A good friend of mine confided to me recently how much money he has made from the Amazon Associates referral program: it was well into the hundreds of dollars for last month alone. Wow.
The Amazon Associates program, if you don’t know, is really a more subtle form of paid advertising. You sign up with them and get a customized referral URL with a tracking number embedded in it. The idea is that you can take this custom URL, blog about a book or a Segway or a DVD, and link over to Amazon with it. If anyone who clicks through and purchases stuff (it doesn’t even have to be the thing you recommended), you get a cut of whatever they purchase up to $10. Not a bad deal. In fact, it’s better than that—you’d kinda have to be stupid not to use it.
There are entire blogs (like this one) that are dedicated to the Amazon referral program business model. I mean, it’s not a bad side-job if you think about it. This site costs me $50 a year, and a MovableType key (since I’d be making a profit) would cost ~$35 as a one-time fee. That, plus some time to make a sharp looking site and do the editorializing, is all it takes to rake in some serious cash. Probably not enough to make a living, but certainly enough to make some nice pocket money. My friend—who makes recommendations on a forum that he was already reading anyway—suggested that I set up an account with Amazon, and I’m considering the idea.
I mean, I have opinions that people are generally interested in by dint of the fact that people read Our Story. When I recently recommended Evanescence, linking over to Amazon would have been totally legitimate. I could also review good tech books to the advantage of some of my geekier readers. People who know me already know that I think O’Reilly books rule. If I would have recommended a book to them in person, why not do so online, too, and make a couple of bucks from having the knowledge? What’s more, the people who read what I have to write might even want to know my opinion about such products. It all seems like a win-win situation for everyone involved.
But then I’m confronted with worldviews like this (and, perhaps to a more extreme degree, this) and I’m given pause. In the same way I was debating over my overt Google-consciousness when I post up on the Internet, I wonder if I really want to be motivated by the Cash Cow when I even just write. Besides, people are already taking issue with the overt link-obsession that Google’s PageRank has caused in the online community, who wants to give Jeff Bezos that much power as well?
It’s the age-old problem of creative self-expression versus making a pragmatic buck, I guess. I don’t mean to denegrate my friend’s hobby—I actually think it’s a really shrewd and clever way to make some money by doing something that you enjoy. I just think that Our Story isn’t the place for me to do that.
Thoughts?
(Note: of course, if I ever did sign up for the program, this blog would have to “go away.” Amazon expressly states that you cannot mention the program in your advertising site.)
Hey, if it’s an honest avenue for revenue (ooooh, I love that phrase- so rhyme-like), I say it’s cool. But don’t use this blog, make a sub blog… you do know how to make a sub blog Kenny… You have like 10 of them…
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Amazon expressly states that you cannot mention the program in your advertising site.
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that statement alone would be enough for me not to. A site, that sells /books/ requiring you to censor your writings …
But thats just me.
Altp.
Hey man, I am down with the worldview Mark Pilgrim expresses – I make my world work the way I want it to… or at least, I’m trying to. But that doesn’t mean that commerce is evil. i.e. using and working on free software/free documentation doesn’t mean I can’t go to the store and buy a proprietary game. They are not mutually exclusive (in most ways).
I would have no problem with you doing an affiliate link from various things. In fact, like you said, it’s stupid not to. It’s giving money away. In fact, I was thinking about putting up a “shop at amazon and support us” type link on my sites, because, well, it would.
That was my point of view all the way up until your last paragraph, at which point all that went out the window. There is something very sketchy about amazon controlling what you can and can’t blog about, especially when they require you to hide the fact that you are part of the program. That doesn’t make sense, and it’s not acceptable to me. I would think they would want you to use that info to push people to them.. “Hey, I’m an amazon affiliate, so use this link to grab the cd and not only do you get cool tunes, you also get to help me out” – But they dont. Thats weird.
I suppose if you started another blog just for that sort of thing its cool, but if you let money force you to delete this entry… well, then it isnt really your blog anymore. Its just another way for amazon to advertise, in which you sometimes get to say a few words.
Just a follow up, having now read the offending clause:
They say you can’t issue a press release about it… not that you can’t talk about it. You can’t “embellish” it which presumably means claiming you and amazon are major partners, blah blah, instead of just affiliates. Basically, that part seems fine, and I think this post would survive. The part that bugs me now is well above that, where it says you can’t send people to any other site to purchase stuff. i.e. no amazon or bn or whatever style links. it’s always just amazon. Thats not so hot either.