Are you overlooking potential book income? Or, worse yet, relinquishing it to someone else?
Jeff Bezos Doesn’t Toss Away Cash
He didn’t become one of the richest people in the world by being foolish. JB knows that people work harder when they receive rewards — like the cash incentives offered via Amazon affiliate programs.
Affiliates selling merchandise through the Zon programs earn a percentage. When someone accesses an affiliate link for a book, even if they don’t buy it, Amazon sets a twenty-four hour cookie in that person’s browser.
Let’s accompany William Watson on a virtual shopping trip. He clicks on an affiliate link to a book about patio furniture, and it takes him to his favorite Amazon store. Amazon sets a cookie. However, William purchases patio furniture instead of the book. Darn. The writer loses a sale, but the affiliate earns a percentage on the furniture and anything else William buys before the browser cookie expires.
If William clicks on a regular link, guess who gets paid the bonus percentage?
Not an affiliate.
Not the writer.
Amazon doesn’t have to pay anyone, and Jeff’s bank account swells.
If you aren’t an affiliate yet, what are you waiting for? Here are the sites:
US: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
UK: https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/
DE: https://partnernet.amazon.de/
FR: https://partenaires.amazon.fr/
IT: https://programma-affiliazione.amazon.it/
CA: https://associates.amazon.ca/
JP: https://affiliate.amazon.co.jp/
ES: https://afiliados.amazon.es/
IN: https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/
BR: https://associados.amazon.com.br/
MX: https://afiliados.amazon.com.mx/
CN: https://associates.amazon.cn/
How to Format Your Affiliate Links
Each affiliate site provides detailed information. However, here’s the condensed version for basic links at Amazon.com.
Begin with the Amazon URL in the format as described in my last post, and follow with a forward slash (/); for example:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/
Then, add your affiliate tag. Your link should look something like:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRNB5SC/?tag=[your affiliate tag]
Use the ?tag= code whenever you link to any Amazon page, including their main site and your author page.
More Offerings from Amazon
Amazon Associates Link Builder WordPress plug-in, a free plug-in that generates shortcodes
Amazon Associates OneLink international traffic monetizer (requires the ability to edit the html of your website)
Other Online Booksellers Offer Affiliate Programs as Well
Check these links for more information.
Chapters: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/affiliate/welcome/
iTunes/iBooks: https://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/affiliate
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/about/affiliate
Have You Ever Wondered How Book Promotion Sites Stay in Business?
If you calculate the number of books they promote, and multiply by the cost per promotion, you’ll see that they’ll never get rich. But if they belong to affiliate programs …
Links, Links, Links — A Different Link for Every Country. Is There a Better Way?
The short answer is yes. Called universal short-links, they’re also known as:
geotargeted book links
global book links
global short links
international book links
UBLs
universal book links
universal short links for books
universal URLs
UBL sites provide a single link that redirects prospective readers to their local online retailer. However, be aware that some Canadian readers prefer to order Kindle books from Amazon.com, not Amazon.ca, because of the better selection at the USA site. This might also apply to other countries, although I can’t verify it.
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
Booklinker.net — Powered by geniuslink
“One link for your book that works for all Amazon stores.”
“Sounds great,” you say, “but how can they afford to offer this as a free service?”
If an author doesn’t have affiliate IDs with some (or all) of the Amazons, Booklinker receives affiliate revenue from those unassociated Amazon links, and Booklinker snags the affiliate percentage for other purchases made before the cookie expires. So if someone buys a large-ticket item, Booklinker receives the percentage, not the author.
Booklinker allows you to choose from the following base URLs:
myBook.to
viewBook.at
getBook.at
Enter the Amazon URL for each of your books in the format described in my last post; for example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XRNB5SC
Give your link a name. For my book The Writer’s Lexicon, I chose lex. My final link: getBook.at/lex.
Important: Do not follow your link with a trailing slash (/).
For each link, you will be able to monitor click-throughs.
Warning: Booklinker.net says they will redirect users to the appropriate author page via their viewAuthor.at and author.to links, but the process isn’t reliable for many countries. Rather than confuse users, I advise against using it.
Books2Read — Draft2Digital.com’s Linker
According to the Books2Read site:
Books2Read is a reader-facing site featuring book discovery tools developed by indie-publishing service Draft2Digital. We’re 100% indie and 100% awesome at finding books that will make you happy.
Books2Read will help you keep track of your favorite indie authors’ new releases, discover books, and find great reads at the digital store of your choice.
