What affiliate links do you use?

[alhawke]

I think I'm real late to this party. I'm curious to see what you guys use to garner a few more $. I have a website and get a little bit of traffic there. I also am wide and have my books in all major retailers.

I'm reticent with Zon. My fear is all those stories about writers on Amazon getting their account banned from using their affiliate in emails or in their ebooks--well, there's one method that's obviously a no-no. I worry that I could trip over other rules through Amazon inadvertently. That would make this hardly worth it.

What about Smashwords? GooglePlay, etc...

[R. C.]

Well, okay, let's see...

My Amazon Affiliate account has been cancelled TWICE because I used "Kindle ebooks" in a Google AD keywords.  So, there's that.

Other affiliates I tried have been pointless. For example Taboola, is good for ADs in non-US markets but it paid poorly on the affiliate side.

Lately, for about six weeks, I have been avoiding 'Zon and narrowly focusing on marketing a couple of items. My site traffic has improved but not enough to warrant the trouble of another try at affiliate marketing.

Finally, organic "sales" through D2D and Smashwords have ticked up. I pushed the first book of a series into permafree. A five day run of ADs using keyword "Free" definitely improved my site's indexing. Without any ADs or efforts, I am seeing consistent downloads across platforms and the hits to my site are coming from several new search engines.  Heck, Yahoo, which I never use, is driving traffic to my site.

Summary, my take, which is an educated opinion, is: If a site is not pulling 10k+ unique daily visits, affiliate marketing is hardly worth the trouble.

R.C.

[Eric Thomson]

I use the Book2Reads universal links and B2R has a built-in capability to accept affiliate codes. Easy peasy. For example, I added my Amazon affiliate code once in B2R and now whenever someone uses a universal link to buy one of my books on Amazon, I get a few pennies. It does add up when I put out a new release. B2R can also take other retailer affiliate codes, but I haven't bothered, mainly because getting affiliate accounts on Kobo or Google Play, for example, struck me as too cumbersome for what little patience I can muster on my good days.

[alhawke]

Summary, my take, which is an educated opinion, is: If a site is not pulling 10k+ unique daily visits, affiliate marketing is hardly worth the trouble.

That's what I've thought, so far. Thanks.

I use the Book2Reads universal links and B2R has a built-in capability to accept affiliate codes.

D2D is a possibility. I use their universal link all the time. So, you simply use the Amazon affiliate link? I don't sell Amazon through D2D but that might not matter with their universal link.  I'll look into this.

[Eric Thomson]

No I don't sell on Amazon through D2D. You don't even have to sell anything via D2D to use B2R. And yep, I simply enter my Amazon affiliate code and done.

[Post-Crisis D]

I mainly use Amazon, though I haven't actively promoted the site(s) using it in a long time.  I don't use the links in eMails or eBooks or anything that I know of that you're not supposed to do.  I also don't use Amazon affiliate links on my author site though.  I think it's allowed, but I've never bothered with it.  I'm just happy if someone buys one of my books.

In any event, someone might browse your or other books on your site(s), click a link, go to Amazon and then maybe buy the book and then maybe another book and, you know, while they're shopping, they realize  they need a new dishwasher and add that to the cart.  Then they buy and, you know, cha-ching for you because they bought a big ticket item and you get a nicer chunk of money than selling a book, though it's a win-win for you if they also bought your book.  Then again, if they dumped your book and just bought the dishwasher, well, no complaints.

[alhawke]

I'm giving it a try. It was easy to set up.

I did hook it into D2D but I changed the setting on every book I have a landing page for with Bookfunnel, cause now I have to remember to not advertise the affiliate link with Zon when joining book fairs with other authors. That'd count as a violation through email.

I haven't looked into affiliates yet with other retailers. The thing is, don't know if I'll bother. It makes sense to me that I could earn on Amazon as its so huge. The others are book retailers only. Still thinking bout it.

[alhawke]

I use Bookbub ads regularly to promote my books. Does anyone know if affiliates are allowed?

I read an article mentioning a rule that you can't send a link to grow your newsletter. But that's it as far as BB link rules are concerned. Is it okay to use affiliate links advertising Amazon? Do any of you do it?