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Plutonica.net’s Amazon.com affiliation
By Psyche | July 18, 2008
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Regular readers may have noticed that I have recently (in the past month or so) introduced Amazon.com affiliate links embedded in the site where specific books are referenced.
What’s up with that?
I’ve added the affiliate links because I feel they offer value to the site for several reasons.
To begin, the Internet is a largely visual medium, and Amazon.com allows affiliates to use their pictures of book covers with appropriate affiliate links. Readers can buy the books from their local independent bookshop, or through Amazon.com - either way, at least you know what you’re looking for.
I regularly buy books from Amazon.ca myself,1 and I find their services to be quite good from a customer perspective:
- Their prices are competitive
- They’re clear on expected delivery dates
- Shipping is free on orders over 39$ (easy to do!)
Also, The Money
There is, of course, the added benefit that any books purchased by clicking on those links, once sold and delivered, send a small percentage of the purchase price (less than 4%) to my account.
In the month or so I’ve quietly added these links to the site I’ve made less than five dollars. .01 American, to be exact. It’s not a lot, but every bit helps keep the site running. (Right?)
I’ve been going back through the archives and adding images of books where relevant, and linking titles where appropriate. I’m a voracious reader and I reference a wide variety of texts, so I’m far from finished, but I hope to complete this by the end of the month.
I’ve made the in-post links subtle - no overt references to Amazon.com, or flashing icons reading “Must purchase!” (except, you know, for that ad I just added today way down on the right sidebar of the site…)
So why post about this now?
Well, I received some negative feedback today in which, amidst much swearing and vulgar sentiments, a reader was concerned I was “spamming” another blog. No links were given to demonstrate what, precisely, incited this offensive response, but I can hazard a guess.
I recently joined Tribe.net, and in their Chaos Magick forum someone inquired about which books would be a good read for someone wanting to learn more about the history of chaos magick. I’ve been practicing magick for more than a dozen years, read extensively on and been involved with chaos magick for the past ten, and been a formal book reviewer for at least four years. I’m comfortable with these sorts of recommendations, and love introducing people to material they may not have read, so, I responded.
Naturally, I recommended beginning with the source works of Peter Carroll and Ray Sherwin, directed them towards a list of books I’d compiled for an Introduction to Chaos Magick workshop I’d given last year (now hosted on another site of mine, SpiralNature.com - without affiliate links of any kind), and also added a link to my list of Top 5 Books on Chaos Magick posted here. (When the piece was originally published it did not contain any images or links to Amazon, but as a part of updating older postings, I’d recently added these links.)
This may have been what inspired the hateful comment,2 as the person offered no links, I can’t be sure, but my primary motive for posting links back to my sites was not to generate sales for myself (though that’d be a nice bonus), but because they genuinely helped answer the question posed. No-one seemed to have a problem with it on Tribe.net, but someone seemed to find it worthy of aggressive swearing and threatening me. How curious.
What do you think?
Plutonica.net’s tag line is describes it as “an esoteric blog exploring philosophy, spirituality and magick”, but it’s full description on the About page expands on that:
Plutonica.net is a blog dedicated exploring occult philosophy and metaphysics, alternative spiritualities, and practical magick. It’s a place to share thoughts and reflections on magickal subjects, and promote new and innovative works in magickal art, literature and culture.
Note that last bit: promote new and innovative works in magickal art, literature and culture. Does Amazon.com help, or hinder that?
Amazon.com’s hardly the only company I link to. In all publishing announcements I link back to the original publisher, and, where available, the author. Yet I do try to include links back to Amazon.com as well when I can. Why?
As an international company, Amazon.com has the potential to reach millions of customers across the world and provide them with access to books they may not be able to source locally. The description pages alone are helpful, listing publisher, page count, ISBN, and often a peek inside the book before you buy it - from wherever.
I feel these links add value to the blog. What do you think?
Posts Related to Plutonica Updates
- Among other places. I’m a bibliophile, I buy books from everywhere. [back]
- No, the comment will not be appearing on the site. It’s vulgar presentation disallows that. In place reasonable responses are welcome and indeed encouraged. [back]
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July 18th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
I’d recommend, if possible, also offering a link to the powells book version, especially given amazon’s recent tactics with POD publishers, etc.
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
I’ve looked into Powells, but they don’t really have the same selection that Amazon.com does, nor do they list covers for all their books (Manifesting Prosperity, for example, is coverless).
I’m not sure it would be a good fit for a niche blog such as this. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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July 18th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I left this on the LJ, and then remembered: oh, it’s a feed!