We currently offer two free services: New Release Notifications and Universal Book Links. Check back soon to sign up and start getting great recommendations for indie books. …
Although I haven’t tried Books2Read, I’ll provide the book link for one of my author friends, Mari Christie:
You’ll notice that Mari’s URL directs users to an intermediate page with links to sites such as Amazon, Apple, Nook, Kobo, Scribd, Thalia.de, Smashwords, and others. When people click on a link, Books2Read asks them if they want the seller to be set as their preferred store, with the option Don’t show me this message again, before continuing to the store.
Examining the Amazon link, you’ll notice that it includes Mari’s affiliate tag. Likewise with other affiliate programs she has joined.
Note: A serious deficiency of Books2Read is their inability to provide links for print-only books.
Other Sites
Although these sites redirect to the correct geographical store, they may not offer affiliate tag functionality.
Another Approach
Create your own book page and provide its URL to users. With a book page, you can provide review excerpts, graphics, and separate links for ebooks and print editions. You have control of the look and feel, rather than accepting what another site considers appropriate.
If you want a short link for your book page, try one of the following sites:
Bitly.com
Is.gd
Lnk.direct
Tiny.cc
TinyURL
Warning
Whenever you use a link redirector, you run the risk of the redirector site being temporarily unavailable due to technical problems. Sites also disappear. The people who run them might die; they could go bankrupt, or lose interest, or …
It happens — even with top sites like Google.
Consider this message formerly posted on Google’s redirector, Goo.gl (no longer available):
Starting March 30, 2018, we will be turning down support for goo.gl URL shortener. From April 13, 2018 only existing users will be able to create short links on the goo.gl console. You will be able to view your analytics data and download your short link information in csv format for up to one year, until March 30, 2019, when we will discontinue goo.gl. Previously created links will continue to redirect to their intended destination.
Another Potential Problem
This section describes how Twitter treats URLs, but Facebook and other social media sites follow similar procedures.
Consider a geotargeted book link that you share at Twitter. Your link is something like: https://shortieurl/.
Twitter converts https://shortieurl to https://t.co/anotherurl.
Now users click on https://t.co/anotherurl, which redirects them to https://shortieurl/, which redirects them to your book.
How many opportunities do you see for something to go awry?
Just sayin’ …
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The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
There’s another easy way to create your Amazon links. If you’re an Amazon Associate (ie, affiliate), if you go to a product page when you’re signed into your account, there’ll be a stripe at the top (“SiteStripe”) that makes the link for you. Just click on “Get Link” and then paste that in as your url. You don’t have to worry about adding any other tags.
Thanks, E.D.!
Great post. 🙂
Thanks, Marje!
Thanks for your detailed explanation on affiliate links Kathy. I’m definitely going to look into this! 🙂
🙂 Maybe you’ll get lucky and after clicking on your affiliate link, someone will buy all your books and furnish their house with Amazon purchases.
I’ve toyed with the Amazon Affiliate thing, but not got round to doing anything about it.
As to booklinker, I’ve got all my books linked using it with no apparent problems.
I’ll look further into the Affiliate program. Thank you for this post.
You’re welcome, Vivienne.
Could you share one of your Booklinker links?
Regarding BookLinker, you say the link to the Author page isn’t reliable and you don’t recommend using it. What about the links to the books? If, for instance, a sale is only in US and UK, users in other countries won’t see a sale price, so in this case, not a good idea to use. Is that what you’re recommending?
Thanks!
Definitely, Virginia. If an author has restricted sales to US and UK, and someone from Brazil clicks on a BookLinker URL, it would take the Brazilian reader to a non-existent book page at https://www.amazon.com.br/. I’m not sure if Amazon Brazil would suggest the US version of the book.
Do you have a book with geographical restrictions? Could you share the link?
Kathy, I don’t yet, but will when I run an Amazon Countdown deal. Then it’ll only be US and UK, that’s why I was asking. I’ve changed my drafted newsletter to link directly to US and UK. I don’t participate in any affiliate programs, so that’s not an issue for me.
Good idea.
Have you considered setting up a book page and linking to that in your newsletter? More visitors to your website, more control.
Thanks! I link to my website in my newsletter, but in it, I don’t link to the individual books. My experience as an academic librarian told me that no one (well, students) likes to go through multiple clicks. One click to get where users want to go, so I’ve tried to maintain that thinking with my links. Your blog has been very informative. Thanks again.
Okay, so I’m reading this very early in the morning and the coffee hasn’t quite kicked in yet. Are you suggesting that authors should become affiliates because if someone clicks on the link to their book, even if they buy something else, the author will earn commission on what they buy if it’s within 24 hours of the shopper clicking on the book link?
Exactly, A. The cookie lasts for twenty-four hours unless it’s reset by someone else’s affiliate cookie or the browser’s cookie cache is cleared.