He makes a good point, most bloggers won’t go back and delete the Amazon links. They’ll likely refer uncompensated business for years… this is just another form of corporate theft from big business that’s able to “get away” with shafting the little guy.

I agree with Amazon that states shouldn’t tax these transactions… or any sales from brick and mortar businesses. If state’s taxed land values, that would be the fairest method (click here and read the paragraph “a really efficient tax system”)

Dear Jeff–

Thank you for your letter today, informing me that after seven years of being one of your affiliates — and having earned for you about $150,000 in that time — that you “deeply regret” unilaterally terminating my contract with Amazon to be an affiliate. I also especially appreciated the part where you reassured me that this action wouldn’t affect my ability to keep buying from your company. Nice touch.

I deeply appreciate that after so many years of supporting your company, and earning my 4.5% cut over those years (as I figured today, looking at my stats), that you’ve decided that I should be a pawn in your fight with my state. That type of loyalty really makes me want to support you in the future, should you restore your program. It also encourages me to want to continue shopping with you

Click here to continue reading at Daggle…

John Locke is the newest member of the “Kindle Million Club,” and the first independently published author to receive this distinction.  As of June 19th, John Locke has sold 1,010,370 Kindle books using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store. Locke joins Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Lee Child, Suzanne Collins and Michael Connelly in the Kindle Million Club.

“Kindle Direct Publishing has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the book selling industry,” said John Locke. “Not only did KDP give me a chance, they helped at every turn. Quite simply, KDP is the greatest friend an author can have.”

Want to sell YOUR fair share of Ebooks?

John Locke’s book How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! is also available now on Kindle.

Kindle books selling for $2.99 to $9.99 pay a 70% royalty to the author. If you have Kindle publications selling for just $2.99 each, you could earn an extra $500 per month with only 250 sales per month! Any author should check out How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!

How to make $100,000 with an Amazon Kindle Book

…with a $9.99 Kindle download price, the author sees $6.98 in revenue (Kindle Direct Publishing has a 70/30 revenue split in most major territories, including the United States. Amazon takes 30%, you get 70%. They wire the money into your bank account about 60 days after the month in which a sale occurs. Pretty solid.)

This means an independent content creator or well-respected blogger need only sell 14,327 copies to earn slightly more than $100,000 in royalties. Or, in other words, he or she need only sell 39 copies per day to hit the $100K mark within a year.

Convincing 39 readers a day to check out your book on Kindle isn’t very hard to do, especially if your blog has 10,000+ daily readers and a substantial added following in the form of a sporadic opt-in newsletter and RSS subscribers.

Of course note the “Popular” blogger or YouTube personality.

But even if you’re not popular and you just check out the kind of books that sell on Kindle, you can start making money … I just wouldn’t price it at $9.99 unless you’d be willing to pay that much yourself.

It only costs your time to try… what have you got to lose if you love writing anyway?

I would only say that though it’s free (except for your time) to write, if you want a good chance to make money on Kindle, I would invest in a decent graphic for the book’s cover … people DO try to tell what’s in a Kindle book by the way it’s cover looks, not just the description. So some investment in a decent cover could pay for itself!

Greetings from the Amazon Associates Program:

Amazon Product Ads is a targeted cost-per-click advertising program which allows online retailers to drive traffic from Amazon.com to products sold on their own website. As an Amazon Associate, you can now earn up to $155 in advertising fees for each advertiser you refer to Product Ads, with no limit on the number of referrals.

By placing tagged links to the Amazon Product Ads homepage on your website, you can earn $5 when an advertiser signs up for a new Product Ads account. When an advertiser you referred launches* with Amazon Product Ads, you will receive an additional $150. For more information about the program and the terms of this offer, see the Amazon Product Ads Associates Referral Guide and the Associates Program Advertising Fee Schedule.
If you need help getting started, please contact us.

The Amazon Associates Team

You can see more about the service here

If you can sign up new advertisers, $155 a pop is good money… (and I’m sure it will be GOOD MONEY, not easy money!)

New advertisers get $75 in free ad credits for signing up.

As Dan Frommer notes:

In theory, the law was supposed to benefit mom-and-pop local businesses, who may be threatened by ecommerce sites like Amazon. But as Amazon points out, in reality, the law benefiting the national big-box retailers who are most threatened by Amazon — most of which aren’t even based in Illinois. And now it’s hurting mom-and-pop web publishers.

