danr62
Sage
I was reading Ben's thread about the release of his new book when I realized that he wasn't using an affiliate link when linking to his book. At first, I thought it might be against the rules to use affiliate links on this forum, so I checked out his blog. Nope, no affiliate links there either.
In, my opinion, this is a bit of a waste. Amazon's affiliate program is easy to get into. You just need a website. A free blog somewhere will do the trick. I'm not sure if they review sites before approving them, but I do remember that I didn't have any hassle when I applied. The website is here:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
Amazon allows you to link to any of their products with an affiliate link, and earn a comission on anything that is sold through that link. This includes your own books, even though you are already earning a royalty. The comissions are tiered, earning anywhere from 4% to 8.5% of all items shipped based on volume. Some product categories are locked at specific rates, and these can change from time to time. For instance, when Amazon launched myhabit.com, the rates were 15%, probably to get affiliates interested in promoting it. Now, myhabit comissions are locked at 8%.
Now, you might be wondering why this matters if you aren't promoting myhabit or anything other than books. The cool part of Amazon's program is that they cookie the visitors computer for 24 hours and let you earn the comission on anything sold through your affiliate link in that time, even if it's for something completely different from what you are promoting. So, if you link to your book and they decide to buy a stereo while they're there, congratulations.
Lets assume you build a brand name and a decent sized following for your books. Maybe you have a series and your fans are eagerly awaiting your next release. So, you publish the book, price it at 4.99, tweet it, Facebook it, G+ it, blog it, post it here on MS. You do whatever you can to let your fans know your new book is out. Let's imagine you sell 3131 copies directly through your links (along with any extra sales that come from within Amazon itself). 3131 just happens to the threshhold for earning 8.5% comissions. Lets take a look at some numbers:
Roylty without affiliate links: 3131 X $4.99 X .7 = about $10,935. Woohoo!
Comission with affiliate links: 3131 X $4.99 X .085 = about $1,328.
Comission + royalty = about $12,263. Awesome!
Of course, selling 3131 books in a month isn't likely for most of us, even for a new book launch. It's even less likely that you'll sell 3131 books directly through your own links. Still, if you aren't using affiliate links, you're leaving some money on the table, even if it's a small amount.
There's also the possibility of selling other stuff while they're visiting Amazon. In fact, it happens often, because Amazon is so good cross promoting their products with recommendations and the like. I've sold a Kindle Fire, elevator shoes, children's play furniture, MP3s, pet ear cleanser, and a bunch of other random stuff that I never promoted.
Let's say you sell just 100 copies of a book through your affiliate link, which puts you at 6.5% comissions:
$349.30 royalties plus $32.43 = $381.73
Not much but at this level you are almost certain to have a few extra random items in there as well. Many of them will probably be other books. Maybe a Kindle Fire or two so people can read those books. It's a little extra money. It helps.
In, my opinion, this is a bit of a waste. Amazon's affiliate program is easy to get into. You just need a website. A free blog somewhere will do the trick. I'm not sure if they review sites before approving them, but I do remember that I didn't have any hassle when I applied. The website is here:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
Amazon allows you to link to any of their products with an affiliate link, and earn a comission on anything that is sold through that link. This includes your own books, even though you are already earning a royalty. The comissions are tiered, earning anywhere from 4% to 8.5% of all items shipped based on volume. Some product categories are locked at specific rates, and these can change from time to time. For instance, when Amazon launched myhabit.com, the rates were 15%, probably to get affiliates interested in promoting it. Now, myhabit comissions are locked at 8%.
Now, you might be wondering why this matters if you aren't promoting myhabit or anything other than books. The cool part of Amazon's program is that they cookie the visitors computer for 24 hours and let you earn the comission on anything sold through your affiliate link in that time, even if it's for something completely different from what you are promoting. So, if you link to your book and they decide to buy a stereo while they're there, congratulations.
Lets assume you build a brand name and a decent sized following for your books. Maybe you have a series and your fans are eagerly awaiting your next release. So, you publish the book, price it at 4.99, tweet it, Facebook it, G+ it, blog it, post it here on MS. You do whatever you can to let your fans know your new book is out. Let's imagine you sell 3131 copies directly through your links (along with any extra sales that come from within Amazon itself). 3131 just happens to the threshhold for earning 8.5% comissions. Lets take a look at some numbers:
Roylty without affiliate links: 3131 X $4.99 X .7 = about $10,935. Woohoo!
Comission with affiliate links: 3131 X $4.99 X .085 = about $1,328.
Comission + royalty = about $12,263. Awesome!
Of course, selling 3131 books in a month isn't likely for most of us, even for a new book launch. It's even less likely that you'll sell 3131 books directly through your own links. Still, if you aren't using affiliate links, you're leaving some money on the table, even if it's a small amount.
There's also the possibility of selling other stuff while they're visiting Amazon. In fact, it happens often, because Amazon is so good cross promoting their products with recommendations and the like. I've sold a Kindle Fire, elevator shoes, children's play furniture, MP3s, pet ear cleanser, and a bunch of other random stuff that I never promoted.
Let's say you sell just 100 copies of a book through your affiliate link, which puts you at 6.5% comissions:
$349.30 royalties plus $32.43 = $381.73
Not much but at this level you are almost certain to have a few extra random items in there as well. Many of them will probably be other books. Maybe a Kindle Fire or two so people can read those books. It's a little extra money. It helps.