Enrolled in Amazon's Affiliate program, something I probably shoulda done years ago. They claim it takes ~3 days to process an application, but I received my acceptance letter today. (Applied late last night.)
Being a n00b, I don't know much about their program yet, except that they pay a percentage whenever a visitor clicks a link on my site and makes a corresponding purchase. (How big of a percentage I'm not sure.)
I've long included links to books at the Amazon site [ in pages such as this one » Best Books for Learning the Basics of Web Site Design (XHTML & CSS), and this one » Andy Budd's Book: CSS Mastery ] without ever taking advantage of their program.
If I start making considerable cash, I'll be bummed that I didn't enroll sooner. And if I don't (earn cash), I'll be bummed too, for wasting my time with this program. So either way .. which might be why I hesitated so long.
What I like best about the Amazon program is that it allows me to monetize the site without including visible ads (.. unlike Google's AdSense program). All I need to do is add the following code to the end of each Amazon link » ?ie=UTF8&tag=radifiedcom-20. So it's virtually invisible to visitors. If I didn't tell you, you might never know.
I also like that it doesn't cost visitors anything extra when purchasing a book via a link from this site.
After establishing an 'Associate' account (and logging in to the Amazon site), a toolbar magically appears at the top of the browser window whenever I visit Amazon.com.
The Associate toolbar allows me to create targeted links to the particular book/page I'm at/on .. with a single click. Couldn't be easier. I simply paste the auto-generated code into my web page.
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••• today's entry continues here below •••
What's NOT going to be easy is .. going back and adding my associate tag to all Amazon links I've ever included in pages here. Besides being mind-numbingly boring, I'm doubtful this retro-linkage (which could take days) will prove worthwhile. But it looks like there's only one way to find out. I'll likely do a few sample pages and see what happens. Or maybe I'll just do all pages going forward.
Personally, I get most of my books from the library. If the library doesn't have a particular title, I request they order/purchase a copy. Every time I've ever requested a specific book that they didn't have, the library has always purchased it for me (.. and lets me have first crack at it once the title arrives) .. tho this can take a while. So patience is requied.
I do research my books well, which is probably why the library has always concurred with my recommendations. (Either that, or they have more money than they know what to do with.) If I'm going to spend valuable time reading a particular text, I want to ensure that time is well spent.
For those times when I do purchase a book (.. seeing that I like to underline key conceptual passages that speak to me, and make corresponding comments in the margins), I purchase my books from/thru Amazon (USED if possible .. to save a tree or two).
Speaking of books .. I'm currently reading » Crime & Punishment (Dostoevsky, 1866) .. the version translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky (1993) .. hard-cover edition, from the Everyman's Library (of classics). Rich. Could write a whole 'nuther entry on this topic. Dostoevsky is famous for his penetrating psychological insight .. still relevant after 150 years.
For more along these lines, here's a Google search preconfigured for the query » amazon.com affiliate associate program
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