Sweet suffering Elvis, OF COURSE the Amazon links are handy. OF COURSE you should keep something that generates a little bit of revenue. It’s not like you’re only accepting advertising from one publishing company and then only giving those company’s books favorable reviews or something - you’re providing a service, and even if the Amazon links DIDN’T add value and were only there to generate revenue, why the hell would anyone feel the need to comment negatively on it if they had ONE SCRAP OF FUNCTIONING BRAIN MATTER?
But, yeah, you know where I stand on people whining about how the information they’re getting for free might somehow, somewhere, some way make the person providing it some cash to use in continuing providing the service. Oh NO! You might make some cash to offset the costs of running a website! Quick, call the Occultist Police!
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
Thanks for responding here, too! There have been a few comments that have been lost because people don’t realize that they disappear from LiveJournal after about a week or so.
Heh, no, the publishers (and individual authors) who send books in are quite varied, and it’s only been getting bigger - I have no idea how I’m going to review them all, but I’ll do my best!
Thanks for the support, it’s nice to hear from another (former?) reviewer especially. :)
Hey, speaking of, any time you’d like to guest review (or write anything, really) I’d totally be interested in publishing it.
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July 18th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I like getting cheap used books from Amazon, but in Canada that’s less realistic. Have you not noticed similar difficulties?
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
I’ve never bought used books from Amazon, so I can’t comment on that, but when I managed an independent bookstore we used to regularly buy and sell used and rare titles from abebooks.com, which is what I still use for the most part today.
ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) is a Canadian company (Vancouver-based) which provides a market-like space for bookstores across the globe to list their books. It’s a fantastic resource, and you can find almost anything on it.
Alibris.com is another good place to search, and work with a similar format.
For occult titles there’s also Weiser Antiquarian, of course, who I’ve linked to quite a bit, as they frequently have titles that can’t be found anywhere else (see the new books by Jack Parsons, and Frederick Hockley, for example).
But, ultimately, my favourite place to buy used books are bricks and mortar stores where I browse and buy things that would never occur to me without sorting through tons of crap. Seekers in Toronto is fabulous for occultnik bibliophiles.
And I could go on…but I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say these are some of my favourite places. :)
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July 18th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I’m sort of torn on this issue myself. I have affiliate links on my book review blog because it helps me get a little extra money for my otherwise uncompensated time. However, I don’t buy from Amazon because of the crap that Amazon’s been slinging at small POD presses. And when I get a bit of extra time I’m going to be reworking the Green Wolf website so that the links for folks who don’t want to buy our books directly from us will be sent to Powells.com instead of Amazon. If Powell’s had a similar affiliate program, I’d be all over it. Such as it is, at this point the affiliate stuff and the occasional “I need to sell this book and it’s too obscure for Powell’s” listing are the only things I’m giving Amazon.
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
I can appreciate your concern as you write for a POD publisher, but Powells does have an affiliate program (though they call it a “partner program”), but there selection is limited, and they don’t contain the same wealth of information (lacking covers, few reviews, lists, etc.).
From a booklover’s perspective Powells has a lot to offer (great blog, interviews, essays), but as an online book retailer it simply doesn’t fulfil the same resource needs that Amazon.com does.
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July 19th, 2008 at 1:10 am
The horror, of you doing something that minimally helps support the blog and sites that you pay for, which benefit the community! You, my good lady, are worse than Hitler obviously.
Really? People raising a stink over this. Maybe this is how I think, but I don’t see an issue, and hell, if people don’t want to support you through this, they can buy the books without the referral. To me the important thing, when you and others use links that that, is it allows me to see information on the book, and what’s wrong with giving something that minimally supports a site or blog one enjoys?
As for Taylor’s suggestion, I’d disagree, unless you have a similar deal with another book retailer. Personally I prefer Chapters just slightly over Amazon, and if I saw something I wanted in any site linking to Amazon, I’d check Chapters first in order to get the book, and unless they didn’t have it, or it was horribly over priced, I wouldn’t go to Amazon. People who have an issue with a supplier, don’t have to support them financially, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t a good asset in an informational manner.
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
When it comes to Chapters versus Amazon it usually comes down to price for me - whoever is cheaper gets my money. (Though I have noticed that Chapters generally ships faster than Amazon.ca, even when both retailers list an item as in stock.)
