yvonprehn site. These materials are created either by me or members of the Effective Church Communications contributors.

When I recommend products or services, and I do that a lot because there are a lot of good things out there, I want my readers to know I do it because I like the product or service, not because I’m paid to say something. I was very tempted with a review I did on Animoto to become part of their Affiliate program when I was working on developing the site. Income for the basics of life was a huge challenge  (lots going out to create the training site, nothing coming in) and they have a very high paying program—but I just couldn’t do that. I love the program, but I realized if I am tied to it via an affiliate relationship, what happens if I find other, similar video creation programs? What if I like another one better and this one has no affiliate system? Will I recommend that? How will I start to evaluate what I review? On who pays and who doesn’t? Or how much they pay?

I determined I did not want to even start down that path.

My opinions on software, products or services are mine alone and I know I am far from perfect or objective in my opinions. I don’t see or know all there is to know about any area of communications and I invite you to correct, challenge and interact with me on all I write and instruct my shortcomings. Though I cannot claim perfection, I can promise you honesty and integrity. If I tell you I like or use or am excited about something, it is because I am—not because somebody paid me to or will pay me to be excited.

In conclusion, two things

One, be careful of affiliate programs. Read any recommendation with an eye out for them. If anything says: “Click here to go to this or that product,” that usually means it is an affiliate situation. Some sites will tell you they are an affiliate and that’s great, but just because they are honest about their relationship does not mean their recommendations are untainted. The bottom line is check out those recommendations.

Two, my site and ministry exists only because of your support. If you like what I do, first of all, please sign up for the membership. There are so many materials that will help you and I will continuously be adding more.

I also hope you purchase some of my materials. My books (available at www.lulu.com/yvonprehn) on Church Bulletins and Connection Cards are absolutely essential for any church. My book on Back to Basics will help anyone learn or brush up on basic communication creation. The new Download Storefront on this website has a great selection of materials. If they are worthy and useful, I pray the people who need them will purchase them and tell their friends about them so the ministry can be supported. My commitment to church communicators is to continue to spend my time creating these products and to not waste any of it entwining myself in the kudzu web of affiliate marketing.

I take my position as a teacher and encourager of church communicators extremely seriously. I spend a lot of time in prayer and study of God’s Word seeking discernment and a biblical viewpoint for all I do. I may be too weak, but I find that if I participated in the affiliate programs of different products, I could not help but be influenced by the ones that pay large amounts. I can’t honestly say I’d promote one over another or competing ones without paying attention to the money involved. Because I am not strong enough, I have to avoid them.

UPDATE NOTE: since I wrote this the Federal Trade Commission has issued a ruling that in very brief summary (google it if you want to know more) shows they are quite concerned about this situation. Their ruling requires that affiliate marketers let you know clearly their relationship with the products they endorse. It will take time to see how or if these rulings will be followed. No matter what, you need to be careful.

Why I do tell you about the books offered by my ministry

After articles that are excerpts of books I’ll let you know where they came from so if you wish to purchase the whole book you can. I tired not to be obnoxious about this. After much internal arguing with myself that went something like this:

“Leave them off, don’t be a bother.”

“That’s not nice, what if people want the whole thing?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to be pushy.”

“Making information available isn’t pushy….pushy is audio messages that come on when you don’t click them and don’t shut up.”

“I want people to read  and learn what they want without distraction.”

“So you want them to spend hours searching for related materials when they could just buy the cheap download and be done with it?”

On and on it went……………..

. . . . .I finally compromised with myself. I decided it really wasn’t nice not to let you know if the selection came from another book or CD and it also wasn’t nice not to let you know where you could get the whole thing without wasting time on a Google search. But I still did’t want to be a bother, so I am added that information at the bottom of the page, so it won’t be a bother or intrude. I’m already doing that as a reminder of various things, such as when materials come from my archives (and the PDF is as good as it is ever going to get), or to remind you that I don’t take affiliate or advertising money.

Feel free to totally skip any of these footnote items after you’ve read them once.  The footnotes will look something like this:

This excerpt is from Yvon Prehn’s first book on desktop publishing, The Desktop Publishing Remedy, published in 1993 by David C. Cook. The book has gone through numerous editions and reprintings since then and is still a useful source of basic instruction for church communicators. All of the chapters are for sale in both download and spiral bound versions at http://www.lulu.com/yvonprehn under the title of Back to Basics, foundational skills for church communicators.

Probably more than you wanted or needed in this financial explanation rant

If you are still reading—many blessings to you! Your continued prayers are humbly sought.

This site at times seems like a grand experiement of crazy faith, though I’m doing it I feel in obedience to the Lord to a calling received over 20 years ago to help church communicators. I barely knew how to use a computer then and could never have imagined the internet.

The tools have changed unimaginably and I imagine the changes will continue, but one thing won’t change: my call, passion, desire and committment to help church communicators create materials that help their churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.