Smashwords starts new affiliate program
By Paul Biba
Received this press release from Smashwords. By the way, Mark Coker of Smashwords will doing an e-book session with Dan Poynter on Thursday morning, then participating in a luncheon keynote roundtable on ebooks Thursday with Lexcycle, Sony and others at the IBPA’s Publishing University. He will also be participating in Mike Shatzkin’s Friday morning session at BEA with BookOven, FiledBy and Cool-er Readers.
Smashwords, an independent publisher, distributor and retailer of ebooks, today introduced the Smashwords Affiliate Marketing Program. The program allows bloggers, authors, readers, publishers, website operators, online specialty bookstores and professional affiliate marketers to receive commissions of 11 percent or more simply by linking to Smashwords ebooks.
“Our mission at Smashwords is to help authors and publishers publish, promote and sell their ebooks,” said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. “The Smashwords Affiliate Marketing Program will help authors and publishers expand their digital shelf space while providing affiliate marketers the opportunity to profit from the rapid rise of electronic books.” …
Much to the chagrin of affiliate marketers, Amazon earlier this year removed Kindle ebooks from their Amazon Associates affiliate program. Amazon’s program change means that many affiliate marketers are driving ebook customer traffic to Amazon for which the affiliate receives no commission.
“We hope to fill a small part of the ebook void for affiliate marketers,” added Mark Coker. “While we offer only a fraction of Amazon’s content, we do offer a broad selection of over 1,400 independently published ebooks in a wide range of genres and subject matters. Many of our books aren’t available anywhere else.”
Unique “Juicing” Feature Allows Authors to Increase Affiliate Commissions
Affiliates receive minimum commissions of 11 percent of the net selling price on all participating ebook titles. “Net” to the affiliate is calculated as (selling price – PayPal fee)*.11.
Authors and publishers can “juice” their affiliate rates so that affiliates have greater incentive to promote their books. This will allow for affiliate commissions as high as 81.5 percent for authors and publishers who want to sweeten the promotional appeal of their books to participating affiliates.
For a complete overview of the Smashwords Affiliate Marketing program, and to learn what it means to authors, publishers and affiliates alike, read the online documentation at and the Terms of Service.
For professional affiliates experienced in web design and web services, Smashwords offers an API through which developers can access book titles, book samples and associated metadata.
Future Enhancements Planned
Over the next few months, Smashwords will introduce several enhancements to the Smashwords Affiliate Program. Anticipated enhancements include widgets, improved book filtering, improved affiliate reporting and metrics, and a new online service code-named “Smashwords Foundry.”
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