Over the last couple of years I have done several book reviews on this site, and have typically included a link to the book featured on Amazon.com, so SMUGgles interested in reading for themselves could conveniently order it and get what is likely the lowest price available.
But on Saturday I got the idea of creating a virtual bookstore to go with our ethereal campus through the Amazon Associates program. It was really easy to do; the application process took just a couple of minutes, and within a couple of hours I had gotten my confirmation email that I had been accepted.
So from now on, if you click any of the links to Amazon on this site and go on to purchase those books, SMUG will get a referral bonus of 4 to 8 percent of your purchase price.
For example, if you click the link below and purchase a used copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done for $7.20, Amazon will deposit the princely sum of 29 cents in the linked account. It doesn’t add anything to what you pay for your product; Amazon considers it part of its marketing expense.
So you’ll note there are now links in the top and side navigation to a page called “Bookstore.” That page and its sub-navigation will likely undergo some renovation over the next week or so as I organize and add links to the reviews I’ve previously done.
SMUG isn’t going to become a non-stop book review site; I’ll use this as a show-and-tell learning opportunity, though, creating a course series in the blogging curriculum on implementing the Amazon Associates program in your self-hosted WordPress blog.
Meanwhile, feel free to browse the virtual Bookstore. While we don’t offer comfortable couches or serve Starbucks coffee like a Barnes & Noble, we at least provide free Internet connectivity. 😉