Sell your Books Online as an Affiliate

Did you know you could earn extra income from your books by becoming an affiliate? Not only would you earn royalties but also commission on sales if someone buys your book through one of your affiliate links on your website.

How to Affiliate to Market your Books

Different affiliate programmes can be found on the internet to serve every demand. Examples are Ebay, Amazon and others. I use Amazon because it is pretty straightforward and it sells all manner of things. The principles are the same: a sale through one of your affiliate links from your own website, blog or estore will earn you a commission. You can sell what you like, but it is a good strategy to have a theme as opposed to random products. Listing contextual products to your website or blog will ensure visitors looking for information offered on your site, will also find a product they want.

This article focuses on how to make extra money from your books by selling as an Amazon affiliate (otherwise known as an Amazon Associate).

How to Earn Money from Books as an Amazon Associate

Browse to Amazon Associates website and become a member by using an email and password. Incidentally, you can become a member of Amazon.com, UK, Canada and Japan. These work separately, so separate accounts will be needed. I stick to .com and .uk. Once you have become a member, you will need to explain what your blog or website is (so make sure it is of good standard with quality content on it) and then wait a few days for Amazon to approve it.

Marketing your Book Through Affiliate Links

Once your website has been approved by Amazon, you can start building affiliate links and estores. On the webpage that features your book, insert an affiliate link to your book from Amazon. Once you could do this direct from Blogger but now you have to sign into your Amazon Associates account and then browse onto the main Amazon website. You will notice a ‘site stripe’ at the top. Find your book on Amazon and then use the site stripe to create your affiliate link by clicking ‘link to this page.’ Your link can be text only, an image or both.’ I use an image only. Copy the html code, which will have your code identifier embedded within. Paste this code onto the html page of your blog post. When you click on ‘compose’, you will see the affiliate link how it will appear. Format the page so that the image is located how you want on your webpage.

How to Make a Product Link of your Book

Now when someone finds your blog post describing your book, and creates enough interest to warrant a purchase, not only will you earn royalties, but also 4% - 6% commission on sales of your book as an affiliate. This might amount to only a few cents or pence per book, but this will soon mount up if your sales are healthy and you get good traffic to your author webpage.

Create an Estore to Sell your Books

Other tools can be used to market your book as an affiliate. You can create your own ebookstore with your books on it. In your Amazon Associates account click on ‘create estore’. This will generate your own url page with your own estore that can be embedded in your website or blog. You can name it, insert your books from Amazon into it and choose the colours. Click to see one of my ebook stores.

In my example, I have inserted my novels on the first page. Click on any produce image and you will find more details about the book, including reviews and pricing.

Extra Income from your Author Blog

You can also place an affiliate search box on your blog if someone simply wants to browse the Amazon site without leaving yours. Anything they purchase through this widget will earn you commission as an affiliate. Simply copy the code for the Amazon widget from the ‘widget’ section of Amazon Associates and paste the html code into a gadget on your blog.

The Amazon Affiliate programme has a range of affiliate links you can put on your website or blog including rotating gadget or all colours and sizes. I prefer to keep it simple.

Make Commission on your Books from Affiliation

By selling your books as an affiliate, you can earn commission on sales as well as royalties if your novels sell through one of your affiliate links on your website or blog. All you need to do is become a member. Amazon Associates is the example used in this article. From there, you can build affiliate links to your books from your blog, create and estore or place a search box on your site.

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