Amazon pokes associates in the eye
Thursday, April 16th, 2009Amazon has a nice program going for years, called the Associate program. Associates link to Amazon from their websites for books, music, table saws, etc., and if someone uses that link to buy the item, the associate gets a referral fee. It’s a small fee, we’re talking pennies from a new paperback sale, but it adds up and a lot of Associates get their referral fee in Amazon gift certificates, so the money gets poured back into Amazon.
Recently, Amazon changed it’s policy on Kindle ebook referrals. The associates don’t make any referral fee at all. Nix, nada, nothing.
Thanks Amazon, at least you could have bought the associates dinner and couple of drinks first.
The book I was going to buy as an ebook from Amazon is now a sale going to go to my local brick & mortar bookstore as a dead tree version.