I’ve been getting a lot of that. I kind of expect that on sites for first time postings, or included links in the comment – but multiple posts on the same thread? *sniffles*

But as you know- this is what happens when someone in USA buys my Amazon.ca product. It defaults to the local Amazon.com checkout. And, because that’s not Amazon.ca who gets the final sale – no commission even though I did the referral.

Someone should come up with a better wordpress plug. I never liked that Media plugin, and prefer the wp-amazon plugin. The options allow you to select a default Amazon country, but only one fixed field for your Associated ID. There should be some way to associate an ID for each country. Why would I want my USA Associate ID and use the Great Britain site? And, all my stats shows GEO tracking .. somehow a good plugin should pick up what part of the world the reader is and somehow give the readers an option. Maybe a popup or something that says .. (It appears you are from Japan- Click here to convert this code to Amazon.jp) or something like that. That would be my “Wish List” from Amazon or a developer.

I’m sure someone at high up the ladder at Amazon is quite aware of all of this – .. ‘Ways to get sales but not pay associates, besides low commission rates … (1) quarterly pmts (2) $100 thresholds (3) different country affiliateds . (4) etc

I think its worse than that. You have to have a bank account in each country! That’s my understanding anyway.

Is there a workaround for being an affiliate for all of the various AMZN foreign sites? As happy as I am with AMZN’s general handling of the affiliate program, I think the fact that they do not carry your affiliate coding to the foreign sites is basically tantamount to skimming what should be the affiliates’ commissions.

Clearly, they could integrate all of the sites. But instead, we are supposed to

(a) sign up for each country’s program, and

(b) provide separate links for each reader based on their country?

The latter is even more impractical than the former. AMZN is a great company, but that policy is a tad predatory WRT the affiliates, IMO.

I would be curious to know what you guys think, and if there is a decent workaround.

Thx,
DH

I total and rank the previous month’s affiliate sales on Amazon from my daily and monthly reports.

@John-

Uh, what’s a “PR7″? (I am not a blog coding wonk – I’m a shooter.)

@Hashim-

You’d think that, but the list does change every month. I do a couple of reviews a month, too. Also, I get great book ideas from my readers’ meandering purchases.

FWIW, I am very choosy about what I allow on the AMZN ads – only specifically chosen things that I think are very approrpiate. A great book is the best money you can spend if you want to learn about something, IMO.

Except for Darren’s blog, of course…

It’s a great way to start a Top 10 post as well.

Obviously my ‘hot list’ does spur some sales of items on previous lists – but it also sends people to Amazon where they end up buying other things also (or instead of my recommendations). So over time it changes quite nicely.

Another good experiment for December – something like a ‘Hot List’ might actually work! Who knows .. if it’s successful, maybe I’ll keep using Amazon until $200 level // Thanks to David from Strobist for sharing this tip.

My own recommendation with Amazon is to link to your own review of a book from next to the book cover and details link that Amazon displays.

I have definitely seen an increase in sales when I’ve featured book reviews this way.

All the best

Craig

I find that my list does change and that it reflects industry trends pretty well. Amazon’s best-seller list is a good point of comparison, even though it changes hourly.