That said, most visitors to the site are American, not Canadian, so I go with Amazon.com’s affiliate program. :)
Now, if I could simultaneously link to Amazon.au and Amazon.co.uk (the next top two represented are Australia and the UK) we’d really be in business…
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July 19th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Overall, I completely agree with your post, here. Amazon has the single most comprehensive listing (along with pix!) of books on the planet, as far as I’ve seen. Having access to books that may not be available for many people outside of large metropolitan areas is also very nice for many of us.
Without getting too off-topic, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings re: supporting Amazon, what with their recent POD policies, as Taylor had mentioned. And although I really absolutely Powell’s City of Books based in my home state of Oregon, I also am big into saving my money, free shipping, etc. But before I digress too far, I shall end here ;-)
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
Heh, as a former manager of an independent new, used and rare bookstore - I can certainly sympathize with mixed feelings, but, ultimately, what’s best for readers?
More information about more books, I think.
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July 19th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hi Psyche, No problem at all with linking to Amazon. I too also buy loads of books from them, in particular amazon.co.uk where I’m based.
The essential chunk of your post is where you write “Amazon.com’s hardly the only company I link to. In all publishing announcements I link back to the original publisher, and, where available, the author.” This is essential, as buying from the author and/or publisher will probably be much better for the author.
Amazon is able to give massive discounts, because they expect massive discounts from the book distributors, in the realm of 50%-60% off the cover price.
Whilst buying books from amazon is easy and convenient, buying direct from the publisher is nearly always better for the author.
all the best,
sean
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
Thanks for your comments Sean, though the author generally receives a set percentage of the suggested retail price, and that doesn’t change if the bookseller decides to discount the book further (remainders are another case entirely).
It’s certainly better for the publisher when you buy books direct from them, as they then collect on the 30-50% that would normally go to the bookseller (and distributor), and it’s always nice to support quality publishers, as it’s a tough business, especially these days.
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July 19th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Psyche, by all means continue your relationship with Amazon. While some small POD presses have an axe to grind with them, that has nothing to do with whether its a good decision for you. If I were looking for an affiliate as a blogger, I’d choose Amazon as well.
And keep up the good work here at Plutonica.net. I’m a happy subscriber.
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
Thanks for your support Caelum - thanks to everyone, actually!
I like money, heck, I’m a banker by day, and wrote a mini pro-money rant for Manifesting Prosperity (an anthology about wealth magick), but that’s not really the focus of this blog.
It’s great to have confirmation that the readers also find value in the Amazon links for all sorts of reasons, and if a few of them want to purchase books through the links, all the better! :)
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July 19th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
gut the sniveling whelps and sell their entrails.
xoxo
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Psyche reply on July 19th, 2008:
Thanks, Danny, why didn’t I think of that? ;P
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July 19th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
93,
Who even cares about your relationship with Amazon? If it works, why not?
Anywho, you receive those books? You read any at all?
IAO131
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July 20th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Sigh.
This reminds me of the time I went to Powell’s Books about a year ago, after having lived out of Portland for over ten years. I went up to the Metaphysics section, my old haunt years back, hoping to find something interesting to take home with me.
I spent about forty-five minutes wandering around the new area they’d moved the Metaphysics books to, hoping to find something new by one of my favorite authors: Jaq Hawkins, Phil Hine, Stephen Mace, Carroll, etc. Anything by one of them would’ve been great, as I’ve had to let go of some good stuff in moving and during various changes over the years.
After concluding that there was almost nothing chaos-related to be found there, I asked the friendly counterperson parked at the nearby Information desk why, after so many years of being the best place in Portland to find unusual and difficult-to-locate texts, it’d been stripped of anything but Dion Fortune, neo-paganism, flavor-of-the-month pop astrology, and tarot manuals for people whose idea of symbolic transference is figuring out which fast-food joint to go to for lunch that day.
The answer I recieved surprised me not at all, except for the fact that I’d not anticipated it myself.
“We took most of the chaos stuff out because it was the most shoplifted bunch of books at the store, and management got tired of it.”
Well.
I’m not a huge fan of Amazon, but I do agree they provide a great deal of utility for people who don’t live in areas with access to good bookstores. Information wants to be free—however, this refers, at least to my mind, to availability, not cost or lack thereof. There are many reasons people dislike them, I suppose. For the purposes of serving as a source of information about desired texts, Amazon can be remarkably useful. This sounds like a rant by someone who hasn’t had the good fortune of discovering the objective point of view of such things. I’d pay them no heed.
Keep up the good work, Psyche. Don’t let someone who is obviously jealous of your talent and success bring you down.
-k.
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