Nancy
Hendrickson's
Clips
"People have writer's block not because they can't write, but because they
despair of writing eloquently." Anna Quindlen
Double
Your
Income
With
Affiliate
Marketing
(Excerpt,
Writing
Success)
In
1996,
Amazon.com
launched
a
marketing
scheme
that
took
the
Internet
by
storm.
Called
the
Associate
Program,
it
allowed
anyone
with
an
approved
Web
site
to
add
snippets
of
Amazon
advertising
code.
When
a
visitor
click
on
one
of
those
links
and
puchased
a
book
or
other
product
from
Amazon,
the
Web
site
owner
was
paid
up
to
a
15-percent
commission.
The
result?
By
mid-2000,
more
than
450,000
sites
were
touting
products
for
the
book
behemoth,
including
megasites
like
AOL,
MSN
and
Excite.
Not
a
bad
way
to
create
an
instant
sales
force.
Today, it’s hard to visit a site that doesn’t utilize the Amazon model—now
known more commonly as affiliate marketing. The commission to affiliates
varies per program; Old Navy is happy to pay you 5-percent of total sales,
while AOL will pop out 15 bucks for everyone joining from you Web site,
and staying with the online service for 90 days.
The good news for writers is informational products (e-books) are
one of the hottest commodities going—and one of the easiest to create and
promote via an affiliate program. Why go it alone when you can create your
own sales force and make twice the profit.?
Here’s how the money plays out: E-books sell for $8 to over
$100, with many selling in the $15 range. From that, subtract the
cost of credit card processing—fees vary, so shop around for the best deal.
Worse case scenario will set you back about $2 per sale. Next, determine
the percentage you want to pay affiliates—35-percent is not unusual for
an e-book. At that rate, you’ll net about $8 per book. If your affiliate
sales force consists of 10 Web sites, each selling one book per day,
your monthly net will be $2400.
If these numbers sound as exciting to you as they did to me, keep
reading for a step-by-step guide to setting up your own affiliate program.
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