Of course, this is part of Illinois’ attempt to save itself from bankruptcy and they’ve increased taxes and cut spending across the board.

In some ways, this hurts the smallest entrepreneurs who may be using Amazon to make a few hundred extra dollars per month to keep them afloat but who now have to scramble for new resources.

Note: If you’ve been “Amazon slapped” check out this strategy for making money online with digital products http://goo.gl/s238w (affiliate link).

Amazon is a major source of affiliate revenue on Hub Pages, so it pays to know how to do this correctly.

I’ve been telling you how much I’m enjoying HubPages, but I wanted you to get started correctly, and this advice from WryLit that could save you time and speed up the learning curve for making money.

WryLit is a writer from Australia and she suggested that this was the first thing she’d do if she were to start all over again.

I’ve included a small portion of her Hub on this topic. If you like it, click through and read the whole thing!

When I first joined hubpages, the idea of writing sales hubs not only scared me, it also made me feel like I was ‘selling out’ as a writer. However I’ve since come to the conclusion that:

Informational hubs don’t sell Amazon items – people who visit how to or guide hubs are usually just looking for answers. To sell items you need to aim at buyers, which means you need to write your hub, title and tags based around an item. You may get occasional clicks or maybe hit it lucky with a particular information topic which attracts buyers, but this is rare.
Sales hubs are where the money is – I earn reasonable amounts from Adsense as well as Amazon on my sales hubs.
Being a writer is about making people want to read what you’ve written, not just about writing a famous novel or a poem.
Of course the idea can still be a little scary if you’re trying to make the transition from informational or creative writing to sales writing. However I can guarantee one thing – it does get easier with time.

Read it all: How to Write an Amazon Sales Hub and Sell Amazon Items

That may be a good deal for you… Just FYI

Dear Amazon Associate:As we head into the holiday season, we wanted to offer you a special promotion to Sell on Amazon. In preparation for the high traffic and buying season, we’d like to offer Amazon Associates the opportunity to Sell on Amazon free* for the first month.

Why Sell on Amazon?

• Reach tens of millions of shoppers on Amazon.com
• List in over 25 categories (from books to electronics, to sports and outdoors)
• No per item listing fees
• Amazon can fulfill orders with Fulfillment by Amazon, you just ship your products to our center and we will pick, pack and ship it when the orders come in
• Try it for free* for the first month

Originally Kindle sales paid you, the publisher, a 35% commission off the sales price.

Because the ebook market has heated up considerably, Kindle has started (I got the email today) paying 70% minus their download fee of a few pennies for each book selling for between $2.99 and $9.99!

All I had to do to get the double commission was go to my account, update the profile, and tell them I was willing to accept the minimal download fee.

To be sure, I’m only testing this system on some of my books to see if they have any monkey business in mind. But if things go as planned then Kindle Publishing just doubled in profitability…  and I already thought it was great.

Now if you’re interested in publishing your own book – Kindle Publishing is the way to start.

Note: The above article contains affiliate links.

Many booksellers add 15 percent to their regular prices when selling on Marketplace, to account for Amazon’s fees. But the company wants to outlaw this.

In a letter by the Independent Online Booksellers Association, the policy is described as “dangerously anti-competitive, designed to use [Amazon's] market dominance to undermine smaller competitors and independent booksellers, and will inevitably lead to a worse deal for book buyers. The costs for booksellers selling via Amazon are greater than selling from their own sites or aggregators such as Alibris and Biblio, and Amazon wants to prevent those costs from being reflected in the price, the IOBA says.

Read the whole article: here

Related Post: A New Tool To Dominate Niche Markets

I like to watch this because I’m a Kindle Publisher. I’m seeking to know just what kind of book I could write or commission that would sell well.

You see, I know from my own monthly reports that one title can sell 1500% better than another! That’s a huge increase in profits. Adding just ONE hot seller could double (or at least significantly increase) your Kindle sales and income.

So research of this type is just the kind of work you have to do if YOU want to be a Kindle Publisher.

If you DON’T want to be a Kindle Publisher you can at least find a bunch of free Kindle downloads!

Note: The above post contains affiliate links to a product I use, enjoy, and recommend.