I have joined the Dark Forces

[cjsmith]

Oooo, look, I'm an Amazon Associate. That's if they approve me in the next few days, based (I presume) on going to my website and making sure I'm not molesting children or selling crack cocaine.

So now I can make a link like this: Let Go of Clutter. Hover over it and most browsers will show you what its target is. Check out that "CJ's Flying Page" munged part at the end.

I could also make a link like this one. Look at my pretty link:



If you buy through me I get a nickel or something. It doesn't cost YOU any extra, they just give ME a nickel because they're happy I advertised for them. Gotta love a deal like that.

Heh, I went back and changed the other links to Let Go of Clutter. I am having way too much fun. Somebody make me get some real work done.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

Go to Amazon and find the tall boxes on the left. There's a green one called "Make Money". Click on "Associates" and you'll start the application process.

You'll need a website to point 'em at. They want to review it for nasty content, and they want a couple sentences about what you're going to recommend or sell or link to or what-have-you. You'll need contact info for the organization, including a checking account number and bank routing number for the direct deposits. (You can ignore that last bit if you want live checks, but those don't show up until you accumulate $100.)

Once you get done, they'll approve you fairly quickly. My approval took less than 24 hours. Even before official approval, you can make the Magic Links. They'll give you a link-building page to bookmark. I recommend "old style" (aka "you host") for any links you're going to put on LiveJournal. Once you get the hang of the link-building, you can certainly assemble one by hand, too.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

I need a space cadet icon. I completely lost your comment, and finally remembered it and managed to find it again. (It's past 11 here and I'm afraid my brain went to sleep quite awhile ago.) Anyway, thank you! I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I didn't know how and just put it on the back burner.

It's not for me -- it's for my church. I'll get the checking account and routing numbers from the administrator tomorrow and sign us up, and send our webmaster a list of books to get started with, tell him to make a page for them, and then publicize it so folks can order through the church.

Is there a way to set it up so that any book someone orders is credited to the church if they go to Amazon from our website? Or does it have to be specific icons?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hee! Losing the comment sounds like something I would do!

Putting something on the back burner because I don't already know how to do it is also something I would do. This has been on the back burner for me since, oh, probably a year ago, maybe more.

I gathered it was for your church, which is why I figured I'd better warn you about collecting stuff like the checking account number. Maybe you can enter that sort of thing later, but I was paranoid and did it all at once.

Yes, you can set it up so that any book is credited. The buyer still has to arrive through a specific type of link, which you will add to your website. It's a link to Amazon in general instead of a link to one item. Amazon's links-building page will happily construct those for you and give you HTML to cut/paste. The webmaster will have a grand time :-)