Friday, June 11, 2010

CreateSpace Improves Sales Tracking!

CreateSpace continues to work to improve the ease with which its authors can use its various services, in this case, tracking monthly sales. In the past, tracking sales meant going to the author's Member Dashboard, logging in, clicking on the View Sales for the Month of... link. This would show the sales for just that title. 

In order to view sales for every title an author published with CreateSpace, it was necessary to jump through several more hoops in order to see all the sales of the author's list. Now, merely logging in to the Member Dashboard will pull up accurate, up to date sales records for all of an author's list.

Kudos to CreateSpace for making tracking sales easier for its authors!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Amazon and Blogger Now Integrated!

Blogger has announced new features allowing easier integration with Amazon Associates. This new addition to Blogger allows users direct integration with Amazon Associates and the ability to search the Amazon product catalog and add links to products, allowing commissions to be earned when readers purchase products linked to or advertised on the blogger's page.

This new feature allows bloggers to search Amazon directly from the Blogger editor and add pictures and links to Amazon products directly from the blogger's post (Bloggers have always had this capability but had to use Amazon's product links or widgets to do so). Items purchased from Amazon by using a product link from the blogger's website earn the blogger commissions provided the author has signed up to be an Amazon Associate.

The following was taken from the Blogger Buzz site and was posted there by Rick Klau:

To get started, click on the Monetize tab for your blog and click “Amazon Associates”. Walk through the setup wizard, and add the Product Finder once you’re done.




Now for the fun part: when you are writing a post on Blogger, you’ll see an Amazon gadget to the right of your post editor (the “Product Finder”). You can search the Amazon product catalog from within Blogger — type in the name of the product you are writing about, and insert a link to the product, an image of the product, or an iframe containing the image, price details and a “buy it now” button. Every link that’s created contains your unique Associates ID, ensuring that Amazon will credit you for any purchases that result from readers clicking the link on your blog.




If you’re an existing Amazon Associate, completing this setup simply makes the Product Finder available on Blogger for you — you continue to earn the same referral rate from Amazon. New Associates receive the same referral rate from Amazon that they would have received if they signed up directly. If you’re not interested in earning a referral, you can still install the Product Finder: from the “Amazon Associates” page under the Monetize tab, click “I'll do this later — show me more Amazon options” and then click “Add the Product Finder” button.

A quick note about trust: affiliate programs work well when readers trust you. You should avoid promoting products simply because of the referral fee you might earn — readers may lose some of that trust if they sense your posts exist solely to make you money. You may also want to disclose to your readers that you will earn a commission on their purchase — some readers even prefer knowing that you benefit from their business.

There’s more information about this integration at Amazon.com, and the Amazon Associates blog has some more details. This integration is the result of months of collaboration between the engineers at both companies, and we’re very excited to share the results of this collaboration with you.