My Geek Notes

So, I’ve been playing around with blogging lately as a way to make money.

On my personal blog the other day, I decided to write an article about eliminating client phone calls and trimming time out of the day. The article included a review of a book I’ve read recently. “4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferris.

It’s a great book and I’ve had a ton of success applying its principles which I explain in detail on the post on my site.

As an expiriment, I signed up for an Amazon Associates account, and linked the image of the book and the title to the corresponding title page at Amazon.com. Embedded in the link was my associate id, so on the chance that someone clicked through and made a purchase, I’d get a small commission.

Well, the truth of the matter is that I didn’t expect to make a cent. My blog isn’t read by many people - it’s brand new and at the time only had three posts.

Imagine my surprise when, today, I logged into my Amazon account to create a new link for another product (”The Picture of Dorian Grey” by Oscar Wilde) and found out that I’d made some money.

It turned out that 32 different people had clicked through on the link I’d provided and a whopping 3 of them bought the dadgum book.

If I sell just 4 more books, my commission goes up from 4 to 6%, and, here’s the best part - I can choose to get paid in Amazon gift certificates!