Well, I think I’m finished with Text-Link-Ads. It’s been almost a month, with not even a single whisper of contact from a potential link-buyer. Now I know this could be because my site is still very small in comparison to the rest of the web but one of TLA’s selling points was they “competitively” priced your links. Guess it wasn’t competitive enough in my niche because I got zip out of it. No loss really, as the signup was free.
If you’ve got a larger forum, and don’t want to handle links yourself you might want to give Text-Link-Ads a try, but if you’re not a bigger site, I wouldn’t waste the time or effort in attempting to have a 3rd party sell your links for you. It will be easier and more profitable of you just manage your text links on your own.
I have never really been a fan of TLA, I think they have a great concept if you don’t want to sell links yourself. But I have had better luck contacting companies for advertising and have had better luck of companies contacting me.
Like you said it was free, so your out nothing.