To Whomever Bought the Kindle . . .

Thanks. As you may or may not know, I have Amazon Affiliate links on this site in the vain hope of at least getting a few Amazon gift certificates out of my blog from time to time. The way the program works is that I get a percentage of any sale that Amazon makes when one of my links takes the buyer to the Amazon site. In the grand history of my site, I’ve made around two dollars this way — which doesn’t even qualify for Amazon’s threshold for a pay out.

So I was shocked to see $29.99 on my Amazon Affiliate statement for this month — somebody, somebody wonderful, followed one of my links to Amazon and ended up buying a three hundred dollar Kindle 2. So thanks, anonymous link-follower, whoever you may be. Hope you enjoy your e-reader.

(And for the record, I have no idea why I got 10% of the sale, normally the percentage is like 4%. Maybe it’s just a way to push the Kindle. Whatever it is, I’m not complaining.)

This does remind me of the larger issue of advertising on this blog — or “monetizing” it –  which admittedly has a certain appeal. The most I’ll ever do in conjunction with the Amazon Affiliate links and sidebars is perhaps a banner ad at the top. I don’t get enough traffic to bother much with it at this point, but I just wanted to state that if I ever did I’d fight the urge to go too far. Google ads, ad links in the body of the text, and a bunch of crap on the sidebar area  are a big turn off, and end up putting the money before the message and turning a personal site into a hawker’s bazaar.

Of course, if you want to follow one of my links to Amazon and buy a Kindle, plasma TV, or a fully-assembled and delivered log cabin please feel free . . .