Advertising / affiliate programs - your opinion is wanted

[fool-ish]

Where is this link everyone is talking about with prices better than amazon for books? (Better than the used section of amazon!?) Do tell!!

I was thinking along the same lines...better prices than Amazon? Surely not! Well, I'm about to find out

After a very quick look, I'm not too convinced. However, when I next intend to buy a book, I'll look on TBD before I commit to buy on Amazon, just in case. Also, Amazon appeals because of the used books available for what is usually a nominal amount compared to the cost of brand new. We'll see.

[joost]

Also, Amazon appeals because of the used books available for what is usually a nominal amount compared to the cost of brand new. We'll see.

TBD has links to Abebooks for second-hand stuff.

[Mervi]

We actually have links for abebooks as well, both in the actual main page and the main page for the forum. If you have an ad-blocker installed, but would still like to use our affiliate links, I usually post relevant text links when I post any book news (like right now the top news on the main page is about City of Dragons, and you can see affiliate links in it, both for amazon and TBD and both the uk and us sites). Any more questions, feel free to ask!

[fool-ish]

I shall certainly shop around now I know about the used books also...cheapskate that I am!

[Mervi]

Time for an update!
(The ticker has died apparently. )

- the book depository UK is at GBP 10.78 (since the payout in Sept 2011 that covered our hosting)
- the book depository US is still at USD 1.11 (like it's been pretty much since the beginning, hmm)
- amazon UK is at GBP 17.87 (since last gift certificate in October 2010)
- amazon US is at USD 8.89 (since last gift certificate in Jan 2011)
- with abebooks there are some clicks but still no purchases. I guess people just aren't looking for those out-of-print books or buy them somewhere else - these banners are going to go soon.

I don't know if anyone is even interested in these figures, my reasoning in posting them is that I want to try to be as transparent as possible with the affiliate programs (that is, the annoying advertising is not making me rich = the site is non-profit )

['thul]

these beings tried to use it a while ago, but it seemed not to remember use after logging into book depository (UK version)...

[Mervi]

'thul, I'm not sure I understand what you mean? These sites usually use use cookies to see where traffic comes from and that's how they determine when to credit affiliates for the sales. So unless it's been a long time since your visit through the banner (and you then visited again just by typing the url to make the purchase) or you systematically delete all cookies from your browser after each visit or something, it should still count towards our revenue.

['thul]

these beings aren't sure what cookies get through and which ones don't. Not with multiple computers used at the same time. Nor for that matter how long since link was last clicked.

[Mervi]

Just to keep the reporting up-to-date, I've received a $10.89 gift certificate from amazon.com. This is the third time since early 2009 when I joined the program that I've got one from the US store (they've all been approximately the same figure too, and a lot of the purchases there are non-hobb related, ie they're generated from my other sites). Don't know why, but most of you seem to prefer the UK stores, whether amazon or TBD.

[Mervi]

Right, I've added an amazon (uk) search widget to the sidebar of the wiki and I'd love to know what you people think - is it horrible, an abomination, ugly, distracting, does it slow everything down or could it maybe even be useful? For years I've wanted to be able to link from the book pages of the wiki to an affiliate store, but all the available extensions are rather cumbersome or downright unsafe to use. I actually really wanted to embed a search banner from the book depository, but at the moment it looks like I can't customise it to fit. So amazon it is. Sigh. My hope is that, someone browsing the wiki and coming across a Hobb/Lindholm title they hadn't previously known about might be inspired to quickly use it to search for that title. We'll see what happens... but please let me know if you find it super annoying!