How to pay your authors with Ad Revenue?

[simon]

I am running an multi-author blog. I am planning on taking it to the "next level" where it will get daily updates and posts.

But to be able to do that I need to pay my authors. I don't have the funds to pay/hire them so the only option for me is to share the ad revenue with them.

But how can I do this the best way? Which tools should I use? What should I think of when setting up this ad revenue system?

There are some AdSense revenue sharing plugins for Wordpress. But maybe I should just set up an ad management system and rotate the authors ads? Then they would be able to add YPN, Bidvertiser, etc and not just Google AdSense ads.

I am really confused and would love to get some tips and ideas how to solve all this in the best possible way.

Thanks

[ananya]

I am no authority on this subject, but you may want to check out this plugin AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System

[Bloggeries]

Originally Posted by simon

I am running an multi-author blog. I am planning on taking it to the "next level" where it will get daily updates and posts.

But to be able to do that I need to pay my authors. I don't have the funds to pay/hire them so the only option for me is to share the ad revenue with them.

But how can I do this the best way? Which tools should I use? What should I think of when setting up this ad revenue system?

There are some AdSense revenue sharing plugins for Wordpress. But maybe I should just set up an ad management system and rotate the authors ads? Then they would be able to add YPN, Bidvertiser, etc and not just Google AdSense ads.

I am really confused and would love to get some tips and ideas how to solve all this in the best possible way.

Thanks

I suppose you could make channels and put the appropriate channel code inside the posts. For this to work you'd NEED to put the posts inside the individual bloggeries because if it was sidebar would appear on everyones work not just the author.

Also it would ALL go to you and you'd pay them out...

Just a thought.

[simon]

Originally Posted by ananya

I am no authority on this subject, but you may want to check out this plugin AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System

Does that one work with the new Wordpress?

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

I suppose you could make channels and put the appropriate channel code inside the posts. For this to work you'd NEED to put the posts inside the individual bloggeries because if it was sidebar would appear on everyones work not just the author.

Also it would ALL go to you and you'd pay them out...

Just a thought.

The problem is that I don't want to pay the authors myself. It would be so much easier if they just could run their own adsense ads.

I would also like to decide the placement and sizes myself and keep the ad sharing to the different authors own single pages. Their ads is shown on their posts only and not on other authors posts or on the frontpage etc.

[Bloggeries]

I've never done anything like that but why not just take their ID's and have them put in their adsense code into the posts themselves? This way no room for error really.

[Skolor]

You can most likely put together some sort of quick, dirty *.php file which spits out a few lines of code into the ad box area. I'm considering setting up a ad-sharing forum, much like this, but for computer related issues, and this is how I plan on setting it up. Basically, make a SQL database. 3 columns: ID, User, Their code snippet. Then have your theme parse the *.php file, passing it the author's name, which goes into the SQL database and pulls out the code snippet and puts it into the ad box area.

Now, my handling will be a wee bit more complex, since I plan on incorporating it into PHPBB, and including a topic-based Karma type system for payouts, but its the same basic idea.

The major plus to this is that it means everyone handles their own ads separately. They've got their own ads that they sell, which only show up on their pages. If you want to, make a little more complex, add a if statement including a random number, so that half the time your ad box is displayed instead of theirs, or some such thing.

[simon]

Originally Posted by Bloggeries

I've never done anything like that but why not just take their ID's and have them put in their adsense code into the posts themselves? This way no room for error really.

Could work. But then what if they get banned from AdSense and or use the wrong ad sizes, colors etc? Then you would have to manually go in to each of their posts and change. That is too much work.

Originally Posted by Skolor

You can most likely put together some sort of quick, dirty *.php file which spits out a few lines of code into the ad box area. I'm considering setting up a ad-sharing forum, much like this, but for computer related issues, and this is how I plan on setting it up. Basically, make a SQL database. 3 columns: ID, User, Their code snippet. Then have your theme parse the *.php file, passing it the author's name, which goes into the SQL database and pulls out the code snippet and puts it into the ad box area.

Now, my handling will be a wee bit more complex, since I plan on incorporating it into PHPBB, and including a topic-based Karma type system for payouts, but its the same basic idea.

The major plus to this is that it means everyone handles their own ads separately. They've got their own ads that they sell, which only show up on their pages. If you want to, make a little more complex, add a if statement including a random number, so that half the time your ad box is displayed instead of theirs, or some such thing.

Maybe so. But why isn't there any wordpress plugin that does just this!?

[Skolor]

Originally Posted by simon

Maybe so. But why isn't there any wordpress plugin that does just this!?

Because it doesn't come up often enough. Its simple enough to program, maybe not as a plugin, but as a stand alone application it shouldn't be bad at all.

Not to mention, if it came up often enough for it to be useful for someone to make a plugin, no authors would really want to use it.

[simon]

Here is an wordpress plugin that does almost what I want: Author Advertising Plugin

But it seems I cant decide where to place the ads. I have to use fixed placements or sidebar widgets.

[DailyComicsReview]

Great question, I am trying to figure out the same thing for myself in the eventual future so I am interested to see what suggestions people come up with. I was thinking for my site that there would be a minimum that they should post, like once a day, and then you split the revenue equally over everyone who contributed for that day. You still have to pay the people but just do it once a week/month to take care of that.